The Challenge
Monitoring vegetation across the Pacific presents several practical challenges.
Pacific Island countries are geographically dispersed and often characterised by rugged terrain, persistent cloud cover, and limited access for field-based surveys. At the same time, governments and organisations require more consistent vegetation information to support monitoring, restoration, carbon reporting, and land-use planning.
Traditional approaches each have limitations.
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NDVI-based methods can indicate vegetation greenness, but they do not measure vegetation structure or height.
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LiDAR and field campaigns can produce highly accurate results, but they are expensive, spatially limited, and difficult to repeat consistently across large regions.
The challenge was to develop a vegetation monitoring approach that could provide:
• consistent regional coverage
• regular updates over time
• scalable monitoring across multiple countries
• reliable outputs despite persistent cloud cover
The Solution
Geoneon developed a vegetation height product using Sentinel-2 imagery at 10 metre spatial resolution.
The work produced a multi-year, quarterly dataset covering 2020–2025 across multiple Pacific Island countries.
Rather than providing a single snapshot in time, the dataset was designed to support ongoing vegetation monitoring through repeated observations over time.
The outputs enable:
• vegetation structure mapping
• clearing and deforestation detection
• regrowth and restoration monitoring
By using Sentinel-2 imagery, the approach provides a scalable alternative to LiDAR and field-based campaigns while supporting consistent regional monitoring across large and remote areas.
The Results
The project delivered a repeatable vegetation monitoring dataset across multiple Pacific Island countries.
Key outcomes included:
• quarterly vegetation height mapping from 2020–2025
• 10 metre spatial resolution across large regional areas
• consistent vegetation structure data across multiple countries
• the ability to monitor vegetation change over time rather than relying on isolated snapshots
These outputs support:
• biomass and carbon-related workflows
• restoration and land-use planning
• regional environmental monitoring
• ongoing tracking of clearing, degradation, and regrowth
By creating a scalable and repeatable vegetation monitoring dataset, the project provides a clearer basis for understanding how vegetation structure changes across the Pacific over time.
Want to learn more? Read the full technical breakdown of the methodology we employed
here.
