Vegetation Monitoring
Efficiently monitor clearances around your critical assets
and plan vegetation management activities
Timely and accurately identify all vegetation risks on every meter of critical infrastructure, at scale
Move from a sub-optimal calendar-based to a risk-based vegetation management approach
Validate tree-cutting work done by third parties
It's Time to Re-Think Vegetation Management
Vegetation management involves regular monitoring and controlling of trees and other vegetation growth and changes over time to identify priority areas for pruning, trimming, and removal activities. However, vegetation management is more than trimming trees and bushes. It is about keeping critical infrastructure secure from encroachments and wildfire risk to ensure safe, cost-efficient operations and uninterrupted service to customers.
Why asset managers need to monitor the vegetation
Overgrown vegetation poses a significant threat to transmission system operator (TSO) and distribution system operator (DSO) networks due to potential outages, equipment damage, fire or even wildfire risks, and impacts on voltage stability. This vegetation interference can lead to accidents, service disruptions, equipment repairs, fire hazards, and instability in the electrical network.
For pipelines, it can cause gas, methane and water leakages. Vegetation roots can also potentially damage pipelines. Root intrusion, where roots grow into pipeline joints or cracks, can harm the infrastructure. Hydraulic uplift is another way that vegetation roots can damage pipelines, which occurs when trees or other vegetation absorb water from the soil, causing the soil to expand and exert pressure on the pipeline. Over time, this pressure can cause the pipeline to shift or break, leading to leaks or other breaks.
And for railways and road operators, it can mean safety risks for users and workers and delays in service.
Some of Our Clients Leveraging
Satellite-Based Vegetation Monitoring
Traditional and often outdated methods to monitor vegetation have their drawbacks
They usually don’t allow proper inspection of large areas of thousands of kilometres of assets, especially in hard-to-access areas and under extreme weather conditions. They can also be time-consuming, prone to manual human error, require many resources, iterations and data standardisation, or even require special permits to fly.
This is particularly important for maintaining the reliability and safety of power lines infrastructure, making it crucial to have an effective vegetation management system in place. Historically, vegetation management is performed based on fixed trim cycles, which take place between four and eight years. This is not an optimised and justified approach since it doesn’t rely on up-to-date and accurate data about tree hazards.
To help utilities tackle pressing challenges, Spottitt has developed an advanced utility vegetation management software, Spottitt MF for Vegetation Monitoring.
The system employs satellite vegetation management technologies and state-of-the-art algorithms for hazard tree identification and categorisation, reporting trees in bad health or dead trees near power lines, and flagging them for further inspection or removal.
Reduce Asset Faults, Maximise ROI
Using Spottitt MF for vegetation management, utilities can take proactive measures to reduce the risk of critical infrastructure failure, maintain assets’ integrity and customer supply while optimising spending.
Included Variables
- Coniferous trees
- Broadleaf trees
- Cropland
- Heat & scrub
- Grassland
- Vegetation health
- Vegetation height
- Soil moisture
- Wind speed
- Wind direction
- Temperature
- Humidity
Download the brochure to learn more about Spottitt MFⓇ for Vegetation Monitoring.
Powered by Spottitt MF
Spottitt MF allows asset managers to get accurate geospatial analytics to track all possible risks on every meter of their assets, at scale, without breaking the budget
100% digital
Satellite-based analyses to avoid any hardware installation or flight permits
10.000 km in 48 hours
We automated the full process of getting satellite data and transforming them into actionable insights
Fueling your risk model
View, filter and integrate our metrics the way you need, without replacing your current management systems
Relevant Blog Articles
Behind the Spottitt MF Curtains: Role of Machine Learning in Analyzing Satellite Imagery
Spottitt is known for utilising satellite data to offer infrastructure owners valuable insights into the diverse external risks affecting their assets. But how precisely do we derive these insights from satellite imagery? The answer is – machine learning, and today we’re inviting you behind the curtains of our product to unveil the whole process.
Spottitt Metrics Factory Advances to the Next Level
As more organizations turned to Spottitt for monitoring growing numbers of assets, we recognized that the traditional geospatial platform’s map view, which was effective for small-scale monitoring, became cumbersome when dealing with larger datasets. So, we embarked on the development of Spottitt Metrics Factory. Since its beta launch in late 2022, ten organizations from around the world have been delighting in the ability to view and interact with their asset monitoring data using the product.
UK power and gas networks look to space to provide digital asset monitoring
Spottitt is excited to announce its involvement in the delivery of one of only 18 projects selected to receive just under 400k GBP Alpha Phase SIF (Strategic Innovation Fund) funding. The funding is awarded by Ofgem and Innovate UK and aims to find and fund ambitious, innovative projects with the potential to accelerate the transition to net zero. These projects aim to help shape the future of the gas and electricity networks across the UK and beyond.
