Plant health can now be measured globally

Plant health can now be measured globally

How healthy is global vegetation? © FG Trade/ iStock

Healthy plants are the basis of our diet and crucial for nature and climate. So far, however, there has been no reliable overview of the state of vegetation worldwide. Researchers have now developed a process that grabs plant health globally and almost weekly – with the help of satellite data and artificial intelligence. But how exactly does this global plant check work?

Plants make more than just the world greener: they keep floors fruitful, store carbon and deliver food for animals and humans. But for that they have to be healthy. So far, it was difficult to determine plant health comprehensively: regional measurements and selective samples provide valuable information, but only allow limited conclusions. A reliable, worldwide indicator of the vitality of plants, on the other hand, would not only advance ecological research, but also make planning in agriculture, nature conservation and climate adaptation considerably easier.

Global plants in view

In order to get a reliable overview of global plant health, researchers around Dong Li from the Technical University of Munich have now developed a new procedure. It uses recordings of the European Etreagement Satellite Sentinel-3 to estimate the chlorophyll content of the top plant layer-a central indicator of the health of the plants, since chlorophyll is essential for photosynthesis. The physically modeled chlorophyll estimates then serve as training data for a AI model that is able to reliably assess the chlorophyll content even under difficult conditions such as partial clouds.

The result is an index that shows global plant health almost every week and thus makes dynamic changes visible in natural and agricultural ecosystems. “We can see how the plants react to different conditions, for example to fluctuations due to climate change,” explains senior author Kang Yu. For example, the researchers can react such as vegetation to dry periods, storms or floods.

From the satellite on the field

Farmers could also benefit from the new procedure in the long term, because it can also be used to indirectly determine the nitrogen content of crops. “The timely recording of the nitrogen status of crops is helpful for agricultural management, as it helps to increase the harvest yield and at the same time reduce ecological footprint,” write Li and his colleagues. Before farmers and nature conservation authorities can use the new method across the board, further tests and adjustments are necessary. In the future, however, the vitality of plants could be routinely observed from space.

Source: Technical University of Munich; Specialist articles: Remote Sensing of Environment, DOI: 10.1016/J.Rse.2025.114845




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