About

The SILVANUS project brings together a large consortium of interdisciplinary experts from four continents to combat the threat of forest fires and improve forest resilience against climate change.

The key output of the project is the release of a climate resilient forest management platform to prevent and suppress forest fire. SILVANUS relies on environmental, technical and social sciences experts to support regional and national authorities responsible for wildfire management in their respective countries. SILVANUS scientists and research engineers will aid the civil protection authorities to efficiently monitor forest resources, to evaluate biodiversity, to generate more accurate fire risk indicators, and promote safety regulations among the local population affected by wildfire through awareness campaigns.

In the climate crisis era, where forest fires are becoming more dangerous and more frequent, SILVANUS aims to offer a new technological solution to improve the preparedness and prevention of wildfire ignition. This will be achieved through the integration of big-data processing framework capable of analysing various data sources such as climate models, weather data, and earth observation tools, leading to the development of intelligent fire ignition models. These models will be furthermore complemented with the use of in-situ environmental sensors, CCTV and multi-spectral imaging solutions to develop an advanced detection and response toolkit. SILVANUS will also introduce sensor technologies that use inventive wireless communication infrastructure through the coordination of unmanned aerial vehicles and automated ground robots for coordinating the response among first fighters.

The important aspect of the project is to consider the expertise and experience of firefighters and the local residents who are faced every year with the dangers of devastating wildfires. SILVANUS will launch a wide-reaching stakeholder engagement programme in forest regions to assess fire risk indicators, to develop training methodology for firefighters, to use for VR and AR training toolkits, and to simulate real-world environments and life-saving scenarios. Awareness campaigns will include the implementation of mobile application for citizen engagement, along with automated notifications on safety practices.

The SILVANUS project innovations will be systematically deployed and demonstrated across eight EU Member States regions (France, Italy, Slovakia, Greece, Czechia, Portugal, Croatia, and Romania). Additional demonstrations will also be carried out across Indonesia, Brazil, and Australia.

To ensure that the results of SILVANUS have a long-term impact, the project will include policy recommendations on forest governance, soil rehabilitation strategy recommendation, and restoration roadmap services for natural resources.

For the duration of its activities and beyond, SILVANUS will focus on all three components of fire suppression: prevention and preparedness, detection and response, restoration and adaptation.

The SILVANUS Brochure, with a visually engaging presentation of the main aspects of the SILVANUS project, including defining our vision, mission, objectives, and the approach to fulfill these targets, is available here.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101037247