Forests in Germany are under severe threat from bark beetles as a result of storms, extreme drought and high heat. The current practice of tracking infestation sites by means of search trips is time-consuming and often comes too late to prevent the devaluation of affected stands. As an alternative to this practice, Unique was commissioned to develop a new method for a large-scale infestation detection. Using daily available satellite imagery, infested spots were mapped in a 7- to 10-days cycle. This enabled "guided search trips" for a fast and efficient removal of infested trees. Unique developed and tested the damage detector and was involved in the systematic verification in the field.

• Development of a satellite image-based detection of vitality changes in coniferous forests
• Verification of the method on the ground by guided searches as ground truthing
• Provision of bark beetle damage information to forest owners at regular intervals
• Testing the scalability of the approach