ARCA

ARtificial intelligence platform to prevent Climate change natural hazArds

Table Of Contents

About
Consortium
Events/Activities Workflow
Outcomes
Management
Latest ARCA project news

About

Forest monitoring is a vital activity for planetary health and human society. In this project, we propose the development of an ARtificial intelligence platform to prevent Climate change natural hazArds (ARCA). The main goal of this project is the development of a system based on transnationally innovative services, designed through pilots, i.e. wooded areas, and joint actions contributing to face the risk of natural hazards induced by climate change, such as windstorms, wildfires, and droughts.

In particular, the project objective directly contributes to the development of a joint plan to maintain and expand biodiversity in rural ecosystems, and it directly addresses the development of environmental protection measures for the preservation of natural resources and protected areas (e.g., National Parks, Natura 2000 sites, etc.) according to the EU Biodiversity Strategy to “halt biodiversity loss by 2020”. Innovative algorithms based on Machine Learning (ML) and heterogeneous networks based on IoT sensors will be exploited to model specific forests and mitigate the natural hazards impacts. The proposed digital platform will be composed of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), video cameras, drones and LiDAR remote sensing, aiming to model the forest.

The ARCA infrastructure will allow:

the development of AI and machine learning algorithms to monitor forest ecosystems and to forecast climate adaptation scenarios;
the implementation of a Decision Support System (DSS) for natural hazards prevention, resilience, and air quality monitoring;
development of two mobile Apps for real-time monitoring of trees and forests health status and for fleet management;
fruitful cross-border cooperation on forest ecosystems and knowledge sharing among researchers and stakeholders;
organization of joint training and dissemination in undergraduate schools to raise awareness of young people about ecosystem protection.

ARCA is financed by the INTERREG IPA ADRION Programme.

Project Budget: 1.763.970,00€
Duration: 36 months

Consortium

The ADRION ARCA partnership consists of 9 partners:

Events/Activities Workflow

Date	Event content/Media
08/05/2024	ARCA Project Launch Announcement
31/05/2024	ARCA Project Kick-off Meeting – online Agenda
24/07/2024	Wireless Sensors Networks – online meeting
05/09/2024	ARCA Project Kick-off Meeting – in-person
22/11/2024	Partnership Agreement updates – online meeting
17/04/2025	MoU with National Parks of Montenegro MoU signed with National Parks of Montenegro!
10/05/2025	Call for Workshop The call for participation in the 1st ARCA Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change Hazards has been announced.
12-13/06/2025	ARCA Workshop at MECO Conference 2025 The ARCA workshop was held at the MECO Conference.
27/06/2025	ARCA Paper Published in IEEE Xplore A conference paper supported by ARCA has been published in IEEE Xplore: Integration of Relay-Based LPWAN Network and Artificial Intelligence for Wildfires Detection and Prevention, authors: Dusko Petrovic, Radovan Stojanovic, Maria Mirto and Antonio Aloisio. Photo: Dusko Petrovic presenting the paper at MECO Conference.
13-15/10/2025	Paper Presented at 11th Balkan Conference in Informatics The team of the MECOnet participated at the 11th Balkan Conference in Informatics, October 13 – 15, 2025, Tirana, Albania, presenting the paper Low-cost edge-enabled sensor system for small farms and households, Radovan Stojanovic, Jovan Djurković, Helga Sallaku, Vesna Maraš, Nedeljko Latinović, presenting results and promoting ARCA project. – Presentation.
21/1/2026	“AIoT-based Drone Systems” Lecture “AIoT-based Drone Systems” lecture held in cooperation with MECOnet On 20 January 2026, the session titled “AIoT-based Drone Systems” was delivered by invited experts Prof. dr Marko Simeunović and Dejan Jokić, together with representatives of the University of Donja Gorica, MoDrone and Burch University. The presentation highlighted the use of AI-powered drone systems integrated with IoT technologies for forest monitoring, LiDAR-based modelling and early wildfire detection. Read more.
20/2/2026	Monitoring Visit A monitoring visit by the Ministry of European Affairs was held in MECOnet office. Read more.
12/03/2026	Cetinje Municipality Meeting The ARCA Project meeting was held in Cetinje Municipality, where the agreement was made about using drones and installing sensors in the municipality area, especially the Lovcen National Park.
09-13/06/2026	2nd ARCA Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change Hazards About worshop Programme: — Tutorial: Maria Mirto, Antonio Aloisio, Cross-border operational platform based on AI technologies for monitoring the wooded areas and predicting and fighting natural hazards — Research paper: Radovan Stojanović, Jovan Djurković, Maria Mirto and Antonio Aloisio, IoT Gateway for Commercial Smoke Detectors — Tutorial: Nicolo Malatesta, RGB-Only Smoke Segmentation for Wildfire Monitoring Using an Attention-Enhanced ResNet-50 U-Net — Tutorial: Shahbaz Alvi, The SILVANUS Project: Outcomes, Challenges, and Lessons Learned Gallery:
16-17/06/2026	External Communication Event & Partners meeting in Thessaloniki — Meeting locations: Livadi and Alexander Innovation Zone, Thessaloniki — Meeting agenda — MECOnet presentation