Welcome

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.

News

National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping NCALM Announces 2022 Seed Proposal Winners
March 21, 2023
2022 Student Seed Proposal Winners Selected The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping surveys multiple projects each year for graduate student PIs whose research would be enhanced by…
DTM of the Little River in Sparta, NC with 0.25m contours. (Credit: OpenTopography) New NCALM Datasets in California, Oregon, and North Carolina Now Available
January 12, 2023
Three new NCALM (National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping) datasets are now available from OpenTopography. Two of these datasets examine snow hydrology and dynamics in the western US.…
Hyongki Lee, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, has received about $692,410 in additional funding for a three-year extension of his research work, “Strengthening Regional and National Capacity for Operational Flood andDrought Management Services for Lower Mekong Nations via Mekong River Commission and SERVIR-Mekong.” Hyongki Lee, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, has received about $692,410 in additional funding for a three-year extension of his research work. CEE's Lee Receives Funding to Continue Flood Analysis Work Along Asia's Mekong River
October 31, 2022
By: Stephen Greenwell A professor at the Cullen College of Engineering will continue serving as the lead PI for a NASA project that examines land subsidence, flood forecasting and…
Contours overlaid on a hillshade of a Digital Terrain Model (DTM). (Credit: OpenTopography) New NCALM Datasets in California and Arizona Now Available
October 20, 2022
Two new Seed grant datasets from NCALM (National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping) are now available from OpenTopography. On July 13th 2021 a lidar dataset within the Sierra Nevada…
National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping NCALM Invites Graduate Students to Submit 2022 Seed Proposals
October 10, 2022
2022 Seed Proposal Period: October 10, 2022–January 13, 2023 The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping invites proposals from graduate student PIs seeking airborne lidar data for use…