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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-2924</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>A Weakly Supervised Deep Learning Framework for Estimating Above-Ground Biomass for Non-Forest Landscapes From Optical Images</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Nubwimana</surname>
<given-names>Rachel</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Brandt</surname>
<given-names>Martin</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Ciais</surname>
<given-names>Philippe</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8560-4943</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Mugabowindekwe</surname>
<given-names>Maurice</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Li</surname>
<given-names>Sizhuo</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Davies</surname>
<given-names>Andrew</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gominski</surname>
<given-names>Dimitri</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fensholt</surname>
<given-names>Rasmus</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3067-4527</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Saatchi</surname>
<given-names>Sassan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gieseke</surname>
<given-names>Fabian</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Geography, Land, Environment and Society University of  Copenhagen, 1350 København K</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, UMR CEA-CNRS-UVSQ 8212</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, 619 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles, CA 90095</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Department of Information Systems, University of Münster, Leonardo-Campus 3, 48149 Münster, Deutschland</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>Rwanda Space Agency, KG 17 Ave, Remera Hallmark Center, Kigali, Rwanda</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>26</day>
<month>06</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>20</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Rachel Nubwimana et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2924/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2924/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2924/egusphere-2026-2924.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2924/egusphere-2026-2924.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Above-ground biomass (AGB) maps are essential for carbon accounting and sustainable land management, yet AGB for non-forest landscapes remains poorly accounted for in global datasets. Here, we make use of deep learning and high-resolution PlanetScope imagery to introduce the concept of AGB contribution maps, which are high-resolution AGB predictions that capture local patterns. These maps can be predicted at any resolution from 1 to 100 m, providing insights into the spatial features included in the coarser resolution AGB maps, being essential for mapping trees outside forests. Our method employs a weakly supervised hybrid framework that transfers information from an existing 100 m global AGB map to high‑resolution optical satellite imagery, enabling the interpretation of detailed spatial patterns. We demonstrate that our map achieves detailed and spatially consistent patterns of woody vegetation in African savanna landscapes comparable to UAV-based LiDAR. Aggregated AGB values are well aligned with independent in-situ measurements (r2 = 0.71, bias 1 %), which is contrary to the original coarse AGB map used for training (r2 = 0.17, bias 48 %), indicating the capability of our approach to refine the existing map towards a higher accuracy for estimating tree biomass outside forests. This suggests that our model has learned tree-level information that is not present in the original AGB training data, providing a framework to refine existing coarse-resolution AGB maps. The granular and multi-resolution results provide no contribution to global efforts in sustainable land management of non-forest landscapes at any preferred scale and resolution.</p>
</abstract>
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