Dr James G. C. Ball

About

I am a tropical ecologist at the Conservation Research Institute and the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge, working within the Forest Ecology and Conservation Group.

My research bridges the spatial scale gap between field plots and satellites by making individual-tree demographic processes observable across landscapes using Earth-observation data. I develop deep learning methods for detecting and mapping individual trees from aerial imagery (detectree2), identify tree species from hyperspectral and multi-temporal observations, and forecast deforestation patterns using convolutional neural networks. Alongside these methodological advances, I apply remote sensing to ecological and conservation questions — from landscape-scale impacts of protected areas to biodiversity modelling with structural lidar products. My fieldwork spans the tropical forests of French Guiana and Sumatra, Indonesia.

249+ Citations

8 h-index

17 Publications

Software

detectree2

Python · Mask R-CNN · Detectron2

229

Python package for automatic tree crown delineation based on the Detectron2 implementation of Mask R-CNN. Enables accurate identification and mapping of individual trees in tropical forests from aerial RGB imagery.

View on GitHub Documentation

Publications

2026

Soifer, L. G., Ball, J. G. C., Asmath, H., Maclean, I. M. D., & Coomes, D.

Microclimates slow and alter the direction of climate velocities in tropical forests

Nature Climate Change, 16(1), 95-101.

Liang, X., Wang, Y., Pan, J., Heiskanen, J., Wang, N., Wu, S., Vuorinne, I., Tian, J., ... & Ball, J. G. C.

Empowering tree-scale monitoring over large areas: Individual tree delineation from high-resolution imagery

ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 232, 974-999.

2025

Schmitt, S., Fischer, F. J., Ball, J. G. C., Barbier, N., Boisseaux, M., Bonal, D., ...

TROLL 4.0: representing water and carbon fluxes, leaf phenology, and intraspecific trait variation in a mixed-species individual-based forest dynamics model – Part 2: Model evaluation for two Amazonian sites

Geoscientific Model Development, 18(16), 5205-5243.

Burns, P., Kaszta, Z., Cushman, S. A., Brodie, J. F., Hakkenberg, C. R., Jantz, P., ...

The utility of dynamic forest structure from GEDI lidar fusion in tropical mammal species distribution models

Frontiers in Remote Sensing, 6, 1563430.

Huertas, C., Fischer, F. J., Aubry-Kientz, M., Ball, J., Derroire, G., & Vincent, G.

The value of local allometries from airborne laser scanning for tropical forest biomass estimates

Peer Community Journal, 5.

Barbier, N., Ploton, P., Tulet, H., Viennois, G., Leblanc, H., Burban, B., ...

Monitoring tropical forests with light drones: ensuring spatial and temporal consistency in stereophotogrammetric products

ISPRS Open Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 100114.

Feng, Z., Atzberger, C., Jaffer, S., Knezevic, J., Sormunen, S., Young, R., ...

TESSERA: Temporal Embeddings of Surface Spectra for Earth Representation and Analysis

arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.20380.

Brodie, J. F., Mohd-Azlan, J., Chen, C., Wearn, O. R., Deith, M. C. M., Ball, J. G. C., ...

Reply to: Causal claims, causal assumptions and protected area impact

Nature, 638(8052), E42-E44.

2024

Ball, J. G. C., Jaffer, S., Laybros, A., Prieur, C., Jackson, T., Madhavapeddy, A., ...

Harnessing temporal and spectral dimensionality to map and identify species of individual trees in diverse tropical forests

bioRxiv, 2024.06.24.600405.

2023

Ball, J. G. C., Hickman, S. H., Jackson, T. D., Koay, X. J., Hirst, J., Jay, W., ... & Coomes, D. A.

Accurate delineation of individual tree crowns in tropical forests from aerial RGB imagery using Mask R-CNN

Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, 9(5), 641-655.

Brodie, J. F., Mohd-Azlan, J., Chen, C., Wearn, O., Deith, M., Ball, J. G. C., ... & Luskin, M.

Landscape-scale benefits of protected areas for tropical biodiversity

Nature, 620, 807–812.

Cao, Y., Ball, J. G. C., Coomes, D. A., Steinmeier, L., Knapp, N., Wilkes, P., ... & Jackson, T. D.

Benchmarking airborne laser scanning tree segmentation algorithms in broadleaf forests shows high accuracy only for canopy trees

International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 123, 103490.

Vincent, G., Verley, P., Brede, B., Delaitre, G., Maurent, E., Ball, J. G. C., ... & Barbier, N.

Multi-sensor airborne lidar requires intercalibration for consistent estimation of light attenuation and plant area density

Remote Sensing of Environment, 286, 113442.

2022

Ball, J. G. C., Petrova, K., Coomes, D. A., & Flaxman, S.

Using deep convolutional neural networks to forecast spatial patterns of Amazonian deforestation

Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 13(11), 2622-2634.

2021

Aubry-Kientz, M., Laybros, A., Weinstein, B., Ball, J. G. C., Jackson, T., Coomes, D., & Vincent, G.

Multisensor data fusion for improved segmentation of individual tree crowns in dense tropical forests

IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 14, 3927-3936.

Ball, J. G. C., Burgman, M. A., Goldman, E. D., & Lessmann, J.

Protecting biodiversity and economic returns in resource-rich tropical forests

Conservation Biology, 35(1), 263-273.

2015

Ball, J. G. C., Reed, B. E., Grainger, R. G., Peters, D. M., Mather, T. A., & Pyle, D. M.

Measurements of the complex refractive index of volcanic ash at 450, 546.7, and 650 nm

Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 120(15), 7747-7757.

PhD Thesis

Understanding tropical forest dynamics through remote sensing and deep learning

Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge (2023)

Media

Nature

Unpicking the rhythms of the Amazon rainforest — Where I work: James Ball

(2021), Nature. 591, 494

Teaching & Supervision

Undergraduate supervision: Responses to Global Change, Natural Sciences Tripos, Part II, University of Cambridge.

James has given clear and helpful supervisions and essay feedback. He’s instilled a confidence in my essay writing I have never had and I can’t stress how much that has affected my confidence going into my final exams. I feel that I am as well prepared as I could be for not just PL2 but other essay modules as well. His feedback focuses not just on the particular essay question but on essay writing technique for the module in general which has allowed me to improve in my essay writing each week despite changing between lecture series. With James’ supervision I have found myself enjoying writing essays each week!
— Student nomination, Janet Moore Prize 2023

Supervision

2023

Improving urban tree management using high-resolution satellite data

Andrés Zuñiga Gonzalez

MRes (AI4ER, Department of Earth Sciences), University of Cambridge

2021

Analysing changes in tropical tall trees with machine learning, LiDAR, and RGB imagery

Sebastian Hickman

MRes (AI4ER, Department of Earth Sciences), University of Cambridge

2019

Forecasting deforestation using multispectral imagery time series via deep neural networks

Katerina Petrova

M4R (Department of Mathematics), Imperial College London

Prizes & Awards

2022

Research Day Poster Presenter Award

Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge

2019

NERC PhD Studentship

Natural Environment Research Council

2017

AECOM Prize

Outstanding overall academic performance, Imperial College London

Education

2019 – 2023

PhD in Plant Sciences (AI and Remote Sensing)

Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge

2016 – 2017

MSc in Environmental Technology

Imperial College London

2009 – 2014

MPhys Physics

University of Oxford

Consultancy

I am available for consultancy work related to mapping forests and trees through my company forestmap.ai. I apply advanced AI and computer vision techniques to remote sensing data for tropical forest tree detection and monitoring.

Get in touch