Measuring the Wood Wide Web

Measuring the wood wide web

Development of a measuring system for preventive forest monitoring

Current systems in use for forest monitoring are not sufficient for advancing the required prevention in environmental and forestry terms.

It is necessary to consider features that could enable a system to successfully measure and detect early warning sign as a part of forest monitoring.

We developed the vision of an 'EEG for the forest'. Corresponding to the function of electroencephalograms applied to humans, we imagined an adapted measure to enable the detection of pathological changes in the delicate fabric of the forest’s ecosystem at such an early stage when disturbances otherwise might not be visible yet. This idea led to close examination of the different levels of prevention and created insight on the importance of holistic approaches which ideally would center on three aspects of prevention: prophylaxis, early intervention and targeted after-care of potential disturbances. For quantitative measure of forest stand, we suggest using appropriate 3D-laser scan technologies. For the evaluation of forest condition, we recommend electro diagnostics due to its sensitivity in measuring tree vitality. For implementation, it would be useful to install a probe system, preferably covering large parts of the forest. These probes would continually report GEO-PHYTO-electrochemical current values of trees to databases via DC measurement analyzing the tree vitality.

So we have designed two complementary interface approaches:

Firstly, we suggest a primary approach in form of a simulation tool which could anticipate and view different scenarios of future forest conditions and which could calculate and plan relevant influencing factors. Secondly, we suggest an approach specifically for early prevention and after-care which could enable scientists to observe forest conditions year-round using GPEC values and to then also put these scores in relation to other collected environment monitoring data.