SAN FRANCISCO – Earth observation company Planet unveiled a product Sept. 24 for monitoring global forests.
Planet’s Forest Carbon Monitoring product offers quarterly estimates of the amount of carbon stored in branches, leaves and other plant tissue above ground at a resolution of three meters per pixel. In addition, it shows canopy height and canopy cover, information often needed for voluntary carbon markets, regulatory compliance and deforestation mitigation.
“If we’re to avoid blowing up the planet, we have to value carbon and nature into our economy,” Will Marshall, Planet CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. “Step one is measurement. To date we faced the choice between tape measures around tree trunks, which is accurate but not scalable, or inaccurate global systems. Planet’s forest carbon data is meant to fix that gap: scalable and accurate forest carbon data, at the individual tree level, updated quarterly.”
Historical Data
Planet’s Forest Carbon Monitoring product includes quarterly data beginning in 2021.
“No operational forest monitoring system has been deployed at this resolution and cadence before now,” according to the news release. “Forest Carbon Monitoring equips stakeholders with a cost-effective way to monitor forested areas — scaling from a single tree to the entirety of the Amazon rainforest.”
The new dataset relies on artificial intelligence to process PlanetScope imagery along with airborne and spaceborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data. PlanetScope is the global imagery of Earth’s landmass that Planet acquires with a constellation of approximately 130 satellites.
“We believe this dataset will underpin global carbon markets — a multi-trillion-dollar transition,” Marshall said.
“For countries implementing policies to reduce deforestation and sequester carbon, establishing an accurate baseline to quantify the current state of their forests is a critical step,”…
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