Project

3D-CITREES - Estimating the aboveground biomass of city trees in Ghent, Belgium

Acronym
3D-CITREES
Code
12O01220
Duration
01 October 2020 → 30 September 2021
Funding
Federal funding: various
Research disciplines
  • Natural sciences
    • Scientific computing not elsewhere classified
    • Data visualisation and high-throughput image analysis
    • Bioinformatics and computational biology not elsewhere classified
    • Terrestrial ecology
    • Plant ecology
    • Plant morphology, anatomy and physiology
Keywords
LIDAR urban ecology
 
Project description

The main objective of this project is to generate biomass and location maps of urban trees in the city of Ghent, Belgium, by fusing the point cloud data from both terrestrial and airborne LiDAR systems. With cities and urban areas being the major source of carbon, recent studies have highlighted the critical role played by urban forests in sequestering carbon. However, the contribution of urban trees in storing carbon is often ignored in the global carbon cycle estimates, partly due to the perceived relatively smaller spatial area covered by them in comparison to the global forest cover. Nevertheless, Ghent city alone has over 30,000 individually managed trees spread across its streets, squares and public gardens. As a result, it is important to quantify, monitor and understand the role played by urban trees in storing carbon and combating climate change. With the cover of urban areas projected to increase in future, biomass and location maps of urban trees generated in this project will become crucial both for urban planning and for carbon mitigation policies.