Mapping tree height distributions in Sub-Saharan Africa using Landsat 7 and 8 data

While the rainforest is being deforested at an alarming rate, other areas are becoming afforested. In some places, like Africa, timber can replace low-lying natural vegetation.



A 2016 paper used Landsat 7 and 8 to analyze Sub-Saharan Africa’s forests. The goal was to provide another method of capturing tree height information. Such data is vital to researching forests’ role in regulating our planet. Tree height can indicate biomass, or carbon storage, which is important in climate change research.



Three dominant tree heights were observed: seasonal woodlands, dry evergreen forests, and humid evergreen forests. These Landsat models reproduced tree height data from LiDAR data, corroborating the results found by the scientists.



Read the research here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425716300530.&nb…;