Intelligent Forestry

In this joint project, the companies are developing an application that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to interpret remote surveying data and observe any damage caused by the European spruce bark beetle and storms. The goal is for the application to identify bark beetle damage in spruce forests before it is visible to the human eye.

“Metsä Group and CollectiveCrunch aim to provide an application that will add to the digital material Metsä Group uses in forest operations, for example in maps that indicate storm and insect damage,” says Olli Leino, director, digitalisation, from Metsä Group’s Wood Supply and Forest Services.

Helping forests remain healthy

Metsä Group’s parent company is Metsäliitto Cooperative which has nearly 100,000 forest owners as members. Metsä Group procures most of the roundwood from its owners-members in Finland and offers them comprehensive services for forest management and for increasing their forest assets. “It is important to Metsä Group and our owner-members that forests remain healthy and vibrant,” adds Leino. “We’re now using digitalisation to keep forests healthy and provide our owner-members with an entirely new service.”

Jarkko Lipponen, CEO of CollectiveCrunch said: “Advanced technology such as AI and machine learning help us offer deeper insight into the wellbeing of forests, and especially into forest change, faster than ever. The impacts of climate change can already be seen in our forests, and we’re excited with this opportunity to develop a completely new service for improving the wellbeing of our forests with a forestsector forerunner like Metsä Group.”

The European spruce bark beetle is about half a centimetre long and threatens spruce forests, in particular. It has caused significant damage in Central Europe in past years and now threatening Northern forests in Europe and North America. Bark beetle and storm damages are expected to increase in Finland and Nordic regions as the climate becomes warmer. Currently the most common damages to trees are those caused by snow loads and wind.

Quick detection, prompt actions

“By updating the maps indicating damage caused by the European spruce bark beetle several times over the summer, we can detect damage in time, see how it progresses, and contact the forest owner to jointly prevent the spread of damage,” says Olli Leino. “The new application also improves our ability to quickly identify the scope of storm damage and the areas that have suffered the most. This enables us to quickly move harvesting equipment to where they are needed to harvest the damaged trees.”

In 2022, Metsä Group introduced an application that makes extensive use of open data available in Finland as well as data gathered by Metsä Group, and machine learning to estimate growing stock data. Combined with the AI application for damage detection, the number of storm-damaged trees can be safely estimated without surveying the entire damaged area.

The map data on bark beetle damage will be available in the digital map applications used by Metsä Group’s wood supply personnel and in the Metsäverkko online service used by Metsä Group’s owner-members. Metsäverkko is a free online service offered by Metsä Group to help forest owners manage their forest assets and make and timber trade, for example. Some of the services in Metsäverkko, such as the future map data indicating storm and bark beetle damage, are only available to Metsä Group’s ownermembers.

More at  www.metsagroup.com