Analyzing canopy height variations in secondary tropical forests of Malaysia using NASA GEDI

Abstract Tropical forests play a significant role in regulating the average global atmospheric temperature encompassing 25 % of the carbon present in the terrestrial biosphere. However, the rapid change in climate, arising from unsustainable human practices, can significantly affect their carbon uptake capability in the future. For understanding these deviations, it is important to identify and quantify the large-scale canopy height variations arising from previous anthropogenic disturbances. With the advent of NASA GEDI spaceborne LiDAR (light detection and ranging), it is now possible to acquire three-dimensional vertical structural data of forests globally. In this study, we evaluate the applicability of GEDI for analyzing relative canopy height variations of secondary tropical forests of different age groups located across multiple geographical regions of peninsular Malaysia. The results for RH98 GEDI metric trends for the lowland and hill forests category across 4 different disturbance groups show a positive correlation between mean relative height and secondary forest ages. The consistency of these findings with previous studies in the region indicate the usefulness of GEDI to provide valuable insights into the patterns and drivers of forest height variation. Thus, this study contributes toward the operationalization of spaceborne LiDAR technology for monitoring forest disturbances and measuring biomass recovery rates and should help support large-scale sustainable forest management initiatives with respect to the tropical forests of Malaysia.