Simplifying drone-based aboveground carbon density measurements to support community forestry.

ABSTRACT: Community-based forest restoration has the potential to sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon, avoid forest degradation, and support sustainable development. However, if partnered with international funders, such projects often require robust and transparent aboveground carbon measurements to secure payments, and current monitoring approaches are not necessarily appropriate due to costs, scale, and complexity. The use of consumer-grade drones in combination with open source structure-from-motion photogrammetry may provide a solution. In this study, we tested the suitability of a simplified drone-based method for measuring aboveground carbon density in heavily degraded tropical forests at a 2 ha restoration site in Sabah, Malaysia, comparing our results against established field-bas

SUBMITTER: Newport B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12040082 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature