Forest Management Associations Aim to Better Communicate Forest Damages with AI-Based Service
Forest management associations will deploy a service based on artificial intelligence, machine learning and open satellite data. The service recognizes changes in forests that are related to forest health and storm damages. It will be added as new map layers to the associations’ ERP LeafPoint. Forest health dataset will be available around the end of June and beginning of July and the forest damage data in August. The datasets will cover the whole Finland.
Forest health map layer will highlight forests suffering from insect damages as well as risk sites, in which the trees are not dead yet but where the risk level for such incident is high. New map layers will help forest experts in detecting forest damages and targeting forest management to the right place at the right time. Quickly harvesting storm and insect damage sites has significant benefits. The loss of tree values can be reduced, and the expansion of damages or further consequences caused by them can be diminished. Therefore, the new service will help forest management associations in securing the vitality of forests in alliance with forest owners. The datasets will be updated several times during the summer by utilizing satellite data.
The new service will also become available for forest owners next fall. It will be added to forest management associations’ digital service OmaMetsä. Thanks to the new service, also forest owners can stay up to date on the condition of their forests.
“We want to offer our clients the most intelligent forest systems in the world. This service is only one example of how new technologies can boost our clients’ business processes. We do not only bring new data to applications, but also map out in which decisions the data is valuable and how processes can be automated with it,” says Jani Heikkilä, Sales Director at Bitcomp Oy.
Juha Laitinen, Development Manager at Metsänhoitoyhdistysten Palvelu Oy (the service agency for forest management associations), relates that forest owners can now get information on damages more easily than before. In the future, smaller damages can be better detected, and the work can be focused on correct sites in case of larger damages.
The new service is provided by Bitcomp Oy.
Further information:
Juha Laitinen, Development Manager, Metsänhoitoyhdistysten Palvelu Oy, +358 400 298 601
Jani Heikkilä, Sales Director, Bitcomp Oy, jani.heikkila@bitcomp.fi, +358 40 682 8821
