DigitalForest's mission

The central aim of the project is to understand in near real-time the impacts of climatic extremes on ecophysiological functioning (carbon and water fluxes, growth) in a forest ecosystem using latest developments in digitalisation. This should lead to a data-driven and widely applicable strategy for monitoring ecosystems in a changing climate. We will combine – for the first time – near real-time measurements of carbon and water fluxes and growth with high resolution structural information obtained from terrestrial and airborne laserscanning as well as plant vitality changes observed with remote sensing using AI methods.

Specifically we want to address four overarching objectives:

• Develop a high-dimensional in-situ near real-time monitoring system for the functioning of forests, including:
  • Physiological and phenological responses to climate
  • Related structural changes
• Mechanistically explore the effect of structural changes on forest functioning by:
  • Jointly exploring heterogeneous data on different temporal and spatial scales
• Develop a prototype of a multi-dimensional ecophysiological and multi-scale early warning monitoring system for drought stress of forests
• Make the complexity of the data streams accessible to a broader public via an interactive visual analytics framework