Forests are the lungs of the Earth: they take in and store carbon dioxide and release the oxygen we breathe. This is something we intuitively understand, but we have not yet developed practical and cost-effective ways of accounting for this value in our economic decisions and transactions. The result is that tropical countries are incentivized […]
Understanding ecological systems at a global or regional scale is a complex problem, requiring the integration of a wide variety of different sources and types of data. Asner Lab uses an array of approaches to address this challenge, many of which enhance human-scale analyses with machine intelligence. Guided by project-specific experts, artificial intelligence (A.I.) allows […]
In 2016, the Global Airborne Observatory mapped much of the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo in support of a government-led initiative to establish a large new protected area. This work positioned Asner Lab as a key expert in service to the Malaysian government. Our lab is responsible for identifying the most […]
California is both a global biodiversity hotspot and home to forest ecosystems with the highest aboveground carbon storage per unit of land area on earth. Warming temperatures and changing precipitation patterns threaten California’s forests and their ecosystem services. Asner Lab is working to map patterns of forest species composition, forest functional diversity, and carbon stocks […]
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