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Saudi Arabia’s Vegetation Monitoring Receives An AI Upgrade
The new program will contribute to the Kingdom’s Green Initiative.
Saudi Arabia is around 2 million square kilometers in area, with multiple terrain types and a diverse mixture of vegetation, including forests, pastures, coastlines, and islands. Now, the government is deploying AI and remote sensing to make studying and monitoring these environments more efficient.
The new program to evaluate and study vegetation cover via remote sensing and AI was announced by Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Environment, Water, and Agriculture, Abdulrahman Al-Fadhli. The initiative will help to drive afforestation projects and the Saudi Green Initiative.
Khaled Bin Abdullah Al-Abdulqadir, CEO of the National Center for Vegetation Development and Combating Desertification (NCVC), explained that the goal is to monitor changes in vegetation cover at the sites of afforestation projects, calculate rainfall, and monitor and control local plant health.
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AI and remote sensing techniques will also allow drones to monitor mangrove forests stretching across the kingdom’s coastlines. The surveys will calculate the number of trees and follow up on sand encroachment and its impact.