Forests around the world are the habitat for most species of amphibians, birds, and mammals. They are also home to 300 million people and provide a livelihood for an additional 1.6 billion people. The benefits of this ecosystem, including water regulation, erosion control, and carbon storage, amount to over 100 trillion euros per year, more than the entire global GDP.
Although forests are very resilient to long-term changes in environmental conditions, they are vulnerable to sudden changes such as insect infestations, wildfires, and windthrow (uprooting of trees by the wind). These risks are exacerbated by climate change: insects reproduce more frequently, there is more dry fuel for wildfires, and the frequency and severity of major storms are increasing. As a result, countless habitats are lost, and the amount of CO2 sequestered annually decreases by over 4850 million tons.
However, risks can be mitigated and economic and ecological damage reduced through timely and appropriate action. SWIFTT will provide forest managers with affordable, simple, and effective remote sensing tools supported by powerful machine learning models. Our solution will offer a holistic health monitoring service that utilizes Copernicus satellite images to detect and map the various risks that forests and their managers face.
