GEDI

Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is NASA’s Earth Venture lidar instrument on the International Space Station. Three lasers produce eight parallel tracks, sampling roughly 25 m footprints separated by about 60 m along track and 600 m across tracks. Returned waveforms describe ground elevation, canopy height and the vertical distribution of vegetation, supporting forest carbon, habitat and ecosystem studies. GEDI samples footprints rather than continuously imaging the land surface. Higher-level biomass products use calibration models to convert waveform-derived structure into aboveground biomass estimates; gridded summaries and uncertainties should be interpreted separately from individual lidar measurements.