Airborne Lidar Forest Metrics At 13-Meter Resolution

G-LiHT Metrics V001 provides over 80 raster layers of lidar-derived height, density, and return statistics for forest analysis. The data product is generated from the NASA Goddard LiDAR, Hyperspectral, and Thermal Imager airborne system. It covers forest communities across the Conterminous United States, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.

Use Cases

• Model forest canopy height using percentile information for tree data and Canopy Height Model (CHM) layers.
• Analyze vegetation density and structure via lidar return statistics and density metrics across science data layers.
• Characterize ground topography and shrub layers using Digital Terrain Model (DTM) returns and ground data statistics.
• Compare forest composition across North American ecoregions using mean and standard deviation metrics for different flights.

Strengths

• Over 80 science data set layers per product.
• 13 meter spatial resolution for detailed analysis.
• Includes percentile, mean, and standard deviation statistics for ground, tree, and shrub data.

Limitations

• Science Data Layers lack documented Fill Value, No Data Value, Valid Range, and Scaling Factor metadata.
• The total number of metrics layers varies inconsistently between flight campaigns.
• Specific row count, file size, and temporal coverage are unknown.

Provenance

Source

NASA Goddard's G-LiHT (Goddard’s LiDAR, Hyperspectral, and Thermal Imager) airborne mission.

Collection Method

Airborne remote sensing data processed into a raster GeoTIFF product.

Geography

Conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.