OBSERVER: How the EU Space Programme supports healthy forests
sonia
Thu, 31/07/2025 – 11:30
Forests are an important natural resource. They are home to 60,000 tree species worldwide, absorb carbon dioxide, and help regulate both local and global temperatures. They also sustain millions of people who rely on them for food, medicine, and materials such as wood and rubber. Yet, these ecosystems are under threat. Since the last ice age ended 10,000 years ago, the world has lost a third of its forests. Two billion hectares, almost 5 times the area of the European Union, have been cleared for crops, livestock, and fuelwood.
From above, satellites provide a unique perspective, allowing us to monitor forests more closely and strengthen efforts to protect them. In this week’s Observer, we explore how the EU Space Programme delivers crucial data to safeguard these important ecosystems.
The role of Copernicus
The Copernicus satellite missions, particularly Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2, provide detailed Earth Observation data which is valuable for forest monitoring. Sentinel-1’s radar data is used to produce imagery which can detect changes on land even through persistent cloud cover, making it particularly useful for monitoring tropical forests such as the Amazon. Meanwhile, optical data from Sentinel-2 helps identify tree loss, burned areas, and vegetation health.
Global and European forest monitoring with CLMS
Copernicus Land Monitoring Service has one of the world’s most extensive portfolios of high-quality, open-access land cover and land use datasets. These products fall into two main categories: global and European.
Within the global component, a key product is the 100m Dynamic Land Cover, which provides annually updated global land cover maps at 100m spatial resolution. With over 20 land cover categories, it serves as a versatile tool for applications, such as forest monitoring, and even greater capabilities on the horizon. Later in 2025, the current 100 m resolution global land cover product will be succeeded by a new 10 m resolution product, delivered under the Copernicus Global Land Cover and Tropical Forest Mapping and Monitoring (LCFM) service. Building on the legacy of the 100 m product, LCFM will bring global land cover monitoring to a new level of detail and timeliness. Using Sentinel-2 imagery, the new service will deliver high-resolution land cover maps and forest metrics, including tree cover density and change detection layers. Annual updates began in June 2025 for reference year 2020 and beyond, with monthly updates foreseen from 2026 onwards, enabling near real-time tracking of land surface dynamics at 10 m resolution.
At the European scale, CLMS provides 10 products with detailed information on forests and tree cover. One of these, the Tree Cover Density product, provides the percentage of tree cover in a given area, helping land managers monitor forest density over time and detect deforestation events. For more detailed information on CLMS products and their role in global forest monitoring, refer to an earlier edition of The Observer, in which we explored this subject in detail.
Supporting forest management and health with C3S and CAMS
Beyond land monitoring, other Copernicus services also support forest management. For example, datasets from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) support forestry operations by providing insights into seasonal conditions. In one use case, the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) collaborated with forestry industry partners to develop an application using C3S seasonal forecasts. This tool combines meteorological and hydrological parameters to provide a probability distribution of soil conditions to determine whether terrain is suitable for vehicle access, helping in the planning of activities such as sustainable harvesting and other forest management activities.
The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) also supports the monitoring of forest health. Air pollution affects many ecosystems, including forests. High ozone levels can damage stomata, the small openings on the surface of leaves which allow trees to ‘breathe’ by taking in gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide, which is an important part of tree metabolism, as it allows them to break down sugars produced during photosynthesis to release energy needed for growth and development.
CAMS delivers quality-assured global and European datasets on atmospheric pollutants, emissions, and deposition fluxes. Forest managers rely on this data to evaluate ecosystem health, as seen in the State of Europe’s Forests 2020 report, which used CAMS air pollution data to assess threats to the health of European forests.
The case of wildfires
Massive wildfires pose a significant threat to European forests, causing extensive ecological and economic damage. While small, low-intensity fires or controlled burns benefit ecosystems by reducing insect infestations and disease, frequent high-intensity, large-scale fires degrade air and water quality, biodiversity, and soil stability.
For instance, in 2024, one massive wildfire on Madeira Island in Portugal was dangerously close to destroying the Laurissilva of Madeira, the largest surviving laurel forest, which is on UNESCO’s world heritage list.
The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) supports efforts to manage wildfires through the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). This platform provides up-to-date, reliable wildfire data to authorised users including national civil protection authorities, emergency services, and EU institutions and agencies. Among its key features is the Current Situation Viewer, an interactive map displaying fire danger levels across Europe and the Mediterranean. It includes fire danger maps as well as forecasts up to six days in advance.
Navigation and healthy forests
Other components of the EU Space Programme, including Galileo and EGNOS (the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service), play an important role in forest monitoring and management. Precise navigational data supports a range of forestry tasks, from tracking timber movements to conducting forest inventories.
For example, accurate positioning improves forest inventories, which are crucial for assessing resources and planning conservation efforts. In Italy, the National Forest Inventory used EGNOS to improve survey accuracy, allowing field crews to collect reliable data even in difficult terrain. This improved positioning supports better decision-making for forest protection and sustainable management.
Forests are in urgent need of better protection, and space-based technology is proving to be essential in this effort. By providing accurate and timely data, the EU Space Programme is helping us to monitor, manage, and protect these important ecosystems.
Thu, 31/07/2025 – 12:00