AfriSAR: Aboveground Biomass for Lope, Mabounie, Mondah, and Rabi Sites, Gabon

This dataset provides gridded estimates of aboveground biomass (AGB) for four sites in Gabon at 0.25 ha (50 m) resolution derived with field measurements and airborne LiDAR data collected from 2010 to 2016. The sites represent a mix of forested, savannah, and some agricultural and disturbed landcover types: Lope site, within Lope National Park; Mabounie, mostly forested site; Mondah Forest, protected area; and the Rabi forest site, part of the Smithsonian Institution of Global Earth Observatories world-wide network of forest plots. Plot-level biophysical measurements of tree diameter and tree height (or estimated by allometry) were performed at 1 ha and 0.25 ha scales on multiple plots at each site and used to derive AGB for each tree and then summed for each plot. Aerial LiDAR scans were used to construct digital elevation models (DEM) and digital surface models (DSM), and then the DEM and DSM were used to construct a canopy height model (CHM) at 1 m resolution. After checking site-plot locations against the CHM, mean canopy height (MCH) was computed over each 0.25 ha. A single regression model relating MCH and AGB estimates, incorporating local height based on the trunk DBH (HD) relationships, was produced for all sites and combined with the CHM layer to construct biomass maps at 0.25 ha resolution.