DIGITAL

How healthy are our forests?

The project team of the research group "Remote Sensing and Geoinformation" at the DIGITAL Institute is investigating this question in the new FFG project AIDForHeRI. AIDForHeRI is an acronym for "AI-Driven Forest Health Risk Indicator" - artificial intelligence and ecological modelling methods are used to determine the current and future risk of a forest stand for pest infestation.

Group photo of the kick-off participants of the new forest monitoring project "AI-Driven Forest Health Risk Indicator" - a cooperation of JOANNEUM RESEARCH DIGITAL, BeetleForTech and ZAMG.
Credit: Sebastian Vogler, AIDForHeRi Kick-Off Meeting, Vienna Persons (from left to right): Max Nutz (ZAMG), Koimé Kouacou (Beetle ForTech), Klaus Haslinger (ZAMG), Konstanze Fila (FFG), Janik Deutscher (JOANNEUM RESEARCH DIGITAL) Sebastian Vogler and Matthias Sammer (Beetle ForTech).

 

Together with the project partners BeetleForTech and ZAMG, a kick-off meeting for a new forest monitoring project took place on 26 September 2022. In the course of this meeting, various AI-methods were first explored, which are now to be tested and evaluated. Earth observation data from the Sentinel-2 satellite mission, maps of current pest infestations, current and historical climate data and various climate scenarios from ZAMG serve as input for the models.

The aim is to support forest owners and forestry authorities in the rapid detection of damage and thus enable the immediate treatment of damaged wood. The long-term risk forecast based on various climate scenarios is also intended to help identify forest stands with an increased risk of damage in the future in order to be able to take preventive measures in good time and thus make the forest "climate-ready". So that our forest can continue to fulfil its many functions as a commercial forest, recreational area, habitat and CO2 reservoir in the future.

In the predecessor project BEAT IT!, the DIGITAL research group "Remote Sensing and Geoinformation" already developed methods to automatically map bark beetle damaged areas from satellite image time series. These methods are also being used in Germany for area-wide forest damage monitoring as part of the FNEWs project. In the new project AIDForHeRI, we are now researching AI models that calculate the infestation risk for neighbouring stands in addition to the already mapped damaged areas.

 

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Project Outline
Project outline: AIDForHeRi

Project outline: AIDForHeRi

Mapping of new damaged areas due to bark beetle infestation and Sentinel-2 satellite image

Mapping of new damaged areas due to bark beetle infestation and Sentinel-2 satellite image