Measuring tree carbon on farms: LiDAR methods

Friday, November 21, 2025, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Trees on farms can serve multiple purposes, which can include shading livestock, sheltering fields from wind, serving as stream buffers along field edges, and producing a nut, fruit or timber crop. Alongside these functions, they also sequester carbon!

Cornell’s BioM2 Lab is a nationwide leader in forest carbon research. Since 2024, PhD student Nicholas Cranmer has led efforts at the BioM2 Lab to develop protocols for quantifying carbon sequestration on small-scale farms with diversified production systems that include agroforestry practices. The work has focused on a set of three LiDAR scanning approaches, and from November 2024-April 2025 Nick and collaborators at CCE Tompkins piloted these measurement approaches on seven farms in the broader Tompkins County region.

Please join us online as Nick shares the field methods that were trialed, the protocol that was developed, and opportunities to improve future carbon quantification in agroforestry systems in our region.

This work is underway in close collaboration with the Finger Lakes Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) Pilot Program at CCE Tompkins. Learn more about the program here!

Please note: this presentation is ONLINE only - if you have follow up questions or would like to request resources on this topic, please contact Rosie Wood, the Payment for Ecosystem Services Educator at CCE Tompkins.

Instructor's bio: Nicholas Cranmer is a PhD student in Cornell's Biosphere Modeling and Monitoring (BioM2) Lab primarily focused on using remote sensing technologies such as terrestrial laser scanning (i.e., terrestrial LiDAR) to further understand ecological processes such as carbon sequestration and storage under different forest management practices with Professor Dr. Xiangtao Xu.