Forest: Sustainable Monitoring from Space
Forest Management: The advantages of Space
The UN’s FAO notes that over 4.7 million hectares of forests are lost every year with devastating impacts: decline in biodiversity, global warming, soil erosion, desertification, flooding and increase in zoonotic diseases.
What can we measure from space? The height of trees, their density, distribution, and surface area. All this information informs us about the state of the green cover of the Earth.
As a result of 30 years of close collaboration with forest managers, CLS experts locate, monitor and assess the evolution of forest cover at local, national and global scales in the context of national and international policies.
Our products & services
Forest assessment and dynamics
- Tree cover mapping & area estimates
- Forest loss (clear cuts, selective logging) & gains (natural regeneration, planting)
- Tree cover density & changes
- Forest composition (broadleaves, coniferous)
- Small patches of woody vegetation
- Trees outside forest
- Forest degradation & deforestation
- Afforestation & reforestation
- Historical & Near Real Time (NRT) canopy disturbance alert system based on time-series analysis
Forest disturbances
- Forest health monitoring
- Forest decline related to climate change (severe drought, insect outbreaks)
- Emergency mapping & damage assessment of windfalls, wildfires, and landslides
Other forest expert products
- 3D Canopy Height Model (CHM)
- Carbon sequestration, Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
- Biomass estimates
- Mature & old forests
- Ecological corridors, protected areas, natural habitats & biodiversity
- Trees in the city, parks & gardens
- Urban freshness islands
- Trees under agricultural use (orchards, vineyards)
- Mangroves
- Phenology studies
Over 200 projects/activations at CLS Land and Water Division over the 4 past years.
In more than 100 countries, Europe, Africa, Asia, America, Oceania.
High-tech and expert services
As a result of 30 years of close collaboration with forest managers, CLS experts have developed high-tech and expert services to locate, monitor and assess the evolution of forest cover at local, national and global scales in the context of national and international policies.
Decision-making support tools for forest management
- Geodatabases creation from local to global scales.
- EO data analysis (optical, radar, 3D) using state-of-the-art cutting-edge methods (machine & deep learning, Object Based Image Analysis).
- Opensource, automated, reproducible cloud-based processing chains of Big Data.
Communication tools
- Web Mapping Service / Web Feature Service (WFS).
- Customized user-friendly web platforms for geodata visualization & handling.
- Public awareness raising & citizen science.
Additional expertise and analysis
- R&D (Artificial Intelligence, Data Fusion, Data Cube).
- Dedicated CLS Datalab in Toulouse, France.
- Reliable QA/QC & statistical validation procedures.
- Technical and financial reporting (KPIs).
Project management
- Consultancy services fit to user’s needs.
- Capacity building, knowledge transfer.
- Training courses.
Project references
Copernicus Land Monitoring Services High Resolution Layers Forest & Small Woody Features, Evolution of Copernicus Land Services based on Sentinel data (ECOLASS) Forest, Global Monitoring for Environment and Security Forest Monitoring (GMES FM), Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD, REDDAF, REDD+), Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD) Forest Management, Bringing Earth Observation Services for Monitoring Dynamic Forest Disturbances to the Users (EOMonDIS), Spatial Observation of Tropical Forests (OSFACO), Capacity building and access to satellite data for forest monitoring in Central and West Africa (GEOFORAFRI), Artificial Intelligence for 2D & 3D Geospatial data (AI4GEO), EOCLINIC…