Northern Boreal Forest Information Products Based on Earth Observation Data

The objective of the Northern Boreal Forest Information Products Based on Earth Observation Data Project is to provide forest information services for companies and private parties, focusing on researching areas that are difficult to reach. For example, software utilizing satellite images provides forest biomass and mapping information.

The participants in the project are the Forest Research Institute (Metla), Finnish-based Arbonaut, and Dendron from Canada.

A variety of satellite material, aerial photos, laser coning data, and field surveying data have been collected in the test areas in Ontario and Eastern Finland.
 The satellite data has been thoroughly preprocessed and manually interpreted by Dendron, and Arbonaut develops fully and semi-automatic interpretation methods.

Using exact data, an interpretation application has been created which shows the quantity and quality of the tree stand very accurately. With the help of this technique, interpretation has been extended to satellite images as well. In this case, the accuracy naturally decreases, whereas the price of the material drops immensely and the global coverage improves significantly.

The project will continue until the end of 2007.


The Finnish industry and research community are playing an active role in this research and development:

• Arbonaut
  Arbonaut is a Finnish technology company developing IT management solutions for monitoring forests and other natural resources.
  

• Metla
  The task of the Forest Research Institute (Metla) is to use research in promoting economically, ecologically, and socially sustainable silviculture and use of forests.
  

The Canadian participant in the project:

• Dendron Resource Surveys Inc