Quantifying ecosystem services from trees by using i-tree with low-resolution satellite images

Abstract

Air pollution on a worldwide scale poses significant risks to our health and food security. Trees, as ecosystem units, play a huge role in mitigating air pollution but quantifying this ecosystem service in the most polluted regions of the world is difficult due to a lack of relevant data. The ability of trees to mitigate air emissions is evaluated by the i-Tree Eco tool, which uses the tree inventory data based on high-resolution data such as LiDAR, which is predominantly available for the countries in the global north. In contrast, for most countries in the global south, collating such information is difficult and, therefore, obtaining the tree inventory and usage of i-Tree Eco is challenging. To circumvent these lacunae, in this study, we propose a method hinging on remote sensing based on readily available Landsat satellite images. We validate our approach on Balboa Park, San Diego, California, for which both LiDAR and Landsat data are available, and showcase its applicability to the South Delhi and Chennai city regions of India, where LiDAR data are not available.