CASE STUDY 3 Drone usage to monitor critical afforestation/reforestation activities with Gharsa Lead entity: FalconViz Context: Saudi Arabia has embarked on one of the most ambitious environmental programmes in the world under Vision 2030, the Saudi Green Initiative and the Kingdom’s commitment to net zero by 2060. Central to these programmes is large-scale afforestation and reforestation, with the goal of 10 billion native trees being planted across inland ecosystems. Monitoring the survival, health and distribution of these trees is mission-critical to ensuring success. Traditional monitoring approaches are costly, slow and resource-intensive, making them unsuitable for repeated, high-frequency monitoring across vast geographical areas. Description: FalconViz developed Gharsa.AI, an advanced drone-powered AI monitoring platform designed specifically to track afforestation and reforestation efforts. Gharsa integrates drone-mounted multispectral and LiDAR sensors with AI-powered analytics to measure vegetation health, canopy density, soil moisture indices and survival rates of newly planted trees. This solution has already been successfully deployed in national-level projects, providing repeatable and scalable monitoring that ensures decision-makers receive accurate insights into the progress of green initiatives. To achieve reliable results, drone flights must be repeated frequently over the same afforestation zones, generating consistent time-series data. This is where streamlined AAM regulations and permissions are critical. With more flexible and adaptive permitting processes, Gharsa operations could be scaled rapidly, ensuring real-time data delivery to stakeholders and enabling corrective interventions when needed.Operations and technology: Drone-based (VTOL drones) multispectral and LiDAR capture (normalized difference vegetation index [NDVI], soil-adjusted vegetation index [SAVI], optimized soil-adjusted vegetation index [OSAVI], canopy density, elevation models). AI-powered feature extraction and growth trend analysis; standardized mission zones with repeated flight corridors over reforestation sites; integration with government dashboards to support Vision 2030, Saudi Green Initiative and net zero 2060 KPIs for reforestation and net-zero tracking. Impact and success factors: 1. Public benefit is clear: Gharsa provides essential insights into the Kingdom’s green commitments, ensuring public and international trust in Saudi Arabia’s climate leadership. 2. Operations are in controlled, critical zones: flights are repeatable over designated reforestation areas, making them ideal for regulatory adaptation under AAM frameworks. 3. The mission demonstrates regulatory flexibility needs: highlighting how streamlined approvals for repeat flights in the same zones can accelerate environmental monitoring of critical national interest. 4. The initiative establishes a repeatable operational template: providing a scalable model for how drones and AAM technologies can be embedded in national environmental programmes, ensuring accountability and supporting long-term sustainability goals. Taken together, these early use cases illustrate how Saudi Arabia can move from ambition to implementation. By focusing on public benefit, manageable risks, regulatory engagement and repeatability, they provide the building blocks for scaling AAM adoption. Section 2 turns from early use cases to the broader system-level enablers. Without these, promising pilots risk remaining isolated demonstrations; with them, Saudi Arabia can evolve from performing scattered tests into a mature AAM sector that delivers repeatable services, stakeholder confidence and impacts aligned with Vision 2030. Deployment Pathways for Advanced Air Mobility: Lessons from Early Implementation in Saudi Arabia 12

Deployment Pathways Advanced Air Mobility 2025