More than you might expect. We map every tree. Not as a green blur on a satellite image, but as an individual object: a trunk location, a crown size, a height, a root zone. That precision is the starting point of everything Terramira does with trees, and it is also where most people stop looking. The real story is what happens after the data is collected: the insights it can generate, on demand, for questions no one had even asked yet.
What sits inside the dataset
Our tree data combines high-resolution aerial imagery, Sentinel-2 satellite data and AHN elevation models to detect and classify individual trees across urban, peri-urban and rural areas, with detection accuracy exceeding 95% in urban environments. For every tree, we track:
- Location, the anchor point for spatial queries and route analysis
- Crown area and crown volume, a far better indicator of ecological value than a simple tree count
- Canopy change, gain or loss over time, measured against a fixed baseline
- Tree height, relevant for shade, clearance and structural risk
- Root zone, often the deciding factor in where construction is possible
- Protected status, monumental trees and protected zones
On its own, this is already a detailed, reliable foundation. But data is the starting point, not the answer. Turning it into something an organisation can act on is where Intelligence comes in.
From data to Earth Intelligence
We have built five Intelligence propositions on top of the trees dataset, each answering a different question for a different audience.
Green Living Index (3-30-300) translates the international 3-30-300 rule, seeing 3 trees, living in a 30% canopy neighbourhood, being within 300 metres of green space, into a measurable score at street and neighbourhood level. It turns an abstract liveability ambition into a concrete KPI municipalities can plan and communicate around.
Forest Impact Intelligence goes beyond counting trees to show what a forest is actually doing for water, biodiversity and climate resilience. For funders and restoration projects, that is the difference between reporting activity and proving outcome.
Green-Blue Network Analysis (GBDA) looks at how trees, hedgerows and other landscape elements connect across a region, outside protected nature areas. It gives provinces and national government an objective baseline for biodiversity policy, already applied across roughly six provinces.
Infrastructure Tree Risks flags where trees and root zones will complicate, delay or add cost to a planned route, before the design is finalised. For grid operators and engineering firms, that early insight is what keeps a project on budget.
Heat Stress Monitoring combines tree canopy with hard surfaces, buildings and climate data to show exactly where heat accumulates in a city, and where trees are already cooling it down. It is one of the clearest ways tree data connects straight back to public health.
Five propositions, five audiences, one underlying dataset. That is the model: Data as the foundation, Intelligence as what drives action.
When the question doesn’t fit an existing box
Not every question fits neatly into one of those five propositions, and that is exactly the point. Because the data is granular and object-level, we can shape new insight around a need that has never been asked before.
That is what happened with Omroep Gelderland. The regional broadcaster wanted to know something very specific: on the hottest days of the year, do young children’s playgrounds actually get any shade? No existing product answers that question directly. So we combined our tree crown and height data with playground locations supplied by the municipalities of Arnhem, Doetinchem, Ede and Tiel, and modelled shade coverage between 11:00 and 15:00, when the sun is at its strongest.
The result was a clear, publishable finding: half of the nearly 4,000 playgrounds in the sample get no shade at all during the hottest hours, and only a quarter are fully shaded when it matters most. GGD Gelderland-Midden weighed in on the health risk for young children, an urban planner responded to the findings, and the story ran on a regional public broadcaster, built on Terramira data.
Nothing about that analysis existed as a product beforehand. It came from one dataset, one clear question, and the flexibility to combine our data with someone else’s.
Your question doesn’t need to exist yet
That is the real possibility behind our tree data: it is not limited to the propositions already on this page. If you have a question about trees, canopy, shade, risk or green space that no standard product answers, we can build the insight around it, the same way we did for Omroep Gelderland.
Explore what our tree data can already do, or get in touch with our Advisory team to talk through a question that doesn’t fit an existing box yet.
