Leveraging GEDI and NFI to inform on forest productivity at the level of the management units

Research paper

Key message

The integration of national forest inventory data with spaceborne remote sensing data from the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) improves the precision of forest productivity estimates in small domains via area-level Fay-Herriot models. Despite sparse spatial coverage, GEDI data enhance the reliability of localized estimates at finer spatial and temporal resolutions, thus supporting improved forest management and decision-making.

Keywords
Small area estimation; Fay-Herriot; Forest monitoring; Spaceborne lidar; Multisource forest inventory; Forest management

Publication
Onwunji, I., Vega, C., Durrieu, S. et al. Leveraging GEDI and NFI to inform on forest productivity at the level of the management units. Annals of Forest Science 83, 46 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13595-026-01358-2

Handling editor
Shengli Tao