GEDICorrect: A scalable python tool for orbit-, beam-, and footprint-level GEDI geolocation correction

Accurate geolocation is essential for reliable use of Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) LiDAR data in footprint-scale applications such as biomass modeling, data fusion, and ecosystem monitoring. Residual geolocation errors from systematic biases and random ISS-induced jitter can degrade vegetation and terrain metrics accuracy. This study presents GEDICorrect, an open-source Python framework for correcting GEDI geolocation at orbit, beam, and footprint levels supporting multiple matching approaches, including waveform matching, terrain matching, and relative height (RH) profile matching, although the experiments presented here focus on waveform matching. The framework integrates key components of gediSimulator ( gediRat and gediMetrics ) and extends them with flexible correction logic, multiple similarity metrics, footprint clustering, and parallelized processing. We applied GEDICorrect to a heterogeneous Mediterranean woodland in Portugal to assess accuracy and computational performance. Using Kullback-Leibler divergence for waveform similarity, GEDICorrect improved canopy height (RH95) accuracy from R 2 = 0.61 (uncorrected) to 0.75 with orbit-level correction and to 0.78 with footprint-level correction. RMSE decreased from 2.59 m (rRMSE = 42.83%) to 2.10 m (34.62%) and 1.97 m (32.54%), respectively. Terrain elevation RMSE was reduced by 0.26 m relative to uncorrected data and by 0.09 m compared to the gediSimulator baseline. GEDICorrect also enabled evaluation of pointing accuracy improvements implemented since July 2024, providing timely insights for the growing GEDI user community. Computationally, it achieved ∼2.4x speedup over gediSimulator in single-process mode and scaled to 24 cores, reducing runtime to ∼4.3 h (∼19.5x improvement) while delivering multilevel offset corrections. GEDICorrect provides a robust, scalable framework for improving GEDI geolocation accuracy enabling functionalities not available in existing tools.