​Getting Started with GEDI Spaceborne Lidar for Ecosystem Applications

The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission is a space-based laser altimeter designed to measure Earth’s forest vertical structure and topography of Earth’s forests with high resolution. GEDI plays a crucial role in assessing forest biomass, understanding carbon dynamics, and monitoring the impact of climate change and land use activities. This four-module training series aims to build the audience’s understanding of GEDI-optimized perspectives of vegetation measurements important for ecosystem management. Since GEDI’s first 3-dimensional waveform lidar sampling across the globe in April, 2019, several types of measurements and derived products have been generated to demonstrate spaceborne waveform lidar’s capability to capture forest structure and biomass. GEDI is an innovative sensor with strong calibration and validation strategies, other lidar and field data integration, and vegetation mapping techniques with multi-year, wall-to-wall coverage.

Training Objectives

After completing this module, participants will be able to:

1. Describe essential physical principles of lidar remote sensing and its sensitivity to biophysical parameters.
2. An overview of the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation lidar mission, its theoretical background and product details and future of the mission.
3. Interpret GEDI data products Level 1-4 across various vegetation types and test recommended filtering and processing techniques.
4. Ability to search, select, acquire lidar data with recommendations for testing and applying data quality processing methods.
5. Methodological approaches for generating and validating canopy height, biomass, and other structural analyses of ecosystems with field and real-world use examples.
6. Examine several biomass estimation methods using forest inventory, airborne and spaceborne lidar involving Machine Learning and remote sensing data fusion techniques.
7. Use the OBIWAN (Online Biomass Inference using Waveforms and iNventory) initiative API to account for forest carbon and biomass across timelines.
8. Advanced GEDI application analysis of carbon stock change due to fire, logging, and deforestation disturbances in the Amazon.

Navigation

The lesson content for each of the four Modules can be found in the tabs on the left hand side panel. Information about the development Partners, Supplementary Resources, and Surveys to fill out specific to each Module can be found in each Module subtabs. Tutorials and hands-on exercises are found in this Github repository. Any questions or feedback regarding the scripting and tutorials can be directed to this Discussions page on the Github repository.

Questions

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Modules and Topics Overview

Overview of topics covered in each module, the format(s) of the training course, any technical or other requirements, and suggested prior knowledge. Additional prerequisites and background information will be detailed within each module.

Module	Topic	Est. length	Format
0	Introduction to GIS with QGIS	3 hours	Hybrid
0	Introduction to Remote Sensing	3 hours	Hybrid
0	Introduction to Google Earth Engine	3 hours	Hybrid
0	Introduction to R	3 hours	Hybrid
1	Introduction to Lidar	3 hours	Hybrid
1	Mastering GEDI	3 hours	Hybrid
2	Calibration, Validation, and Field Surveys	3 hours	Hybrid
2	Data Processing and Basic Analysis Tutorials	3 hours	Hybrid
3	Calculating Biomass	3 hours	Hybrid
3	Height Metrics and Land Cover Classifications	3 hours	Hybrid

May the Forest Be With You