How do lasers and drones measure forest carbon?

Question

Hans Steiner · Accepted Answer

Combining lidar and aerial platforms to map forest structure

A recent pilot study used laser scanning mounted on drones to create highly detailed three‑dimensional images of tropical forest plots. These 3D reconstructions capture the shape, height and internal branching architecture of individual trees across dense canopies—information that remote-sensing satellites typically can’t resolve at similar spatial detail. Researchers then translate those structural measurements into estimates of tree volume and, from there, the amount of carbon stored in biomass.

The approach matters because tropical forests hold large, but uncertain, amounts of carbon that affect the global climate budget. Field plots measured by people on the ground give high accuracy but cover tiny areas; satellite products cover broad regions but smooth over important structural detail. Drone-based laser scans sit between those extremes, providing precise, scalable measurements that can be repeated to track change over time.

Why this technique advances climate monitoring:

It yields fine-scale estimates of trunk and branch volume that improve biomass calculations.
It can be deployed in hard-to-access places and repeated to monitor growth, mortality and disturbance.
The 3D data can be integrated with satellite observations and forest inventories to scale local accuracy to regional and global models.

Early results from the first-of-its-kind pilot show the method can produce reliable carbon estimates and help detect subtle structural changes linked to droughts, logging or regrowth. Challenges remain—cost, battery life, and the need for standardized processing pipelines—but the combination of lidar and drones promises to sharpen our measurements of terrestrial carbon sinks and improve how we track forests’ role in the climate system.