Aboveground Live Woody Biomass Density

The Aboveground Live Woody Biomass Density data set generates a pantropical map of aboveground live woody biomass density at 30 m resolution. The statistical relationship derived from ground-based measurements of forest biomass density and collocated Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) LiDAR waveform metrics was used to estimate the biomass density of more than 40,000 GLAS footprints throughout the tropics. Then, using Random Forest models, the GLAS-derived estimates of biomass density were correlated to continuous, gridded variables, including Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite imagery and products (e.g., reflectance), elevation, and biophysical variables. By using continuous gridded data sets as inputs to the Random Forest models, a wall-to-wall 30 m resolution map of aboveground woody biomass density across the tropics was produced.