In 2019 alone, the spruce bark beetle caused damage to almost 7 million cubic meters of forest worth several billion SEK. The Swedish Forest Agency is now releasing an open map service with a risk index map so that forest owners can prevent infestation in time. Metria is responsible for the technology and analyzes in this work and has created the risk index map on behalf of the Swedish Forest Agency.
The map was released on January 14, 2020 and is available to everyone on the Swedish Forest Agency's website. The index is based on analyzes from various geographical data and satellite images processed with, among other things, artificial intelligence. It consists of a combination of various risk factors linked to the spruce bark beetle and is available across southern and central Sweden.
- The map helps forest owners to steer the steps in the right direction so that they can more easily find the infestation when the spruce bark beetles again start to swarm in the spring, says Alice Högström, project manager at the Swedish Forest Agency.
So far, it has been very time-consuming and difficult for forest owners to combat the spruce bark beetle by inspecting large areas of forest land manually, on site. Finding infested trees in time is crucial to prevent their spread and save as much timber value as possible.
With the risk index map, forest owners and field staff do not have to waste time inventorying low-risk forests. The map service does not tell you where infestations are taking place, but where the forest is most likely to be attractive to the spruce bark beetle.
- We have trained a neural network (AI) on which parameters are favorable for the spruce bark beetle and on what conditions prevail in infested areas. We then apply these insights to all forest land, so that we can see where the risk is high throughout the forest landscape," says Gustav Arctaedius, forestry expert at Metria.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of today's most socially disruptive trends. At its core, just like GIS (Geographic Information Systems), it is about harnessing large amounts of data for valuable insights.
- AI combined with remote sensing allows us to create insights about our forests and nature in a new way. But it is only when the general public, and in this case forest owners, can benefit from the knowledge in their everyday lives that the technology really comes into its own. That's why this project has been extra fun with information that is open to everyone," says
Gustav Arctaedius.