Hexagon-gridded reference aboveground biomass for the contiguous United States derived from USDA Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA), 2018–2022

Reference aboveground biomass (AGB) for forested land across the contiguousUnited States (CONUS), aggregated to a hexagonal grid (12,591 cells). AGB wasderived from USDA Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) field plots using therFIA `biomass()` estimator (aboveground component, forest land type, plot-leveltotals) for inventory years 2018–2022, converted to megagrams per hectare(Mg/ha). Plot estimates were aggregated to FIA hexagon cells, weighted by treecanopy cover (>10%) within EPA Level-IV ecoregions. Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S.territories were excluded (CONUS extent: 24–50°N, 125–66°W). This dataset was produced as the ground-reference layer for validatingsatellite- and model-based AGB products (e.g., GEDI L4B, ESA CCI Biomass). Format: GeoPackage (.gpkg), single polygon layer "FID_AG_CC_ECO2018_2022"Features: 12,591 hexagons (one AGB value per cell)CRS: EPSG:4326 (WGS 84)Fields: hex_fid — hexagon identifier (integer) AGB_REF — reference aboveground biomass (Mg/ha) BIO — identical to AGB_REF (original source column name retained)AGB range: 0 – 563.6 Mg/ha Source data: USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis Database (FIADB),https://www.fia.fs.usda.gov/ — public domain.