Open, Cloud-Optimized, Analysis-Ready Global GEDI Satellite LiDAR Dataset for Land Surface Applications

Ho Y; Heisig J; Milenković M; Parente L; Hengl T; Simoes R

Abstract

Current satellite LiDAR missions, such as GEDI and ICESat2, provide billions of points annually that are typically not  cloud-optimized and require additional quality filtering before any further analysis. In this study, we present OpenLandMap GEDI (OLM-GEDI), a new open, cloud-optimized,  and global GEDI point dataset, for which we establish a  spatio-temporal structure to facilitate efficient access. We  show random access to OLM-GEDI achieves 20 seconds and  a minute for areas around 50-thousand and 3-million km2,  respectively. The OLM-GEDI STAC catalog is further established, which can be readily loaded into a local or cloud  computing environment, such as openEO. This open GEDI  dataset can be beneficial to future studies to enhance their  reproducibility and mitigate the complexity of handling large  GEDI data volumes (∼ 120 TiB) and quality filters.