Automated forest monitoring
Forests are an important natural resource and regulator of the climate. Deforestation is a critical problem. Furthermore, pollution to forest environments has a negative impact on this resource. Monitoring of such external influences and the current state of the forest environment (as well as temporal variations) is a first step to understand and initiate appropriate actions.
More about the project and goals
The goal of this project is to investigate how forest monitoring on a large scale can support sustainable development and how modern technologies can be utilized in order to support the monitoring task. The project allows students from a number of different subjects - including both, domain expertise and technical expertise - to work in an international and interdisciplinary team. Together the group members will analyze how forest monitoring can support a sustainable future, how monitoring is performed nowadays, and how modern technologies can be utilized in order to enable forest monitoring on a large scale and in an economical manner. A concept and prototype of a modern monitoring solution are a desirable outcome of this project.
Because this project proposes to use more technical equipment (i.e., electronics) within the forest environment, an important question is how big of a strain this technology will place on the environment it should support. Therefore, a close collaboration and exchange of knowledge with the 'Greener Electronics' project team is suggested.
Study areas
This project targets a number of different study areas. While each study area contributes with their individual expertise to the project outcome, interaction between the study areas is necessary in order to achieve a successful project result.
The dream team for the project consists of students from
- Biology or environmental science, who will support the understanding of what a healthy/sustainable forest is and how this can be quantified.
- Electrical engineering/electronics or technical informatics, who will support the understanding of how modern measurement technologies can be applied to the monitoring of forest environments.
- Computer science, who will support the understanding of how large amounts of measured data can be analyzed and visualized.
- Mechanical engineering or industrial design, who will support the understanding of how measurement systems can be converted into products that can operate in forest environments over long periods of time.
If you have any questions about the project, please contact
Sebastian Bader, Mid Sweden University, Email: sebastian.bader@miun.se