LiDAR-Based Software Announced in Copenhagen

1. The Carnegie Institution for Science has developed an easy to use satellite imaging software called CLASlite.
2. It is being combined with LIDAR data to quantify the environmental impact of tropical forest destruction.
3. Carnegie is working with the UN to reach out to organizations around the world and train them in the use of the software.

Tropical forest destruction accounts for some 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. But quantifying these emissions has not been easy, particularly for tropical nations. New technology, developed by a team of scientists at Carnegie’s Department of Global Ecology, is revolutionizing forest monitoring by marrying free satellite imagery and powerful analytical methods in an easy-to-use, desktop software package called CLASlite. Carnegie is associated with Stanford University.

“We’re providing CLASlite to support the U.N. program for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation [REDD] and other tropical forest monitoring efforts,” remarked Greg Asner, the lead scientist for the CLASlite project. “My team has already trained more than 240 users from 70 organizations in the Andes-Amazon region, and we will do more workshops in 2010.”

CLASlite is a software package designed to automatically identify deforestation and forest degradation from satellite imagery. The power of CLASlite rests in its unique ability to convert seemingly green “carpets” of dense tropical forest cover in raw satellite images into highly detailed maps that can be readily searched for deforestation, logging, and other types of forest degradation. CLASlite is also a key component of a cost-effective new method developed by Carnegie that integrates satellite and airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) mapping to support high-resolution forest carbon mapping.

Not only does the process of destroying the forest cause massive problems, but then we lose the capacity of the trees to absorb carbon dioxide. These are the kinds of global problems that the meeting in Copenhagen will hopefully provide some meaningful direction on.

Kudos to the CLASlite team for taking this kind of grassroots approach.