The mission of the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) is to:
- Provide research-quality airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) observations to the scientific community.
- Advance the state of the art in airborne laser mapping.
- Train and educate graduate students with knowledge of airborne mapping to meet the needs of academic institutions, government agencies, and private industry.
NCALM is based at the University of Houston and is operated in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley. The center is supported by the National Science Foundation and is associated with the multi-disciplinary Geosensing Systems Engineering & Sciences graduate program at the University of Houston.