Bavarian State Forest Administration (Bayrische Staatsforsten) pushes digitalisation.
The forest is becoming increasingly digital. In forestry, innovative processes offer great potential and support in particular the value chain from timber production to harvesting to transport to the processing industry.
The Bavarian State Forest Administration therefore wants to optimise the adaptation of forest management processes and their IT support in the future in order to achieve a higher degree of digitalisation and automation and at the same time improve data quality. Remote sensing data and products play an important role in this.
New “Forest Planning 4.0” (“Waldplanung 4.0”) project in Bavaria
One goal of the five-year project “Forest Planning 4.0 – Forest Remote Sensing” („Waldplanung 4.0 – Forstliche Fernerkundung“) of the Bavarian State Forest Administration is the automated derivation of specialised forestry products from remote sensing data. The project partners EFTAS, AVT, GI Geoinformatik and Materna will develop innovative methods and products that will be integrated into regular operations.
The focus of the developments is on optimising forest management. Furthermore, the reaction to major damage events is to be supported with remote sensing data and analysis methods.
Processing of forestry products
EFTAS is contributing its many years of expertise in the field of remote sensing to the project. The Münster-based company is responsible, among other things, for the further processing of the remote sensing data used and is developing methods and algorithms for deriving new specialist forestry products.
Products for analysing vegetation height and structure, tree species classifications and forest structure maps are planned, which will be generated using aerial images, laser scan data, satellite image time series and modern AI algorithms. These specialised products are integrated into the forest inventory process to increase the efficiency of forest management.
In the case of damage events, for example due to storms, it is planned to record affected areas as needed within the framework of a “fast response” mapping. For this purpose, EFTAS will create corresponding maps of damaged areas at short notice on the base of remote sensing data and thus support the decision-making processes at the Bavarian State Forest Administration. The aim is a standardised and rapid assessment of the damage situation that has occurred.
