In late 2018, the new generation photon-counting lidar on ICESat-2 was launched by NASA, which provides unprecedentedly high density and accuracy points on Earth’s surface. The main science objectives for ICESat-2 focus on icesheet, sea-ice, and vegetation. The SARCCM team investigates the physical mechanism of this new generation lidar; proposes the signal processing and calibration/validation method of its data; and expands the data applications in coasts and inland water bodies (e.g., obtaining tidal flat topography and shallow water bathymetry, deriving vertical profiles of chlorophyll-a concentration in seawaters, and monitoring global water level and volume changes for water bodies). In last 5 years, SARCCM remote sensing team has published over 20 papers related to the photon-counting lidar in top journals including Remote Sensing of Environment, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Geophysical Research Letters, and Optics Express. Until now, 14 papers authored by A/Prof. Yue Ma, A/Prof. Nan Xu and Prof. Xiao Hua Wang have been listed on the NASA ICESat-2 publications website (https://icesat-2.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications). SARCCM team has the second most papers published on this topic, only next to the NASA ICESat-2 official team.