Trees as Gaussians: Large-Scale Individual Tree Mapping

Trees are key components of the terrestrial biosphere, playing vital roles in ecosystem function, climate regulation, and the bioeconomy. However, large-scale monitoring of individual trees remains limited by inadequate modeling. Available global products have focused on binary tree cover or canopy height, which do not explicitly identify trees at the individual level. In this study, we present a deep learning approach for detecting large individual trees in 3-m-resolution PlanetScope imagery at a global scale. We simulate tree crowns with Gaussian kernels of scalable size, allowing the extraction of crown centers and the generation of binary tree cover maps. Training is based on billions of points automatically extracted from airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data, enabling the model to successfully identify trees both inside and outside forests. We compare against existing tree cover maps and airborne LiDAR with state-of-the-art performance (fractional cover R2 = 0.81 against aerial LiDAR), report balanced detection metrics across biomes, and demonstrate how detection can be further improved through fine-tuning with manual labels. Our method offers a scalable framework for global, high-resolution tree monitoring and is adaptable to future satellite missions offering improved imagery.