Tree emergency service: Prato manages to save its trees thanks to ESA satellites
This small Tuscan town is the first to carry out satellite monitoring of its trees (37,766): it checks their health every five days
Key points
A decisive step towards the future to tackle climate change in a practical way. Prato is the first town in Italia to monitor its trees every five days using satellite remote sensing data. This innovation currently covers the 37,766 public trees in the town. Each tree is treated as an individual, and by analysing satellite data, it is possible to monitor its state of health. The benefit is enormous, particularly in terms of timeliness: this data provides a comprehensive overview long before the human eye can detect any problems.
How the system works and why it is unique
Since March 2025, Prato has been using multispectral remote sensing to monitor its trees. Every five days, the Sentinel-2 satellites of the European Space Agency (ESA) fly over Prato and capture images across 13 spectral bands: from ultraviolet to mid-infrared. Using these images, the TreeSos platform – developed by SuperAlberi – extracts two key indices for each individual tree: NDVI, which measures the photosynthetic capacity of the canopy, and NDMI, which detects its water content. Monitoring is therefore continuous and non-invasive.
Over recent months, the mayor of Prato, Matteo Biffoni, and the councillors Cristina Sanzò (responsible for public green spaces) and Maria Rita Cecchini (responsible for afforestation) have been reaping the first rewards of their work. In Italia, another local authority that has explored this technology is Udine, but in this case the monitoring was a one-off exercise: a snapshot of the tree population was taken at a specific point in time, but without integrating it into a routine management system.
Monitoring critical issues
As Biffoni observes, cities need to ‘undertake an urban reconfiguration: it is now clear that the approach adopted in recent years needs to be radically changed. Whilst, on the one hand, the expansion of green spaces and the planting of new trees represent a primary objective for local authorities, on the other hand it is essential to protect the existing plant heritage. Every plant must be carefully monitored throughout its entire life cycle: from planting to growth, right through to any eventual replacement. With this in mind, the use of advanced technologies such as satellite systems proves to be crucial’.
Biffoni explains that the tool ‘ensures constant and accurate monitoring of the health of urban green spaces, enabling the prompt identification of any issues in real time. Furthermore, it enables the optimisation of resources and the work of on-the-ground staff — whose numbers are naturally limited within a local authority — by prioritising their deployment where the need is greatest’. “At a time when there is increasing talk of proactive local policies and improving the quality of life in urban environments,” asserts the mayor of Prato, “we are taking a concrete step in this direction by investing resources.”
