Ralph Dubayah

Biographic Data

ID6823689
NAMERalph Dubayah
GIVEN NAMESRalph
FAMILY NAMEDubayah
SIGNATUREDUBAYAH R
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Maryland, College Park
ORCID0000-0003-1440-6346
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS22
TOTAL CITATIONS0
AUTHOR COUNT22
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2014
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2024
H-INDEX0

  • Beyond MRV

    Open AccessG C Hurtt, Lei Ma et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2024

    Members of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of 24 states committed to achieving the emissions reductions outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement, are considering policy options for inclusion of forest carbon in climate mitigation plans. These initiatives are generally limited by a lack of relevant data on forest carbon stocks and fluxes past-to-future. Previously, we developed a new forest carbon modeling system that combined high-resolution r…

  • Estimating aboveground biomass density using hybrid statistical inference with Gedi lidar data and Paraguay’s national forest inventory

    Open AccessEric L Bullock, SEAN P HEALEY et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2023

    Forests are widely recognized as critical to combating climate change due to their ability to sequester and store carbon in the form of biomass. In recent years, the combined use of data from ground-based forest inventories and remotely sensed data from light detection and ranging (lidar) has proven useful for large-scale assessment of forest biomass, but airborne lidar is expensive and data acquisition is infeasible for many countries. By contra…

  • Impact of leaf phenology on estimates of aboveground biomass density in a deciduous broadleaf forest from simulated Gedi lidar

    Open AccessK C Cushman, John Armston et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2023

    The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is a waveform lidar instrument on the International Space Station used to estimate aboveground biomass density (AGBD) in temperate and tropical forests. Algorithms to predict footprint AGBD from GEDI relative height (RH) metrics were developed from simulated waveforms with leaf-on (growing season) conditions. Leaf-off GEDI data with lower canopy cover are expected to have shorter RH metrics, and …

  • On the Nasa Gedi and ESA CCI biomass maps

    Open AccessNeha Hunka, Maurizio Santoro et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2023

    Earth Observation data are uniquely positioned to estimate forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD) in accordance with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) principles of ‘transparency, accuracy, completeness, consistency and comparability’. However, the use of space-based AGBD maps for national-level reporting to the UNFCCC is nearly non-existent as of 2023, the end of the first global stocktake (GST). We conduct an…

  • Gedi launches a new era of biomass inference from space

    Open AccessRalph Dubayah, John Armston et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2022

    Accurate estimation of aboveground forest biomass stocks is required to assess the impacts of land use changes such as deforestation and subsequent regrowth on concentrations of atmospheric CO 2 . The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is a lidar mission launched by NASA to the International Space Station in 2018. GEDI was specifically designed to retrieve vegetation structure within a novel, theoretical sampling design that explicitl…

  • Revisiting the status of forest carbon stock changes in the context of the measurement and monitoring needs, capabilities and potential for addressing reduced emissions from deforestation and forest d…

    Open AccessScott Goetz, Ralph Dubayah et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2022

    No abstract

  • The use of Gedi canopy structure for explaining variation in tree species richness in natural forests

    Open AccessSuzanne Marselis, Petr Keil et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2022

    Variables describing the abiotic environment (e.g. climate, topography or biogeographic history) have a long tradition of use as predictors of tree species richness patterns. However, these variables may capture variations in richness related to climate, but not those that are related to soil type or forest disturbance. Canopy structure has previously been shown to provide information on the variation of tree species richness, with richness gener…

  • Mapping global forest canopy height through integration of Gedi and Landsat data

    Open AccessPeter Potapov, Xinyuan Li et al.ARTICLERemote Sensing of Environment2021

  • High-resolution forest carbon modelling for climate mitigation planning over the RGGI region, USA

    Open AccessLei Ma, G C Hurtt et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2021

    The inclusion of forest carbon in climate change mitigation planning requires the development of models able to project potential future carbon stocks—a step beyond traditional monitoring, reporting and verification frameworks. Here, we updated and expanded a high-resolution forest carbon modelling approach previously developed for the state of Maryland to 11 states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) domain, which includes Connectic…

  • Geospatial assessment of the economic opportunity for reforestation in Maryland, USA

    Open AccessRachel Lamb, Lei Ma et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2021

    Afforestation and reforestation have the potential to provide effective climate mitigation through forest carbon sequestration. Strategic reforestation activities, which account for both carbon sequestration potential (CSP) and economic opportunity, can provide attractive options for policymakers who must manage competing social and environmental goals. In particular, forest carbon pricing can incentivize reforestation on private land, but this m…

  • Challenges to aboveground biomass prediction from waveform lidar

    Open AccessJamis M Bruening, Rico Fischer et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2021

    Accurate accounting of aboveground biomass density (AGBD) is crucial for carbon cycle, biodiversity, and climate change science. The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), which maps global AGBD from waveform lidar, is the first of a new generation of Earth observation missions designed to improve carbon accounting. This paper explores the possibility that lidar waveforms may not be unique to AGBD—that forest stands with different AGBD m…

  • Context and future directions for integrating forest carbon into sub-national climate mitigation planning in the RGGI region of the U.S

    Open AccessRachel Lamb, G C Hurtt et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2021

    International frameworks for climate mitigation that build from national actions have been developed under the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change and advanced most recently through the Paris Climate Agreement. In parallel, sub-national actors have set greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals and developed corresponding climate mitigation plans. Within the U.S., multi-state coalitions have formed to facilitate coordination of relat…

  • Incorporating canopy structure from simulated Gedi lidar into bird species distribution models

    Open AccessPatrick Burns, M L Clark et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2020

    The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar began data acquisition from the International Space Station in March 2019 and is expected to make over 10 billion measurements of canopy structure and topography over two years. Previously, airborne lidar data with limited spatial coverage have been used to examine relationships between forest canopy structure and faunal diversity, most commonly bird species. GEDI’s latitudinal coverage wil…

  • High-resolution forest carbon mapping for climate mitigation baselines over the RGGI region, USA

    Open AccessHao Tang, Lei Ma et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2020

    Large-scale airborne lidar data collections can be used to generate high-resolution forest aboveground biomass maps at the state level and beyond as demonstrated in early phases of NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System program. While products like aboveground biomass maps derived from these leaf-off lidar datasets each can meet state- or substate-level measurement requirements individually, combining them over multiple jurisdictions does not guarantee …

  • Towards mapping the diversity of canopy structure from space with Gedi

    Open AccessFabian Schneider, António Ferraz et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2020

    Plant biodiversity supports life on Earth and provides a range of important ecosystem services, but is under severe pressure by global change. Structural diversity plays a crucial role for carbon, water and energy cycles and animal habitats. However, it is very difficult to map and monitor over large areas, limiting our ability to assess the status of biodiversity and predict change. NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) provides …

  • Statistical properties of hybrid estimators proposed for Gedi—Nasa’s global ecosystem dynamics investigation

    Open AccessPaul L Patterson, SEAN P HEALEY et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2019

    NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission will collect waveform lidar data at a dense sample of ∼25 m footprints along ground tracks paralleling the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS). GEDI’s primary science deliverable will be a 1 km grid of estimated mean aboveground biomass density (Mg ha −1 ), covering the latitudes overflown by ISS (51.6 °S to 51.6 °N). One option for using the sample of waveforms contained wi…

  • Beyond MRV

    Open AccessG C Hurtt, Maosheng Zhao et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2019

    Forests are important ecosystems that are under increasing pressure from human use and environmental change, and have a significant ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and are therefore the focus of policy efforts aimed at reducing deforestation and degradation as well as increasing afforestation and reforestation for climate mitigation. Critical to these efforts is the accurate monitoring, reporting and verification of current …

  • High-resolution mapping of aboveground biomass for forest carbon monitoring system in the Tri-State region of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware, USA

    Open AccessWenli Huang, K A Dolan et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2019

    Accurate estimation of forest aboveground biomass at high-resolution continues to remain a challenge and long-term goal for carbon monitoring and accounting systems. Here, we present an exhaustive evaluation and validation of a robust, replicable and scalable framework that maps forest aboveground biomass over large areas at fine-resolution by linking airborne lidar and field data with machine learning algorithms. We developed this framework over…

  • Exploring the relation between remotely sensed vertical canopy structure and tree species diversity in Gabon

    Open AccessSuzanne Marselis, Suzanne Mariëlle Marselis et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2019

    Mapping tree species diversity is increasingly important in the face of environmental change and biodiversity conservation. We explore a potential way of mapping this diversity by relating forest structure to tree species diversity in Gabon. First, we test the relation between canopy height, as a proxy for niche volume, and tree species diversity. Then, we test the relation between vertical canopy structure, as a proxy for vertical niche occupati…

  • Quantifying long-term changes in carbon stocks and forest structure from Amazon forest degradation

    Open AccessDanielle I Rappaport, Douglas C Morton et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2018

    Despite sustained declines in Amazon deforestation, forest degradation from logging and firecontinues to threaten carbon stocks, habitat, and biodiversity in frontier forests along the Amazon arcof deforestation. Limited data on the magnitude of carbon losses and rates of carbon recoveryfollowing forest degradation have hindered carbon accounting efforts and contributed to incompletenational reporting to reduce emissions from deforestation and fo…

  • Disturbance Distance

    Open AccessK A Dolan, Katelyn Dolan et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2017

    Disturbances, both natural and anthropogenic, are critical determinants of forest structure, function, and distribution. The vulnerability of forests to potential changes in disturbance rates remains largely unknown. Here, we developed a framework for quantifying and mapping the vulnerability of forests to changes in disturbance rates. By comparing recent estimates of observed forest disturbance rates over a sample of contiguous US forests to mod…

  • The relative importance of climate and vegetation properties on patterns of North American breeding bird species richness

    Open AccessScott Goetz, Mindy Sun et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Research Letters2014

    Recent advances in remote sensing and ecological modeling warrant a timely and robust investigation of the ecological variables that underlie large-scale patterns of breeding bird species richness, particularly in the context of intensifying land use and climate change. Our objective was to address this need using an array of bioclimatic and remotely sensed data sets representing vegetation properties and structure, and other aspects of the physi…