Spatial information is a vital key in integrated activities related to spatial sectoral development and physical framework plan of different local government units. The need for sufficient spatial information is especially important in monitoring and assessment of various activities such as greening and reforestation programs. In the recent years, finer-scaled maps with detailed elevation, ground relief, slope gradient, direction, and location of feature of interest have been produced using high-resolution data such as LiDAR. Important features such as rivers, creeks, lakes, forest cover, populated areas, transportation routes, and other man-made features have been properly identified and are important factors in management planning and assessment.

          Various programs involving the use of LiDAR technology have been established by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) such as the “Disaster Risk and Exposure and Assessment for Mitigation” (DREAM), “Hazards Mapping of the Philippines” (Phil-LiDAR 1), and "Nationwide Detailed Resources Assessment" (Phil-LiDAR 2). The LiDAR mapping products include 1m resolution Digital Terrain Models (DTMs), Digital Surface Model (DSM), orthophotographs, and detailed resource maps for agriculture, coastal, forest, waterbodies, and renewable resources. 152,000 sq. km throughout the Philippines have already been surveyed and mapped accordingly.  However, specific forest areas that are situated in higher elevation still do not have sufficient data due to height limitation of the LiDAR acquisition. Hence, there is still a need to utilize other remotely-sensed data to extract forest features for time-series analysis, which would be helpful for the monitoring and assessment of greening and reforestation programs.

          The National Greening Program (NGP), established by virtue of Executive Order 26, on February 24, 2011 by President Benigno Aquino III, is a massive forest rehabilitation program of the government. It is imperative that a monitoring tool be developed to assess whether the objectives of the program are met and its activities executed. The original targeted area of 1.5 million hectares would take an enormous amount of time, energy, and money to monitor manually on the ground. Remote Sensing can be used to develop a monitoring tool to aid in the assessment process. Different optical images and RADAR data provides a wide array of information that is beneficial in assessing, monitoring, and measuring the progress of the greening program. Various remotely-sensed data can be explored and processed in order to produce output that can aid the monitoring program. 

          The Department of Budget and Management (DBM), in collaboration with the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), have established Digital Imaging for Monitoring and Evaluation or Project DIME. It aims to monitor the status and implementation of high-valued projects which includes the National Greening Program of DENR. The main objective of the project is to provide a monitoring system and data analytics using remote sensing data to aid DBM in providing efficient monitoring and decision-making.