A recovering ecosytem can contribute to reducing global heating by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in the form of plant biomass, through the natural process of photosynthesis. A mature forest in the Southeastern US, where Carbon Ranch 1 is located, can eventually sequester and store hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide.

We are quantitatively tracking the accumulation of carbon-sequestering biomass by using drone-based LIDAR to obtain 3-dimensional images of each tree. The video image above was taken during a drone survey of the site. The left panel shows the visible-light image; the right panel is the simultaneously collected LIDAR image, color coded to show the heights of each feature (mostly trees) below. The data can be used to obtain an estimate of the total volume of each tree, from which we can estimate the amount of carbon it sequesters. We’re also measuring soil carbon by collecting and analyzing 1 meter-deep soil samples from more than 100 locations on the site.