SEEDS | ESA Space Solutions

Objectives of the service

SEEDS products enable small forest owners and power transmission vegetation managers to streamline tree monitoring and management. Simply. Cost effectively.

Our products enable customers to save time and money defining targeted management plans using highly accurate inventory insights including species, location, size, volume and value. They respond quickly and cost-effectively to disturbance events like pest, disease, fire, weather and tree fall.

Users and their needs

FOREST & WOODLANDS

Forest asset valuation, typically done on foot by forest, woodland and estate managers, is costly and limited in scale.
Often a basic inventory is beyond the resources of some. In addition, fire, disturbance and health events in mid-forest locations can be invisible to the grower, causing significant losses.

SEEDS Inventory provides a ready assessment of the composition of any woodland, enabling small-scale foresters to quickly develop management plans, determine potential economic value, save time and money.

SEEDS Canopy enables forest managers and small holding operators to respond to events in season quickly and cost-effectively by targeting ground resources in the right place at the right time.

ELECTRICITY TRANSMISSION

Vegetation and asset managers in power transmission companies rely on ‘boots in the ground’ inspections between infrequent helicopter surveys. In addition, tree canopy deterioration presents risk of tree-related incidents and outages. These are often monitored on foot which is costly and time consuming.

SEEDS Vegetation Inventory provides a ready assessment of the tree canopy composition within and adjacent to the powerline corridor. This enables cost and time savings by quickly defining targeted maintenance and treatment plans.

SEEDS Canopy enables vegetation managers to identify vital canopy changes, respond quickly and cost effectively to events with targeted activity.

Service/ system concept

The SEEDS pilot system consists of the following elements:

The SEEDS Data Centre will draw upon data from satellite operators and weather forecast providers to collate the raw information required to support the service.
Data will be made accessible to users through the SEEDS platform, which will be an upgrade to Rezatec’s existing platform.
- Users will be able to assign areas for on-site inspection and/or remedial work by operatives/contractors in the field
- Users working in the field can access data online that will guide workers to sites of interest and enable them to record interventions made
- Completed work can be reported to Asset Manager
- Weather data will provide additional context and alerts for extreme weather events
- Asset managers may request more detailed assessments on an ad-hoc basis
Automatic and regular data upload to the SEEDS platform will be in place.

Space Added Value

For the Forestry product:

SAR data from Sentinel-1 and optical imagery from Sentinel-2 is combined with ground calibration data to model forest species and inventory (timber volume) parameters using machine learning.
Sentinel-2 data is used to identify tree canopy loss associated with fires and physiological consequences of plant diseases or insect infestation.

For the Electricity Transmission product:

Sentinel-2 data is used to map woodland land cover and its changing spatial extents. Sentinel 2 is supplemented with daily observations from PlanetScope imagery to achieve cloud-free coverage at regular monthly intervals. As a Planet partner, Rezatec benefits from substantial pricing benefits to ensure this component is not cost prohibitive.