VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, established in 1942, is a visionary research, development and innovation partner for companies and society, and one of the leading research organisations in Europe. VTT provides a wide range of technology and applied research services for its clients, private companies, institutions and public sector. Originally a government organisation established by law, VTT became a not-for-profit, fully state-owned limited company in 2015. Its role is to promote the utilisation and commercialisation of research and technology in both business and society. VTT employs more than 2200 people, with its headquarters in Espoo, Finland. VTT has been active in spaceborne Earth observation since the early 1970s. The Remote Sensing team of VTT specialises in forestry-related research and applications, and also coordinates the Forestry Thematic Exploitation Platform F-TEP.

Terramonitor is a leading company in downstream applications using satellite-based data in Finland. Terramonitor has been working in the domains of forestry, urban development and electricity distribution applications since 2016. The team at Terramonitor leverages advanced AI technology to extract valuable insights from satellite imagery and blends innovation with expertise in remote sensing and machine learning to offer customised solutions. With expertise in the forestry sector, the company has developed scalable cloud-based systems on platforms like AWS (Amazon Web Services) and F-TEP to manage infrastructure processes. The company has successfully partnered with private companies, research institutes and public authorities, including ESA, and has extensive experience processing data for large geographical areas to support customer needs in the forestry domain.

Yucatrote is a small and medium-sized enterprise based in Portugal, established in 2021. It aims to assist private and public institutions and governments in improving the management of their environmental sectors. Yucatrote provides data-driven solutions for sustainable forest management, using advanced technologies and analytics to help forest owners and managers make informed decisions, optimise resources and preserve forest ecosystems. Yucatrote specialises in applying advanced computational methods to process-based forest growth models and large-scale simulations. These models allow Yucatrote to conduct analyses, with a particular emphasis on forest management, biodiversity, carbon sequestration and addressing the impacts of climate change.

The Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CzechGlobe) is a public research institute dedicated to comprehensive research on global climate change and its impacts on the atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems and human society. CzechGlobe employs over 300 people and has been involved in more than 280 national and international projects, including 13 projects for ESA. The institute manages networks of ecosystem research stations and experimental sites. It also develops early warning systems, including drought monitoring and forecasting, as well as forest fire and agronomic risk assessments. The research teams in the Departments of Remote Sensing and Xylogenesis and Biomass collaborate closely on the assessment of forest ecosystems in Czechia, combining field monitoring with remote sensing methods. The Department of Remote Sensing brings strong expertise in airborne remote sensing, integrating laser scanning with hyperspectral data.

GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences is Germany’s national research centre for Earth sciences, with a mission to deepen our understanding of the dynamics of the solid Earth and develop solutions to address major societal challenges. The section Remote Sensing and Geoinformation leads the scientific aspects of the German hyperspectral satellite mission, EnMAP. The Global Land Monitoring (GLM) group, within this section, specialises in the quantitative, physical and statistical retrieval of land surface parameters relevant to Earth system science. GLM makes use of global Earth Observation data streams, including space-borne lidar, as well as proximal sensing including terrestrial and UAV laser scanning.

The Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) is a research centre established in 1996 with the mission of contributing to the modernisation and competitiveness of the forest sector, promoting the economic and social development of rural areas, supporting climate change mitigation and encouraging the sustainable management of the environment. CTFC employs over 160 professionals and has established itself as a leading centre of expertise in the Mediterranean and southern European regions. The Multifunctional Forest Management programme of the institute conducts research on fire ecology, the ability of forest systems to adapt to and recover from natural disturbances and strategies for preventing large forest fires. The Landscape Dynamics and Biodiversity programme of the institute develops models to assess the occurrence and impact of fires on forested landscapes, as well as the associated economic and ecological processes. It also creates decision-support tools to optimise forest management and develop fire prevention plans aimed at reducing these impacts.

Related consortium projects

Key relevant projects coordinated by consortium members.

ARTISDIG pioneered the science behind creating a digital twin of the Earth’s forests, capturing their diversity, growth and productivity to enable the integration of boreal forest biodiversity into the Digital Twin Earth.
Forest Digital Twin Earth Precursor prototyped a digital twin of forests using state-of-the-art scientific knowledge and capabilities for the upcoming Destination Earth infrastructure.
Forestry Thematic Exploitation Platform (F-TEP) is an online processing platform for the forestry community, enabling efficient utilisation of satellite data in forest analysis tasks. Global satellite data and computation services are provided; users can upload and share their data and services.
Forest Carbon Monitoring developed a prototype of a reliable monitoring and accounting platform for forest carbon stock, which maximises the synergetic use of Earth observation data and responds to policy needs with direct added-value for operational and user organisations.
Forest Flux fostered the development of the Copernicus Earth Observation (EO) market and improve the profitability of forest management by implementing a world-first service of high-resolution maps of forest carbon fluxes, storage, and their development over time.
Forest4Society – establishing the Dendronet forest biomonitoring network and assessment of forest productive and regulation functions in the Czech Republic and Norway using EO-based methods.
FIRE-RES “Innovative Technologies and Socio-Ecological-Economic Solutions for FIRE RESilient Territories in Europe”. Is an international project that generates more holistic fire management approach and support the transition towards more resilient landscapes and communities to extreme wildfire events, through innovation actions.