Review article - Peer-reviewed, 2021
A new generation of sensors and monitoring tools to support climate-smart forestry practices
Torresan, Chiara; Garzon, Marta Benito; O'Grady, Michael; Robson, Thomas Matthew; Picchi, Gianni; Panzacchi, Pietro; Tomelleri, Enrico; Smith, Melanie; Marshall, John; Wingate, Lisa; Tognetti, Roberto; Rustad, Lindsey E.; Kneeshaw, DanAbstract
Climate-smart forestry (CSF) is an emerging branch of sustainable adaptive forest management aimed at enhancing the potential of forests to adapt to and mitigate climate change. It relies on much higher data requirements than traditional forestry. These data requirements can be met by new devices that support continuous, in situ monitoring of forest conditions in real time. We propose a comprehensive network of sensors, i.e., a wireless sensor network (WSN), that can be part of a worldwide network of interconnected uniquely addressable objects, an Internet of Things (IoT), which can make data available in near real time to multiple stakeholders, including scientists, foresters, and forest managers, and may partially motivate citizens to participate in big data collection. The use of in situ sources of monitoring data as ground-truthed training data for remotely sensed data can boost forest monitoring by increasing the spatial and temporal scales of the monitoring, leading to a better understanding of forest processes and potential threats. Here, some of the key developments and applications of these sensors are outlined, together with guidelines for data management. Examples are given of their deployment to detect early warning signals (EWS) of ecosystem regime shifts in terms of forest productivity, health, and biodiversity. Analysis of the strategic use of these tools highlights the opportunities for engaging citizens and forest in this new of forestKeywords
climate change; early warning signals; ecosystem regime shifts; wireless sensor network; Internet of Things; citizen science; green technologiesPublished in
Canadian Journal of Forest Research2021, volume: 51, number: 12, pages: 1751-1765
Publisher: CANADIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING
Authors' information
Torresan, Chiara
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)
Garzon, Marta Benito
INRAE
O'Grady, Michael
University College Dublin
Robson, Thomas Matthew
University of Helsinki
Picchi, Gianni
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)
Panzacchi, Pietro
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Panzacchi, Pietro
University of Molise
Tomelleri, Enrico
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Smith, Melanie
UHI Millennium Institute
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Forest Ecology and Management
Wingate, Lisa
INRAE
Tognetti, Roberto
University of Molise
Rustad, Lindsey E.
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Kneeshaw, Dan
University of Quebec
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG15 Life on land
SDG13 Climate action
UKÄ Subject classification
Forest Science
Publication Identifiers
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2020-0295
URI (permanent link to this page)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/115348