Gold Open Access
Green Open AccessThe contribution of remote sensing for the development of a Green-Holistic IoT Platform for Forest Management and Monitoring: Reforestation and Deforestation Modules
Journal
International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences - ISPRS Archives
Date Issued
July 31, 2025
Abstract
The Green-HIT project focuses on effective and efficient forest monitoring and management, which holds the promise for climate
change mitigation, ecosystem conservation, and biodiversity loss reduction. This project is funded by the Cyprus Research &
Innovation Foundation (CODEVELOP-GT/0322) and is currently being implemented in Cyprus. Cyprus is located in the Eastern
Mediterranean, an area frequently affected by various incidents that impact the preservation of forests (for example, forest fires, illegal
logging, hunting, trespassing, and other activities that are damaging to biodiversity), especially during the summer season. Specifically
for forest fires, several factors contribute to the increased risk of fire, such as prolonged drought, hot summers, strong winds, steep
forest slopes, and flammable vegetation. Early warning and direct management facilities are paramount to efficiently tackling such
disastrous events. To this end, the Green-HIT project aims to develop a holistic IoT platform for supporting productivity,
competitiveness, and growth of the economy and the promotion of digital and green technology via forest management and monitoring
in a post-pandemic world by (a) offering support for prevention, detection and reaction to forest fires, (b) providing afforestation and/or
reforestation recommendations, (c) protecting forests from illegal logging and hunting, (d) monitoring forests and forest areas, and (e)
offering forest mapping and inventory facilities by collecting, combining and analyzing field and remotely sensed data. This study will
present the deforestation and reforestation module of the Green-HIT platform, which aims to identify and suggest (to relevant
authorities), possible areas for reforestation. This module was developed using remote sensing data. Specifically, a change detection
technique using the Euclidean distance was used for the identification of deforested areas achieving an Overal Accuracy equal to 67.7
%. Also, for the reforestation module, a multicriteria analysis was applied using several parameters like dNBR, land cover, fire history,
soil erosion, etc., using the Google Earth Engine platform. For the purposes of this study, the Argaka fire event was selected to evaluate
the accuracy of the developed model.
change mitigation, ecosystem conservation, and biodiversity loss reduction. This project is funded by the Cyprus Research &
Innovation Foundation (CODEVELOP-GT/0322) and is currently being implemented in Cyprus. Cyprus is located in the Eastern
Mediterranean, an area frequently affected by various incidents that impact the preservation of forests (for example, forest fires, illegal
logging, hunting, trespassing, and other activities that are damaging to biodiversity), especially during the summer season. Specifically
for forest fires, several factors contribute to the increased risk of fire, such as prolonged drought, hot summers, strong winds, steep
forest slopes, and flammable vegetation. Early warning and direct management facilities are paramount to efficiently tackling such
disastrous events. To this end, the Green-HIT project aims to develop a holistic IoT platform for supporting productivity,
competitiveness, and growth of the economy and the promotion of digital and green technology via forest management and monitoring
in a post-pandemic world by (a) offering support for prevention, detection and reaction to forest fires, (b) providing afforestation and/or
reforestation recommendations, (c) protecting forests from illegal logging and hunting, (d) monitoring forests and forest areas, and (e)
offering forest mapping and inventory facilities by collecting, combining and analyzing field and remotely sensed data. This study will
present the deforestation and reforestation module of the Green-HIT platform, which aims to identify and suggest (to relevant
authorities), possible areas for reforestation. This module was developed using remote sensing data. Specifically, a change detection
technique using the Euclidean distance was used for the identification of deforested areas achieving an Overal Accuracy equal to 67.7
%. Also, for the reforestation module, a multicriteria analysis was applied using several parameters like dNBR, land cover, fire history,
soil erosion, etc., using the Google Earth Engine platform. For the purposes of this study, the Argaka fire event was selected to evaluate
the accuracy of the developed model.
Funding
This work is part of the “CO-DEVELOP-ICT-HEALTH” Project
with title acronym Green-HIT and project number
CODEVELOP-ICT-HEALTH/0322/0135. The Project GreenHIT is implemented under the Recovery and Resilience Plan with
funding by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.
The authors would also like to thank the Forest Department of
the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and
Environment of the Republic of Cyprus for the provision of the
in situ data. The authors also acknowledge “EXCELSIOR”:
The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLVIII-G-2025
ISPRS Geospatial Week 2025 “Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing for a Better Tomorrow…”, 6–11 April 2025, Dubai, UAE
This contribution has been peer-reviewed.
https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-G-2025-1215-2025 | © Author(s) 2025. CC BY 4.0 License. 1220
ERATOSTHENES: Excellence Research Centre for Earth
Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment
H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu).
The “EXCELSIOR” project has received funding from the
European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under Grant Agreement No. 857510, from the
Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate
General for the European Programmes, Coordination and
Development, and from the Cyprus University of Technology
with title acronym Green-HIT and project number
CODEVELOP-ICT-HEALTH/0322/0135. The Project GreenHIT is implemented under the Recovery and Resilience Plan with
funding by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.
The authors would also like to thank the Forest Department of
the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and
Environment of the Republic of Cyprus for the provision of the
in situ data. The authors also acknowledge “EXCELSIOR”:
The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLVIII-G-2025
ISPRS Geospatial Week 2025 “Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing for a Better Tomorrow…”, 6–11 April 2025, Dubai, UAE
This contribution has been peer-reviewed.
https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-G-2025-1215-2025 | © Author(s) 2025. CC BY 4.0 License. 1220
ERATOSTHENES: Excellence Research Centre for Earth
Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment
H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu).
The “EXCELSIOR” project has received funding from the
European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under Grant Agreement No. 857510, from the
Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate
General for the European Programmes, Coordination and
Development, and from the Cyprus University of Technology
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Scopus Subject Areas
Information Systems
•
Geography, Planning and Development