XN Vegetation · Linear infrastructure
Linear infrastructure: the vegetation around lines, roads and railways
You give us the route: power lines, motorways, railways, any linear network. We build the strip around it, as wide as you need, and analyse it from satellite: how tall the canopy is, how healthy the vegetation is, where it grew, dried out or was cut.
The rules
Along roads and railways, the law sets the distances
In Italy, the Highway Code asks neighbouring owners to cut the branches that reach over the road boundary and hide the signs; its regulation wants new trees, outside built-up areas, at a distance from the boundary no shorter than the height they will reach, and at least 6 m. For railways, Presidential Decree 753/1980 bans plants and hedges within 6 m of the nearest rail and wants trees taller than 4 m at a distance equal to their maximum height plus 2 m. For power lines, the clearance from the conductors is set by the design of the line and by the operator: you tell us how wide the strip is.
- 1
The route
You send us the lines as shapefile, KML or GeoJSON: power lines, motorways, roads, railways.
- 2
The strip
Around the route we build a strip as wide as you say and analyse it as a site of the platform.
- 3
The maps
Canopy height, vegetation health and moisture, tree cover loss and change between two periods, in a report.
Sources: Legislative Decree 285/1992 (Highway Code), art. 29 (Italian) · Presidential Decree 495/1992 (Highway Code regulation), art. 26 (Italian) · Presidential Decree 753/1980, art. 52 (Italian)
The data
What we measure along the strip
The layers of the platform we use, each with its own resolution.
In production
- Vegetation health (NDVI) and moisture (NDMI) from Sentinel-2 at 10 m, on a date or as the difference between two periods
- Canopy height from a 5 m satellite model, for 2020
- Tree cover loss year by year at 30 m, from Hansen Global Forest Change, up to 2025
- Change in tree height between 2000 and 2020, at 30 m
- Land cover and habitats along the strip
- Visits to the flagged stretches with the field mode of the Biodiversa app: photos and notes with their GPS position
In part
- Canopy height is a 2020 model: it shows where vegetation is tall, not how much it grew this year; recent change shows in NDVI and tree cover loss
- At 5 m you see the strip, not the single branch: the clearance from the conductors needs a LiDAR or ground survey
Stays with the operator
- The route of the network and the width of the clearance strip
- Checking the clearance from the conductors and the safety of the line
- The cutting plan and the works
Then
From the maps to the works
The maps tell you where to look first. Redone over the years on the same strip, they show what changed after the cuts.
FAQ
Questions on linear infrastructure
What format do we send the route in?
Shapefile, KML or GeoJSON, with its coordinate system. A long network can also come split into sections.
Do you measure the distance between branches and wires?
No. The 5 m canopy model shows where vegetation is tallest along the strip, not how many centimetres a branch is from a conductor: that takes a LiDAR survey or a check on the ground. Our maps tell you where to do them first.
How wide is the strip?
You decide: the clearance of your line, the road boundary, the 6 m from the rail or more. We can also analyse more than one strip, for example a narrow and a wide one.
What do we receive?
A report with the maps of the strip: canopy height, vegetation health and moisture, tree cover loss and change between two periods.
30 minutes with the team, on XN Vegetation.
Video call on Google Meet
Would you rather talk it through?
Either way you are speaking with an AI assistant, and the conversation is transcribed. How we handle your data