EarthDaily for Forestry and Sustainable Forest Management
Sustainable forest management is a critical focus as business and government leaders turn attention towards climate issues
- The Precision Forestry market was worth an estimated $3.9BN(1) in 2019, and is expected to reach $6.1BN(1) by 2024, a CAGR of 9%.
- Governments are increasingly supporting the digitalization of forestry with the goal of making it more efficient, environmentally friendly and economical, which has helped to increase the usage of forestry mapping technologies.
- Proliferation of forest science with a paradigm shift towards sustainable forest management (“SFM”) and silviculture through compliance, certification and regulatory processes.
- Forest monitoring has benefitted from advancements in remote sensing and satellite imaging technologies that will accelerate SFM adoption and real-time observability to help optimize an effective level of harvest and policy.
(1) Research and Markets (“Precision Forestry Market by Technology and Geography – Global Forecast to 2024”)
- Forestry companies seeking to comply with SFM (e.g. REDD(2) practices) and optimize an annual sustainable harvest level
- Governments / environmental agencies monitoring the natural forests and woodlands for un/mismanaged forestry practice
(2) REDD stands for ‘Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation’ – a mechanism that has been under negotiation by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since 2005
- Forest resources inventory and monitoring – using EO and remote sensing technologies for change detection analysis (deforestation, afforestation, reforestation) on real-time basis
- Climate change mitigation and adaptation – global initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. perseveration of carbon reservoirs / sinks)
- Finland-based research firm VTT uses satellite-based optical data to produce maps and classifications of forest areas that are used to estimate the value of forests.
EarthDaily / EarthDaily Analytics Forest Management Service (UFMS) will deliver continuously updated geospatial mapped forest metrics, scientifically-validated models of forestry biophysical parameter and tracks time series data on forest growth through each growing season using the high coverage frequency of EarthDaily. This will result in lower uncertainty in harvestable yield predictions. In addition this will provide a cost-effective, high-frequency monitoring capability for the vast forest AOI’s, and an automated change detection service to identify “change of interest.”