arXiv Machine Learning

Deep Evidential Regression for Sparse Forest Height Estimation from Multimodal Satellite Imagery

arXiv:2608. 06406v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Accurate estimation of forest height from satellite imagery is essential for applications such as carbon accounting, biodiversity monitoring, and ecosystem management.

arXiv AI
Jul 14

Uncertainty Quantification for EO Regression Tasks: Building Height, Tree Canopy Height and Above-ground Biomass Estimation

arXiv:2607. 11412v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Earth Observation regression tasks such as building height, canopy height, and above-ground biomass estimation underpin critical applications in urban planning, forest monitoring, and climate policy, where both accuracy and reliability are critical.

By Ritu Yadav, Andrea Nascetti, Yifang Ban
arXiv Computer Vision
Aug 28

Mapping Woody Vegetation from Multi-Source Imagery and Prediction Fusion for Enhanced Data Efficiency and Accuracy

The paper presents a framework that enhances deep‑learning tree‑cover mapping in New South Wales by fusing multiple imagery sources and normalizing image quality. It introduces an image‑composition technique that removes defects and a prediction‑fusion method that reduces reliance on any single image, together cutting errors by 38.2 % and 53.6 % respectively. Label transfer across diverse imagery further boosts data efficiency, yielding error reductions of 28.1 %–76.2 % and a 13‑fold decrease in performance variability across dates.

By Kal Backman, Jared Wood, Adam Roff
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 31

Foundation-Model Earth Representations Enable Regional-Scale Forest Aboveground Biomass Monitoring Across the Northeastern United States

arXiv:2607. 27217v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Forest aboveground biomass (AGB) is a critical indicator of ecosystem productivity and terrestrial carbon storage, yet regional carbon monitoring remains constrained by the sparse spatial and temporal availability of field inventories and airborne structural measurements.

By Shashika Lamahewage, Chandi Witharana
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 24

Geospatial embeddings detect old-growth forests but buffered spatial validation narrows their advantage over Sentinel features

arXiv:2609.28194v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Old-growth forests develop over centuries under minimal anthropogenic disturbance, producing structurally complex and biodiverse stands. In Europe, pro...

By Thomas Ratsakatika (Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK), Mihai Zotta (Fundatia Conservation Carpathia, Brasov, Romania), Srinivasan Keshav (Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK), Emily R. Lines (Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK)
arXiv Computer Vision
Aug 31

Bringing SAM to new heights: Leveraging elevation data for tree crown segmentation from drone imagery

The paper introduces BalSAM, a model that combines the Segment Anything Model (SAM) with Digital Surface Model (DSM) elevation data to improve tree crown instance segmentation from high‑resolution drone imagery. Experiments across boreal plantations, temperate forests, and tropical forests show that while off‑the‑shelf SAM does not beat a custom Mask R-CNN, fine‑tuning SAM end‑to‑end and incorporating DSM information yield promising results, especially for plantation sites.

By M\'elisande Teng, Arthur Ouaknine, Etienne Lalibert\'e, Yoshua Bengio, David Rolnick, Hugo Larochelle
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 19

Integrating national forest inventory, airborne lidar, and satellite imagery for wall-to-wall mapping of forest structure with computer vision

arXiv:2606. 20291v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Remote sensing is increasingly relied upon to deliver actionable science for forest and wildfire risk management across large landscapes.

By Luke J. Zachmann, David D. Diaz, Vincent A. Landau, Chelsey Walden-Schreiner, Tony Chang, Nathan E. Rutenbeck, Katharyn A. Duffy, Kiarie Ndegwa, Andreas Gros, Scott Conway, Guy Bayes
arXiv Computer Vision
Sep 24

AgroBench: A Reproducible Multimodal Benchmark for Weakly Supervised Crop Yield Learning from County Statistics and Pixel Observations

AgroBench is a reproducible benchmark that converts U.S. county-level crop yield statistics into weakly supervised pixel‑level crop time series. The data generation pipeline fuses USDA yield data with land cover masks, Sentinel‑2 and Sentinel‑1 imagery, climatic variables, and terrain information to produce multimodal sequences for individual crop pixels across the growing season. The benchmark includes over 13 million observations from 788,654 crop pixels, covering 5,107 county‑year combinations for five major U.S. crops from 2017 to 2024, and establishes a Leave‑One‑Year‑Out evaluation protocol with baseline machine learning results.

By Udaiveer Singh, Rajiv Ranjan, Shashank Tamaskar, Dharmendra Saraswat