In his time at UW, Guang Zheng was the first PhD student in SEFS Professor L. Monika Moskal’s Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis Laboratory. Last year, Zheng returned as a visiting professor from Nanjing University to work with Moskal on using a space-born lidar sensor, the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), on the International Space Station to produce global maps of building heights.

The data, which maps building height at a 150-meter scale, is now available on Google Earth Engine. It has applications in urban studies across many fields, including climate, environmental, ecological, and social sciences, and provides new insights into urban developments, including socio-economic development, urban heat islands, climate mitigation, and carbon policies. With over half of the world’s population living in cities and about 75% of total carbon emissions annually originating from urban areas, high-resolution, global data on building height will aid in many research efforts aimed at understanding the consequences of built environments.