Brazilian Rainforest Canopy Change at Mission Start 2013-2014-2016

Lasers, droughts, and a 3D view: NASA maps the Amazon to examine tree mortality. Learn how scientists are working to understand how tropical forests react to droughts. The LiDAR measures the time it takes photons to bounce off the treetops and back to the instrument to calculate the height for each point. Data was collected above two 30-mile swaths near Santarém, Brazil. In a logged region, highlighted trees seen in 2013 were absent in 2016. NASA’s team joined Brazilian scientists to gather data from the forest floor to tie airborne data to what happened on the ground. For More InformationSee [NASA.gov](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/3d-view-of-amazon-forests-captures-effects-of-el-ni-o-drought)

Full 50 kilometer transect of 2014 lidar data over Brazil. The full swath of data consists of approximately 1 billion data points, where each data point is a position in 3D space. Together these data points provide scientists with information on foliage distribution and the elements of tree canopy. For more information on NASA Goddard s Lidar project, please visit http://gliht.gsfc.nasa.gov This visualization shows an airplane collecting a 50 kilometer swath of lidar data over the Brazilian rainforest. For ground level features, colors range from deep brown to tan. Vegetation heights are depicted in shades of green, where dark greens are closest to the ground and light greens are the highest.

This visualization shows the resolution of LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) canopy data over the Brazilian Rainforest by flying a virtual camera down through the data. The full swath of data consists of approximately 1 billion data points, where each data point is a position in 3D space. Together these data points provide scientists with information on foliage distribution and the elements of tree canopy. Similar LIDAR technologies are used to measure terrain topographies on the Moon and Mars. This animation shows an airplane collecting treetop data over a Brazilian rainforest. As the airplane continues to collect data, the viewer flies down to the rainforest canopy and flies through the virtual leaves, eventually emerging to see the airplane off in the distance still collecting new data. It should be noted that for the purposes of this animation, we chose to use leaf-like objects to represent each lidar data point in 3D space. However, lidar data does not specifically show individual leaves, but simply point heights reflected by the leaf canopy. However, the resolution of the lidar data is so good that it potentially can pick up leaves and other structures such as tree branches, and sometimes even flying birds, but has no easy way to differentiate between them. Therefore, since the location of this particular data was known to be a rainforest, and the majority of the data points would represent leaves, we chose leaf-like structures for this particular case.

This visualization shows LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) canopy data over the Brazilian Rainforest and how successive passes between 2013 to 2016 show changes to the treetop canopies. In this particular case, the area of interest appears to have been logged due to the very high number of downed trees. Together these data points provide scientists with information on foliage distribution and the elements of tree canopy. Similar LIDAR technologies are used to measure terrain topographies on the Moon and Mars. This data visualization starts with an airplane collecting lidar over a flat plane. As the data is collected a strip of the 2013 Brazilian rainforest canopy can be seen. Once the plane flies past, we spin the camera around to get a better view of the treetop canopy data. We then highlight areas of the canopy that will undergo significant change from 2013 to 2016. Finally, we allow those highlighted areas (ie, trees and tree branches) to fall the the ground, revealing the new 2016 forest canopy. Print resolution image of the 2013 Brazilian Forest Canopy with change areas highlighted. Print resolution image of the 2016 forest canopy.

This visualization shows the resolution of LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) canopy data over the Brazilian Rainforest and how successive passes in 2013, 2014, and 2016 can be used to track change to the treetop canopy over time. Together these data points provide scientists with information on foliage distribution and the elements of tree canopy. Similar LIDAR technologies are used to measure terrain topographies on the Moon and Mars. This data visualization starts in 2013 with an airplane collecting lidar data. As the plane flies overhead, the viewer finds themselves amongst the recently collected treetop canopy. The viewer then moves forward through the canopy eventually lifting up to get a birds eye view of the recently collected strip of data points (represented as leaf-like shapes). Areas of change from 2013 to 2014 are then highlighted and the data transitions to what the canopy looked like in 2014. Areas of change between 2014 to 2016 are then highlighted before the data transitions again to what the canopy looked like in 2016. Each successive change allows scientists to carefully monitor the turn over rate of foliage over this three year period. Print resolution image of 2013 rainforest canopy data. Print resolution image of 2013 rainforest canopy with 2013-2014 change areas highlighted. Print resolution image of 2014 rainforest canopy. Print resolution image of 2014 rainforest canopy with 2014-2016 change areas highlighted. Print resolution image of 2016 rainforest canopy.