Background

Climate change is significantly influencing forest growth and health, leading to a situation where the traditional forest growth models cannot be applied.


MAIN CHALLENGE

Lack of climate-sensitive single tree growth models and unbiased biodiversity indicators which can be quantified with limited resources on large areas.


PROJECT GOAL

Derivation of single tree growth models, which are sensitive to climate change, hazardous disturbance, and human intervention in forest ecosystems


About

AI4Trees researches, develops and combines technologies that allow us to understand and explain how climate change affects tree growth at a single tree species level. This is an essential component for optimizing carbon segregation, biodiversity and climate adaptation in forest ecosystems.

State-of-the-art forest monitoring methods such as multi-temporal land and airborne laser scanning, spaceborne remote sensing, as well as continuous measurements by electronic dendrometers produce a never experienced multitude of evidence data.

Exploiting this, predictive AI-based climate-sensitive tree growth models will be developed applying different machine learning strategies. Single tree growth models are destined to be the decision basis for supporting forest management on a local, regional and national level. In this way, AI4Trees is empowering our response to minimize potentially harmful consequences for modern societies in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

What makes AI4TREES special?

Multidisciplinary team of experts

The AI4Trees consortium consists of six partners and combines expertise in the fields forestry, ecology and meteorology with techniques from remote sensing, data science and machine learning.


Unique multi-modal datasets

Our team has access to the collected hourly tree data from dendrometer measurements of several ICP-Forest networks (high frequency data), as well as yearly terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) (low frequency) that is acquired during the project. This is combined with satellite imagery from the Sentinel-1 and 2 missions.


Ambitious vision

With the help of explainable AI and probabilistic machine learning, we aim at modeling for the first time the tree growth for single tree species under consideration of Climate Change.


tREE gROWTH DATA

Dendrometer data 

At present 42 countries in Europe and beyond participate in ICP Forests. Due to our partners at BFW, AI4Trees has direct access to the forest monitoring data of the Austrian locations. In the photo you can see our colleague explaining how the electrical dendrometer data is collected and combined with the data from a weather station.

sustainability

Passionate to make a difference

AI4TREES alignes it’s objectives with the Sustainability Development Goal 15 of Life on Land:

“Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss”.

Publications

Stay tuned! We regularly update our website with the latest events, publications and findings.

Imagine 22 – Digitale TrANSFORMATION NEU DENKEN
Data Collection – ICP Forests, Tree Growth Data
SDG 15: LIFE ON LAND

Our Team

Refiz Duro

Scientist & AI4Trees Project Coordinator

 AIT Austrian Institute of Technology  GmbH

Günther Bronner

Managing Director at Umweltdata

Anita Zolles

Ecologist at the Federal Research Center for Forests (BFW)

Elke Schlager

Data Scientist at Know-Center GmbH

Martin Gritsch

EO & GIS Data Science, Processing

GeoVille Information Systems and Data Processing GmbH

Hanns Kirchmeir

Managing Director E.C.O. Institute of Ecology 

Dominic Hewitt

Remote Sensing & Geoinformation Specialist

GeoVille Information Systems and Data Processing GmbH

Albert Villalobos Gasca

Technical Engineer in Topography and Expert in GIS Development

Umweltdata GmbH

Jasmin Lampert

Senior Data Scientist

AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH

Anahid Jalali

Data Scientist

AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH


Gudrun Eppich

Senior Project Manager & Prokuristin at Umweltdata GmbH

Veronika
Siska

Scientist

AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH

Contact us!

If you have any questions or are interested to find out more about our research, do not hesitate to reach out to the following email address: 

Address

AIT Austrian Institute of Technology 
Giefinggasse 4
1210 Vienna 
Austria


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