Carbon-storage capacity of Woody crops in South Spain: The AGROLiDAR project

Although agriculture contributes to GHG emissions, the role of crops as carbon sinks has attracted great environmental interest in the scientific community. Furthermore, there is also growing economic interest as crops may become part of the carbon market. Therefore, the estimation of above-ground biomass and the subsequently stored carbon of crops through new technologies is crucial for adopting different strategies to promote sustainable management. In recent years, the LiDAR technique (Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging) has emerged as an important tool to estimate vegetation biomass accurately in forest ecosystems. Therefore, this technique could be useful also for estimating the biomass of crops, especially woody crops. The main objective of this project is to estimate stored carbon by LIDAR in two important woody crops (olive groves and almond groves) in the south of Spain. Preliminary results showed that LiDAR sensors could be used for the detailed extraction of structural metrics and the modelling of the three-dimensional structure of individual trees, enabling the analysis of tree growth, biomass, and carbon-storage capacity to understand the behavior and capacity of these crops as carbon sinks.