Miti360: A Comprehensive Dataset for Improved Reforestation Monitoring

Abstract

Over the past decade, interest in applying machine learning (ML) to automate forest monitoring has grown significantly. However, existing training datasets are predominantly drawn from North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, leaving a critical gap in African forestry data. To address this limited geographic diversity, we present Miti360, a comprehensive dataset for reforestation monitoring that comprises high-resolution imagery, ground truth data, and longitudinal weather data. Data collection occurred within a 770-ha reforested section of the Kieni Forest in Kenya between March 2023 and February 2025. Miti360 comprises aerial photos (orthophotos and tiles) with tree bounding box annotations, terrestrial images (single and stereo), and detailed data records including tree biophysical parameters, species, and GPS coordinates, alongside historical weather data. Aerial surveys utilized a DJI Mavic 2 Pro, with imagery stitched via Agisoft Metashape and tiled using ArcGIS Pro, while terrestrial captures used smartphones and custom stereo cameras. Miti360 enables the training of ML systems for tasks such as accelerating tree censuses, matching species to geographical areas, modelling growth based on weather conditions, and developing digital twin frameworks. Models can be trained on Miti360 to address challenges specific to Sub-Saharan Africa, ultimately advancing reforestation monitoring and fostering sustainable forestry practices in underrepresented regions. We demonstrate the utility of this dataset by successfully tracking tree crowns across three years and improving the DeepForest model's box precision and box recall by 12% and 69% respectively through fine-tuning on Miti360.