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Spaceborne canopy height products should be complemented with airborne laser scanning data: Towards a European canopy height model
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Abstract
Measuring and mapping vegetation structure is essential for understanding the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems and for informing environmental policies. Recent years have seen a growing demand for high-resolution data on vegetation structure, driving their prediction at fine resolutions (1 m - 30 m) at state, continental, and global spatial extents by combining satellite data with machine learning. As these initiatives expand, it is crucial to actively discuss the quality and usability of these products. Here, we briefly summarize current efforts to map vegetation structure with spaceborne lidar missions and show that predictions from continental-to-global canopy height models (CHMs) exhibit significant errors in canopy heights compared to national airborne laser scanning (ALS) data. We recommend that regions with abundant ALS data, such as Europe, prioritize using ALS-based canopy height metrics rather than relying on less accurate predictions from satellite products. Despite variations in ALS data characteristics such as temporal inconsistencies and differences in point density and classification accuracy, the generation of spatially contiguous canopy height products in raster format at fine spatial resolution is necessary and feasible. This requires coordinating efforts for data and survey harmonization, developing standardized processing pipelines and continent-wide ALS products, and ensuring free access for scientific research and environmental policy. Beyond numerous applications in forestry, ecology and conservation, such datasets are crucial for calibrating future Earth Observation missions, making them essential for producing reliable and accurate global, fine-resolution vegetation structure data
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31223/X5D70J
Subjects
Life Sciences
Keywords
Canopy, Earth Observation, Forestry, lidar, validation, Vegetation structure, Earth Observation, Forestry, LiDAR, Vegetation Structure
Dates
Published: 2024-12-04 09:03
Last Updated: 2025-08-26 09:14
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License
CC BY Attribution 4.0 International
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Data Availability (Reason not available):
The evaluated global canopy height models, that is, the global forest canopy height (Potapov et al., 2021), the high-resolution canopy height model of the Earth (Lang et al., 2023), and the global map of tree canopy height (Tolan et al., 2024) are provided under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The canopy height model of Europe at 3 m resolution was kindly provided by Liu et al. (2023). The canopy height models of Giant Mountains National park (2012 and 2022), derived from airborne laser scanning and used for evaluation of global canopy height models, are available from Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14270020.
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