Image Credit: ESA/ENVISAT – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
Trees as Natural Capital
Understanding trees in the environment is key to unlocking their potential as a successful nature-based solution to climate change
Trees have a multitude of benefits including reducing the impact of climate change through carbon capture, preventing floods through water uptake, cooling the air in overheating cities, trapping particulates from combustion, and providing recreation and wellbeing.
These are known as Ecosystem Services - the services we would have to find (and pay for) elsewhere if they were not provided.
Trees and Climate Change
Our trees are a vulnerable asset that needs protection
Globally, climate change will have a profound effect on the Earth's plants. In the UK, we expect more unstable weather, hotter summers and warmer winters
This affects the trees we rely on, both to reduce the effects of climate change and to continue providing vital services to humans and the wider environment.
Image Credit: ESA/Sentinel-3 – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
An Integrated Solution
The TreeView mission will provide timely information to the people who need it
When tree health begins to decline, early intervention can extend the life and manage risk. Current monitoring is, however, costly. The TreeView mission will use satellite imagery and tree health models to produce tree condition data, suitable for many different applications.
We believe our system is complimentary to manual tree assessment and other emerging technologies for tree health monitoring. For this reason, integration with tree inventory management systems is a core principal of our mission. We are actively working with partners across the sector to ensure we meet industry needs.
About the mission
We found there was an opportunity for tree monitoring to happen at a scale only possible from a space platform. At the core of our mission is a need for high repeat-rate, multispectral imagery for tracking small colour changes in individual tree canopies. Our new imager has been designed specifically for studying plants and provides the inputs into models that allow us to predict tree condition.
We have completed a feasibility study and first implementation phase with grant funding under UK Space Agency's National Space Innovation Programme. The next steps of our mission will be announced shortly.
Project Partners
Our consortium is a unique mix of tree scientists, remote sensing specialists and space system engineers.
