New carbon map will help protect the DRC’s rainforests

Researchers were able to map the aboveground biomass in the DRC down to the one-hectare level using high-resolution airborne Light Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR, in combination with satellite imagery and machine learning geospatial algorithms, a method developed by Dr. Sassan Saatchi, an expert on tropical forests and the global carbon cycle at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.