High-Resolution Aboveground Biomass Estimates of Tropical Peatland Forest Based on Planet NICFI Imagery and Airborne LiDAR

Abstract

Peat swamp forests play a critical role in maintaining the ecological integrity of tropical peatlands. The conservation and restoration efforts on these ecosystems have gained considerable attention considering their vulnerability. Accurate spatial mapping of aboveground biomass (AGB) is important to support such measures, and it can be accurately implemented using airborne LiDAR. However, the high operational cost of LiDAR surveys typically restricts their spatial coverage. This study estimated AGB of peat swamp forests by combining two remote sensing datasets, i.e., Planet NICFI imagery (2023–2024) and partially covered airborne LiDAR (10.56% of the total area), in the Katingan–Mentaya peat swamp forest, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Two workflows were proposed and compared. The first, DL-PowerReg, estimated canopy height model (CHM) using a U-Net deep learning model trained on Planet imagery, followed by AGB mapping through power regression. The second, StepwiseReg-DL, derived LiDAR-based AGB through stepwise regression of LiDAR metrics, then upscaled it to the full study area using U-Net with Planet imagery as input. DL-PowerReg (MAE = 52.24 t/ha) outperformed StepwiseReg-DL (MAE = 62.08 t/ha) and additionally produced an intermediate CHM map, providing complementary information on forest structure. The two approaches estimated total AGB storage in the study area at 47.75 Mt (mean = 239.91 t/ha) and 40.07 Mt (mean = 201.30 t/ha), respectively. This study demonstrates a methodological framework for leveraging spatially incomplete LiDAR data in high-resolution wall-to-wall forest biomass mapping.