We are increasingly embedded in the digital forest: on-line grant applications; drone based surveys; in-forest scanning; map based management platforms; in-harvester data collection; the list goes on. We at Sylva Foundation have been innovators in this space; in particular with our flagship web platform myForest supporting woodland creation and management since the early days of cloud-based services in 2010. Other tools we have developed include the Woodland Wildlife Toolkit and most recently the Woodland Condition Assessment app.
One challenge developing from this exciting evolution is that different organisations and developers collect and store data in slightly different ways; whether it’s using different terms for the same thing, such as using common or scientific names, or different formulae to calculate similar things like volumes. This makes it difficult to link technology in a way that can utilise data effectively to help improve the management of forests.
Data standards exist in other industries such as the building industry and the fitness world (this is how you exchange data between your Garmin and Strava for example). A data standard for forestry is vital for the sector to become properly digitally enabled and make the most of what technological advancement can offer.
We’ve been working with the Evolving Forests on a short paper that sets out some of the issues and the need for stakeholders across the sector to come together to take this forward. Please have a look and sign up for more information or if you would like to be involved.
This needs to be a forestry-wide collective endeavour if it is to work.
Hi – the ‘short paper’ sounds interesting, but the link goes to a pdf on a google drive which doesn’t open – the message is ‘no preview available – file is in owner’s bins’
Hi James. This should be working now.