New, 2026-11-10

geoLAB at the MoniFun consortium meeting: forest mapping, remote sensing and Federated Learning

geoLAB took part in the consortium meeting of MoniFun, a Horizon Europe project (Grant Agreement 101134991), together with colleagues from CREA (Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l'analisi dell'economia agraria, the Italian Council for Agricultural Research and Economics). The meeting was held on 4–6 November 2026 at the Národní lesnický institut (NLI), the Czech National Forest Institute, in Brandýs nad Labem, Czech Republic.

For geoLAB, the main topics of the programme were next-generation forest mapping with remote sensing data and Federated Learning. Federated Learning trains a shared model across several institutions without moving the original data out of each institution. National Forest Inventories can therefore contribute to a common model while the coordinates of their sample plots remain protected.

The partners also reviewed the progress of the project towards a European Forest Multifunctionality Monitoring System (EFMMS). They discussed the prioritisation of the 95 forest multifunctionality indicators, the harmonisation of National Forest Inventory data and nFIESTA 5.0.0, and followed presentations from the four MoniFun Third-Party Grant projects.

The University of Florence takes part in MoniFun with geoLAB, the Laboratory of Forest Geomatics of the Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry (DAGRI). geoLAB is involved in multiple tasks of the project.

Thank you to NLI for hosting the meeting. More about the project: MoniFun on this site.