A Global 500 m Resolution Tree Crown Morphology Dataset to Advance Vegetation Modeling and Management

This dataset is the global tree crown structure product at 500 m resolution, providing crown depth (CD), crown width (CW), and crown aspect ratio (AR=CD/CW) for eight tree Plant Functional Types (PFTs). It is static (single time period, mainly 2018–2020) and was generated by mapping site-level observations with Random Forest models trained on high-resolution canopy height, vegetation cover, burned area, and bioclimatic predictors from WorldClim v2.1. Canopy height inputs were derived from the 1 m global canopy height map, aggregated to 500 m in two forms: CHavg (tree-cover-weighted mean height) and CH90 (90th percentile height). These two canopy height products were used independently to drive model predictions, ensuring robust estimates across heterogeneous landscapes and dense forests. The outputs are provided in netCDF4 format: - Regional_CrownStructure500m_CHavg.tar.gz- Regional_CrownStructure500m_CH90.tar.gz The global domain is divided into 5° × 5° land tiles (1,447 files). Each netCDF4 file is named as: - RG_LATe_LONs_LATs_LONe.CrownStructure500m_XX.nc where LATe/LATs = end/start latitude, LONs/LONe = start/end longitude, and XX= canopy height product (CHavg or CH90). Each file contains CD, CW, and AR for eight PFTs, with dimensions [PFT × lat × lon]. Additionally, aggregated global products are available at coarser resolutions (0.1°, 0.25°, 0.5°): - Global_CrownStructureYYdeg_XX.nc where YY = spatial resolution (0.1, 0.25, 0.5), and XX = canopy height product (CHavg or CH90).