Drone borne LiDAR and Artificial Intelligence for assessing carbon storage (MapCLand)

We aim to utilize the newly developed drone-based Lidar scanners to measure above ground biomass, ultimately for all vegetation types but starting with agricultural and forest areas in Denmark. The ambition is that a collaboration between field- and computer scientists can lead to the development of the first-ever automatic computer calculations of volumetric biomass measured from drones. If successful, we can provide very accurate information of the bare-earth and vegetation structure; based on the retrievals the spatial distribution of biomass can be calculated in high temporal and spatial resolution.

This approach will advance our understanding of how important components of the Danish landscape are affected by climatic trends and anthropogenic activities. Mapping carbon storage across different type of ecosystems may enhance the design of efficient strategies for mitigating greenhouse gasses and enable fast and precise calculations of agricultural yield or forest inventories.