NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation uses Lidar technology to observe tropical and temperate forests, focusing on the impacts of deforestation and habitat degradation on carbon sequestration and biodiversity. GEDI was developed at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and was launched and installed on the International Space Station in 2018.
Using high resolution laser ranging (Lidar) technology, GEDI makes precise measurements of forest canopy height, vegetation structure, and biomass. To do so, it relies on existing, crowd-sourced datasets to calibrate with data collected from space. GEDI quantifies the amount of carbon stored in Earth’s vegetation and estimates the impacts of climate and land use change. These measurements can aid understandings of carbon and water cycling processes, habit and biodiversity on a large scale, with the capacity to contribute to international policy frameworks and carbon markets. GEDI is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2023, but scientists are pushing for its data collection period to be extended. GEDI's data are freely downloadable.