National Scale Above-Ground Biomass Density (AGBD) Map in Nepal's Forests at 30m Resolution (Circa 2015)

AGBD mapping in Nepal's forests circa 2015 at 30m resolution using Landsat-8, ALOS-PALSAR, and field data within Google Earth Engine. Out of 1,010 field-measured AGBD samples, 965 AGBD plots were used to train and validate the machine learning model. The CART model achieved 88% accuracy (R² = 0.88), with an RMSE of 40.93 Mg ha⁻¹ and an MAE of 27.24 Mg ha⁻¹. Nepal's total Forest AGBD is estimated at 1.335 × 1010 Mg (13.35 Pg), with a mean of 173.13 Mg ha⁻¹ and a standard deviation of 112.48 Mg ha⁻¹. There is high uncertainty in mountainous areas and low uncertainty in dense forests, which supports conservation efforts. The study promotes REDD+ initiatives and sustainable forest management with open-access AGBD data.