/
Nature/
Specialized fields/
Forest condition and changeForests, measured from the stem to the satellite.
Forests are stressed by drought, heat, pests and fire, and lost to clearing. Satellites show where canopy changes; ground plots show why. Stem growth, soil moisture, microclimate and canopy cameras, joined with satellite detection, give owners, agencies and buyers evidence of forest condition and change.
Plan a deploymentHow it worksStation Builder- Industry
- Nature
- Measurements
- 5
- Sources cited
- 5
Nature · Forest condition and change
Stress, pests and loss
Forests are stressed by drought and heat, attacked by pests and lost to clearing, and supply chains must now prove products are deforestation-free. Satellites show where the canopy changes; ground plots show why and confirm what happened. Together they give evidence owners, agencies and buyers can rely on.
What is measured
From the stem to the canopy
Dendrometers on sample trees record stem growth and daily shrinking under water stress. Soil probes record moisture and temperature, weather sensors record the microclimate under and above the canopy, and a camera above the canopy records its colour and condition every day.
- Instruments
- Dendrometers · Soil probes · Microclimate sensors · Canopy camera
The base node
Stress before death
The node computes daily growth and water stress from the dendrometers, flags trees that stop growing in a drought, detects canopy browning in images and checks every satellite change alert against its plots, so stress is seen before trees die and clearing is confirmed on the ground.
Radio and links
Under the canopy, out over the trees
Plots under the canopy reach a gateway on a tower over a long-range, low-power link. Where coverage reaches the tower, cellular carries data and images; remote forests send them by satellite. Plot sensors run on batteries for years, so visits follow the remeasurement schedule.
- Links
- LoRaWAN · Public cellular · Satellite
How it works
From a shrinking stem to a pest alert
In a dry summer, dendrometers in one stand show stems shrinking and growth stopping, and the canopy camera shows browning. The node flags the stand, the forester finds a beetle outbreak in its first weeks, and infested trees are removed before it spreads.
From order to operation · Order
Scope the forest and its duties
The scope reads the forests, the owner’s or agency’s reporting duties, deforestation-free supply chain needs, pests and drought history and existing plots. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns a plot and tower plan, the satellite link, and a price per site and per year.
Plan a deploymentFrom order to operation · Survey
Survey plots and towers
Crews and foresters walk candidate plots by forest type, select sample trees, find tower sites with views over the canopy and gateway coverage, and record everything with coordinates and photographs following the harmonised plot methods. Findings shape the kit for each site before anything is built.
From order to operation · Permits
Owners and protected areas
Forest owners and, in protected forests, conservation authorities approve plots and towers. Tower building follows local rules, and work avoids nesting seasons. Every approval is kept with the site record. No crew goes to site before its approvals are in place.
From order to operation · Build
Build and test
Dendrometers, soil probes and weather sensors are tested, radios paired, the gateway, camera and node configured and enrolled with their identities, and the whole site runs together before shipping. Kits are labelled for each plot. Nothing ships until the whole kit has passed its tests together.
Open the Station BuilderFrom order to operation · Install
Install in the plots
Crews fit dendrometers to sample trees, bury soil profiles, set weather sensors, raise the tower with its camera and gateway, and install solar power and backhaul. Every tree and sensor is tagged and photographed. Crews follow the site safety plan throughout the work.
From order to operation · Commission
Commission against manual measures
Each node proves its identity. Dendrometers are checked against tape measures, soil probes against samples, weather against a reference and canopy images against a field assessment. The site enters service when checks pass. Acceptance is recorded with the owner before handover.
From order to operation · Operate
Watch condition and change
Owners and agencies see growth, stress, microclimate and canopy condition in every plot, with satellite change alerts checked on the ground. Drought stress and pest outbreaks are seen early, and clearing is confirmed with evidence. Every alert and action is kept on the record.
From order to operation · Maintain
Remeasure and recalibrate
Plots are remeasured on the harmonised schedule, dendrometers moved as trees grow, sensors cleaned and replaced, and software updates roll out in rings. Every change is kept with the plot record. Maintenance history stays with each site for its whole life.
Book field servicesData products
For owners, agencies and supply chains
Forest owners and managers receive drought and pest stress alerts; agencies and supply chain teams receive forest change confirmed on the ground; national forest inventories receive plot condition records; remote sensing teams receive ground truth for satellite products, each tied to plot and date.
See the data productsEvidence
Harmonised plots, global reporting
Plots follow the international forest monitoring manual, forest area and change support the global forest resources assessment, and ground evidence supports due diligence under the deforestation-free products regulation. Every measurement keeps its plot, tree and calibration record, so satellite products can be checked against it.
- Drawn against
- ICP Forests Manual · Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 · Regulation (EU) 2023/1115
What you get
Biodiversity and habitat monitoring
Acoustic sensors, camera traps that exclude people, eDNA sampling logistics and EO habitat change for nature programmes and disclosures. Delivered as managed service and data licence, for conservation programmes, corporates, lenders, agencies. Scale: Landscape scale. Service levels are written as numbers you can measure on your own dashboard.
Talk to salesNext step
Plan forest condition and change with us
Tell us the site, the measurements and the rules it answers to. We reply with a survey proposal, a design and a scope for forest condition and change. An engineer replies with a survey proposal and a scope, and the plan grows from one site to the network you need, at your pace.
Plan a deploymentOpen the Station BuilderOpen the Studio
01The place and its hazards
Where it runs, and what can go wrong.
Operating contextForest condition is monitored on harmonised plots under the international forest monitoring programme manual, countries report forest area and change in the global forest resources assessment, and traders must now prove that products are deforestation-free. Ground plots calibrate the satellite products these duties rely on.
Hazards
- Drought and heat stress killing trees across regions
- Bark beetle and other pest outbreaks
- Illegal clearing that satellites see too late
- Plots measured once every few years
- Satellite products with no ground truth
02What must be measured
What, where, how often, and under which rules.
Each measurement names where it is taken, how often, and the public standard or regulation behind it. Numbers in the sources column open the cited source below.
| Measurement | Where | Cadence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stem growth and water stress | Dendrometers on sample trees in monitoring plots | Every fifteen minutes | 1 |
| Soil moisture and temperature | Profiles in each plot | Every fifteen minutes | 12 |
| Microclimate under and above the canopy | Weather sensors in the plot and on a tower | Every few minutes | 13 |
| Canopy condition and phenology | Cameras above the canopy | Daily images | 1 |
| Forest area change | Satellite detection checked against plots | Weekly and annually | 45 |
03The observation stack
From one base unit to a network.
The same blocks at every scale: instruments and a base node, a site with its radio, a fleet run as one, and a network federated on the open protocol.
- 01
Base unit
A plot: dendrometers, soil probes and a weather sensor on a low-power radio.
Build a station → - 02
Site
A site: plots across a forest, a tower with a canopy camera and gateway, a node and solar power.
Plan a site → - 03
Fleet
Every monitored forest of an owner or agency on one view, joined with satellite change detection.
Managed offers → - 04
Network
Owners, agencies and buyers exchange forest condition and change records through open standards.
The open protocol →
- 01Compact weather station
- 02Soil probe
- 03Fixed camera
- 04LPWAN endpoint
- 05LoRaWAN gateway
- 06Edge node (Wedge)
- 07Cellular modem/router
- 08LEO flat-panel terminal
- 09Solar array
- 10Lattice tower
Radio and links
LoRaWAN
Plots under the canopy reach a gateway on a tower over a long-range, low-power link.
Radio and links
Public cellular
Where coverage reaches the tower, cellular carries data and images.
Radio and links
Satellite
Remote forests send data by satellite.
Edge computeThe node computes daily growth and water stress from the dendrometers, flags trees that stop growing in a drought, detects canopy browning in images and checks satellite change alerts against its plots.
PowerPlot sensors run on batteries for years; the tower runs on solar with batteries sized for the dark season under clouds.
04How it works
From the instrument to the product.
One observation’s path, tier by tier, with the interface on every link and a bill of materials below; then how the one node grows to a site, a fleet and federated networks.
Forest condition and change: data path
– of 08
01 Instruments Measurement with sensor identity andcalibration 02 Field radio 03 Gateway 04 Node – Wrap in an observation envelope with timequality– Measure quality and uncertainty, attachquality flags– Buffer locally (store-and-forward when thelink drops) 05 Backhaul Commit with transactional outbox andpublish, delivered at least once 06 Site Consumer inbox deduplicates and applieseach record once into governed data 07 Data store Governed product through API, map orexport, correction-aware 08 Products OGC SensorThings APIGeoJSONSTAC 09 Power and structure Supplies 12 V DC, 24 V DC, 48 V DC to thefield equipment 01 Compact weather station SDI-12 · RS-485 · Ethernet 02 Soil probe SDI-12 · RS-485 · Ethernet 03 Fixed camera Ethernet 04 LPWAN endpoint Analogue I/O · SDI-12 · RS-485 05 LoRaWAN gateway Ethernet · RF · GNSS antenna 06 Edge node (Wedge) Ethernet · Fibre · USB · RS-485 ·BMC 07 Cellular modem/router Ethernet · USB · RS-232 08 LEO flat-panel terminal Ethernet Site MQTT 5 with Sparkplug B Governed data store Versioned, correction-aware Drought and pest stress alerts Forest area change confirmed on theground Plot condition records Ground truth for satellite products 09 Solar array RS-485 10 Lattice tower SDI-12 SDI-12 Ethernet · RTSP/ONVIF LoRaWAN Ethernet Ethernet Ethernet LTE/NR Satellite IP| Item | Equipment | Data ports | Protocols | Power in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Compact weather stationAll-in-one or compact station for temperature, humidity, pressure, wind and rain at a site. | SDI-12RS-485Ethernet | SDI-12, Modbus, MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 02 | Soil probeProbe for volumetric soil moisture, temperature and conductivity at one or more depths. | SDI-12RS-485Ethernet | SDI-12, Modbus, MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 03 | Fixed cameraFixed visible-light camera for site security, scene monitoring and machine vision. | Ethernet | RTSP with ONVIF profiles, MQTT 5 | PoE |
| 04 | LPWAN endpointBattery-powered endpoint on LoRaWAN, NB-IoT or LTE-M that carries one or more sensors. | Analogue I/OSDI-12RS-485 | LoRaWAN, OMA LwM2M, CoAP | Internal battery, Energy harvesting |
| 05 | LoRaWAN gatewayMulti-channel LoRaWAN gateway that forwards uplinks to a network server and schedules downlinks within duty limits. | EthernetRFGNSS antenna | LoRaWAN, MQTT 5 | PoE, 12 V DC |
| 06 | Edge node (Wedge)Rugged edge node that boots from signed media, attests itself and establishes a site cell from little or no infrastructure. | EthernetFibreUSBRS-485BMC | MQTT 5, DMTF Redfish, IEEE 1588 PTP, NTP with NTS, OPC UA | 12 V DC, 24 V DC, 48 V DC, AC mains |
| 07 | Cellular modem/routerLTE or NR modem or router that uses a public carrier or private network as backhaul. | EthernetUSBRS-232 | 3GPP E-UTRA air interface, 3GPP NR air interface, OMA LwM2M | 12 V DC, PoE |
| 08 | LEO flat-panel terminalElectronically steered flat-panel user terminal for low-Earth-orbit broadband constellations. | Ethernet | — | PoE, 48 V DC, AC mains |
| 09 | Solar arrayPV modules with charge controller sized to the site’s load and climate. | RS-485 | Modbus | — |
| 10 | Lattice towerSelf-supporting or guyed lattice tower for macro radios, links and instruments. | — | — | — |
How it scales
01 Instruments Arbitrary qualified sensors and instruments whosemeasurements are ingested with calibration, units,geometry, time, custody and uncertainty. ×n 02 Node The minimum useful deployable unit: server, ruggedappliance, radio node, sensor gateway, satelliteterminal, AI, scientific, vehicle or virtual node. Node Node agent 03 Site The minimum independently operable localgovernance and failure domain: one or more nodesplus local network, identity, policy, evidence,storage, products and operator surfaces.SITE
Node Node Node ×n 04 Cluster An optional scale or specialisation domain forscheduling, shared storage, accelerators or datalocality.CLUSTER
×n 05 Fleet Coordinates plans, acknowledgements,convergence evidence, update campaigns andcorrection propagation across nodes and sites.FLEET
Fleet controller ×n 06 Federation An exchange of products, capabilities, events orwork across approved, independently administeredtrust domains, using explicit trust, policy,data-locality, version and correction contracts.TRUST DOMAIN
TRUST DOMAIN
TRUST DOMAIN
×n Verifier Applications Data in the field Telemetry Control Data upstream Control Data upstream Control Exchange Evidence Events Exchange- Data in the field
- MQTT 5 with Sparkplug B; connectors for LoRaWAN, OPC UA and instrument buses.
- Telemetry
- OpenTelemetry OTLP.
- Control
- TLS 1.3 with mutual authentication; protobuf messages over gRPC or HTTP/2.
- Data upstream
- At-least-once publication with repeat-safe keys over the control channel or NATS JetStream; QUIC MAY be used on lossy links.
- Evidence
- DSSE-signed in-toto statements; SLSA provenance; SCITT transparency receipts.
- Events
- Event envelopes mapped to CloudEvents 1.0; channels described in AsyncAPI 3.
- Exchange
- OpenAPI 3.1; the OGC API family; SensorThings; STAC; WIS 2.0.
05From order to operation
Every step, from the first call to a running site.
The same crew and the same record carry the work from scope to maintenance.
- 01 Order
Scope the forest and its duties
The scope reads the forests, the owner’s or agency’s reporting duties, deforestation-free supply chain needs, pests and drought history and existing plots. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns a plot and tower plan, the satellite link, and a price per site and per year. 54
- 02 Survey
Survey plots and towers
Crews and foresters walk candidate plots by forest type, select sample trees, find tower sites with views over the canopy and gateway coverage, and record everything with coordinates and photographs following the harmonised plot methods. Findings shape the kit for each site before anything is built. 1
- 03 Permits
Owners and protected areas
Forest owners and, in protected forests, conservation authorities approve plots and towers. Tower building follows local rules, and work avoids nesting seasons. Every approval is kept with the site record. No crew goes to site before its approvals are in place.
- 04 Build
Build and test
Dendrometers, soil probes and weather sensors are tested, radios paired, the gateway, camera and node configured and enrolled with their identities, and the whole site runs together before shipping. Kits are labelled for each plot. Nothing ships until the whole kit has passed its tests together.
- 05 Install
Install in the plots
Crews fit dendrometers to sample trees, bury soil profiles, set weather sensors, raise the tower with its camera and gateway, and install solar power and backhaul. Every tree and sensor is tagged and photographed. Crews follow the site safety plan throughout the work.
- 06 Commission
Commission against manual measures
Each node proves its identity. Dendrometers are checked against tape measures, soil probes against samples, weather against a reference and canopy images against a field assessment. The site enters service when checks pass. Acceptance is recorded with the owner before handover. 1
- 07 Operate
Watch condition and change
Owners and agencies see growth, stress, microclimate and canopy condition in every plot, with satellite change alerts checked on the ground. Drought stress and pest outbreaks are seen early, and clearing is confirmed with evidence. Every alert and action is kept on the record. 45
- 08 Maintain
Remeasure and recalibrate
Plots are remeasured on the harmonised schedule, dendrometers moved as trees grow, sensors cleaned and replaced, and software updates roll out in rings. Every change is kept with the plot record. Maintenance history stays with each site for its whole life. 1
06Data products and integration
What it delivers, to whom, and into which systems.
Data products
- Drought and pest stress alertsForest owners and managers
- Forest area change confirmed on the groundAgencies and supply chain teams
- Plot condition recordsNational forest inventories
- Ground truth for satellite productsRemote sensing teams
Integration
- Forest inventoryPlot records join the national or owner’s inventory.
- Supply chainChange evidence supports due diligence statements.
- Satellite productsPlots calibrate and check change detection.
Exchanged through OGC SensorThings API, GeoJSON, STAC.
07Questions buyers ask
Before you scope it.
Can it prove deforestation-free?
It provides ground evidence for due diligence, joined with satellite change.
How long do plot sensors last?
Batteries last years; plots are visited on the remeasurement schedule.
Does it detect pests?
Growth stops and canopy browning flag outbreaks early.
Can our foresters use it?
Yes. Plots follow the methods foresters already know.
08Resources
The sources behind this page.
Public standards, regulations and guidance, cited where they apply. Each applies only where its jurisdiction or scope does.
- 1ICP Forests Manual on methods and criteria for harmonized sampling, assessment, monitoring and analysis of the effects of air pollution on forestsUNECE International Co-operative Programme on Forests
- 2GCOS-244: The 2022 GCOS Implementation PlanGlobal Climate Observing System · 2022
- 3WMO-No. 8: Guide to Instruments and Methods of ObservationWorld Meteorological Organization
- 4Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations · 2020
- 5Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 on deforestation-free productsEuropean Union · 2023
09Related
Use cases and solutions.
SolutionBiodiversity and habitat monitoring
Acoustic sensors, camera traps that exclude people, eDNA sampling logistics and EO habitat change for nature programmes and disclosures.Solutions for nature →SolutionEarth observation tasking, processing and change detection
SAR and optical acquisition planning, analysis-ready processing and change detection checked against field truth, delivered as STAC and COG.Solutions for nature →SolutionEnvironmental and permit monitoring
Emissions, water quality, noise and dust monitoring for permit conditions, with traceable calibration and evidence bundles.Solutions for nature →10Nature: specialized fields
Other fields of this industry.
Specialized fieldBiodiversity monitoring
Acoustic recorders and camera traps that detect species automatically, so landowners, agencies and investors can measure biodiversity and show change against national and global targets.The full field →Specialized fieldPeatlands and wetlands
Water table, soil and weather stations across peatlands and wetlands, showing whether they store or release carbon and whether restoration is working.The full field →Specialized fieldLand restoration
Soil, vegetation, weather and drone surveys at restoration sites, showing whether degraded land is recovering and giving funders evidence they can audit.The full field →Bring us the site.
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