The project aims to strengthen the cooperation between Slovakia and Nordic countries, focusing on new remote sensing techniques to mitigate forest insect damage.
The project enhances networking activities between the Institute of Forest Ecology, Slovak Academy of Sciences (IFE SAS) and the top-class counterparts Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, The University of Eastern Finland and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The project will enhance IFE SAS staff management capacities, administrative skills and scientific capabilities in the use of novel remote sensing technologies (RST) in forest disturbance ecology (FDE).
Rigorous analyses of severe insect-induced disturbances using novel RST will be carried out in test areas representing different forest and climate types: mountain forests in Slovakia and boreal forests in Finland and Sweden. We will integrate in situ UAV and drone acquired remotely sensed data, existing multitemporal geospatial information and field data, particularly data on bark beetle population density, visible infestation symptoms linked to outbreak phases, and tree physiology parameters measured using electronic dendrometers or sapflow meters.
The combined dataset will be used to develop new tools for landscale-level early bark beetle attack identification and for designing bark beetle infestation risk assessment model. We will draw on the latest advances in drone technologies and image analytical tools, including deep Convolutional Neural Networks based machine learning techniques and Artificial Intelligence algorithms. We expect to obtain important scientific results and contribute new knowledge to this scientific field.
Financier: Horizon Europe
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or REA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.