IABG - Forest: Digital analyses with remote sensing

A successful and sustainable managing of our forests is a social, governmental, economic and individual challangeat the same time. The effects of the increasing number of natural disasters and climate change are becoming visible in our forests. Foresters and silviculturists are often confronted with a damaged forest - induced by calamities, storm blowdowns or drought.

Forest inventory has been time consuming, costly and typically done on a 10-year basis. The accelerated changes in forests require regular monitoring of forest areas. Updating forest data with remote sensing is becoming possible at shorter and more flexible intervals with satellite and aerial imagery. Digital automated analysis processes provide important information for early detection. From this, measures for the reduction of forest damage as well as a sustainable strategic forest conversion process are derived.

ForestMonitor for risk prevention

Our ForestMonitor provides annual information up to ad-hoc statements of high quality. You benefit from tailor-made solutions and individual advice.

Our services include the following, which can be combined in modules:

Forest Terrain

You will receive information on the area characteristics with the components slope, exposure and altitude.

Forest Inventory

Tree species, tree heights and canopy closure help you to characterize your forest.

Forest Damages

We offer demand-oriented analyses of damage events such as storm damage, snow breakage, drought damage and pest infestation in the desired time window.

Forest GIS Management

Digitization services, geodatabase management, acquisition and evaluation of current aerial and satellite image data.

Forest analyses

Take risk precautions and protect your forest digitally today. With our remote sensing analyses, you can detect and react to stress factors and potential natural hazards at an early stage:

Risk analyses, e.g. potential landslide areas, flooding, forest fire
Damage analyses/post-disaster analyses, e.g. determination of extent of damage and emergency aid
Vitality analyses
Scrub analyses

In the area of terrestrial recording, our bark beetle app and WoodCA app are available to you. Use the bark beetle app (BarkBeetleDetection) to locate your damaged trees and plan the next steps. With WoodCa you can easily and quickly record your wood piles with photo-optical measurement.

External content - YouTube

This is a placeholder for third party content, please click to activate.

The external provider might be able to collect user specific data by activating this content. For more information please check out our data protection.

Talk to us. Whether you are a federal ministry, a state office, a forestry association or a private forest owner - our solutions can be adapted to any application.

These partners trust us:

Bavarian State Institute for Forestry and Forestry (LWF)
Hesse Forest
Thuringia Forest
Saxony Forest
Landesbetrieb Wald und Holz NRW
Intend Geoinformatics GmbH
US Army Corps of Engineers
EU Joint Research Centre (JRC)

Current publications:

BeechSAT

Artificial intelligence (AI) and aerial/satellite imagery to support the forestry sector. The cooperation project BeechSAT with the Bavarian State Institute of Forestry (LWF) investigated the interaction between modern remote sensing technologies and classical and automated machine learning methods for the detection of damaged beech trees. The results are of great relevance and research will be continued within the IpsSAT project addressing bark beetle infestation in spruce trees - the dominant tree species in Germany. Read more here.

Marginal Lands

The Marginal Land (MAIL) project aims to identify potential carbon sinks (e.g. fallow land, wasteland, forest-free slopes) across Europe and evaluate their usability for afforestation. A tool will be developed to identify potential afforestation areas for CO2 storage and to adapt them accordingly. A specific site characteristic to be modelled is the carbon sequestration potential of biomass over the medium term . The integration of current Copernicus data enables the visualization of the development of potential carbon sink areas. This is intended to raise awareness of marginal land management and to provide access to a wider range of users. A related platform will provide on-demand thematic maps for entire Europe to policy makers, stakeholders, or researchers with.
IABG identifies potential carbon sinks in Germany and Europe and analyses their applicability in sustainable climate programs.
All activities are funded by Horizon 2020/ MSCA-RISE 2018.
MAIL (Identifying Marginal Lands in Europe and strengthening their contribution potentialities in a CO2 sequestration strategy, GA No. 823805, H2020-MSCA-RISE-2018) is a European collaborative project of different European research institutions and companies funded by the Research Executive Agency (REA).