Use case: cities and regions

Monitoring urban green spaces and tree health

Satellite images show where a city is green and how its vegetation changes through the year. Vegetation indices such as NDVI, computed from red and near-infrared light, measure greenness and help spot declining plant health across parks, streets and gardens. Single street trees need finer imagery, and a decline seen from space still needs a check on site.

Reference
UC-04
Technologies
  • Earth observation
Industry
Challenge
Land use and vegetation
Updated
Published by
LETO SPACE

01Technology

How it works

Vegetation indices compare how strongly a surface reflects red and near-infrared light. The difference shows how green an area is and how that changes over time.

The best-known index is the NDVI, calculated from the red and near-infrared bands. It quantifies vegetation greenness and helps to understand vegetation density and to assess changes in plant health Source: U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), accessed 6 October 2026U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)Landsat Normalized Difference Vegetation Indexaccessed 6 October 2026Open source (opens usgs.gov). Sentinel-2 provides free data for it: 13 spectral bands, four at 10 m and six at 20 m, including four red-edge bands for vegetation, with a revisit of five days with two satellites Source: European Space Agency (ESA), SentiWiki, accessed 6 October 2026European Space Agency (ESA), SentiWikiSentinel-2 missionaccessed 6 October 2026Open source (opens sentiwiki.copernicus.eu).

The Copernicus Land Monitoring Service turns these images into ready-made layers:

  • L1 Base mapTerrain, river and parcels
  • L2 Green spaceParks and trees
Illustrative map, not real data. Parks, avenues and green cover across a district, as a vegetation layer shows them.

Satellite positioning completes the picture on the ground: Earth observation and GNSS are used together to monitor vegetation cover and the health of green spaces and to position green infrastructure precisely Source: EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), 26 May 2026EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA)EU Space Market Report 2026, Issue 1: Urban development and cultural heritage26 May 2026Open source (opens euspa.europa.eu), for example in a tree inventory.

02Deliverables

What you get

Green space monitoring shows where to look and what has changed. The decision on each tree stays with your experts.

  • A green cover map of the whole city, by district or block, as a layer for your GIS.
  • Seasonal and yearly trends, which show where greenness drops earlier or stays lower than in previous years.
  • Change maps of green that has been lost or gained, for example after construction. Losses to sealing are covered in the use case on land use change.
  • A list of areas to inspect, where the signal suggests stress, to plan the work of your arborists.

03Limits

Limits

04Use cases

05Next steps

Find providers and get started

Providers offer tree inventories, canopy maps and vegetation monitoring as services. The Spacegraph marketplace has a category for vegetation and crop health.

Whether the free Copernicus layers are enough or you need a commercial service depends on the level of detail and how often you need an update. We help you answer that before you buy, starting from your green space goals.

Strategy and use cases

Frequently asked questions

Q1Which satellite data is used to monitor urban green, and how often is it updated?

Sentinel-2 provides free data for this: it records 13 spectral bands, four of them at 10 m, and passes over the same place every five days with two satellites Source: European Space Agency (ESA), SentiWiki, accessed 6 October 2026European Space Agency (ESA), SentiWikiSentinel-2 missionaccessed 6 October 2026Open source (opens sentiwiki.copernicus.eu). The Copernicus Land Monitoring Service derives vegetation products from it at 10 m that show green spaces and their seasonal changes Source: Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, accessed 6 October 2026Copernicus Land Monitoring ServiceHigh Resolution Phenology and Productivity data for urban greenaccessed 6 October 2026Open source (opens land.copernicus.eu). The Urban Atlas Street Tree Layer, built from very high resolution imagery, maps rows and patches of trees for selected reference years Source: Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, accessed 6 October 2026Copernicus Land Monitoring ServiceUrban Atlas Street Tree Layer 2021 (vector), Europe, 3-yearlyaccessed 6 October 2026Open source (opens land.copernicus.eu).

Q2Can satellite data show the health of a single tree?

Only with very high resolution imagery, and even then as a first signal. At 10 m, one Sentinel-2 pixel covers 100 square metres and usually mixes a tree crown with pavement or lawn. A drop in greenness can have several causes, so it points the arborists to the trees they should inspect first.

Q3How do we start a pilot for green space monitoring?

Start with the question your parks or environment department needs answered, for example where green cover is shrinking, which districts lack shade or which avenues show stress after a dry summer. Then check what your tree inventory already records and which satellite products add to it.

Sources (7)

  1. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), accessed 6 October 2026Landsat Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (opens usgs.gov)
  2. European Space Agency (ESA), SentiWiki, accessed 6 October 2026Sentinel-2 mission (opens sentiwiki.copernicus.eu)
  3. Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, accessed 6 October 2026High Resolution Phenology and Productivity data for urban green (opens land.copernicus.eu)
  4. Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, accessed 6 October 2026Urban Atlas Land Cover/Land Use and Street Tree Layer 2012 and 2018: Product User Manual (opens library.land.copernicus.eu)
  5. Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, accessed 6 October 2026Urban Atlas Street Tree Layer 2021 (vector), Europe, 3-yearly (opens land.copernicus.eu)
  6. EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), 26 May 2026EU Space Market Report 2026, Issue 1: Urban development and cultural heritage (opens euspa.europa.eu)
  7. UN-SPIDER (United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs), accessed 6 October 2026Recommended Practice: Flood Mapping with Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Imagery and Digital Terrain Models (opens un-spider.org)

Contact

What does your city want to know about its green spaces? Tell us which decision the answer feeds.

Prefer to talk?

Tell one of our experts about your project. Together we work out where you stand, whether satellite data and AI can help and what a sensible next step would be.

Both calls are free of charge and take place online. You choose a date in our booking calendar.