Forest and Fire Management

FOREST AND FIRE MANAGEMENT

Regards the sustainable planning and management of forest areas, including monitoring tools, best practices and management models, to create a more productive, resilient, multifunctional forest that provides ecosystem services. This area also deals with gathering and access data about forests and rural fires, IoT and other innovative technologies (Forest 4.0), with the aim of developing, deploying and routinising the use of decision support systems, from the operational to the strategic level.

Some of the research results will include:

Improve integrated landscape planning and management, including preventive planning, better adapted forestry models, and new multifunctional forestry models providing ecosystem services;

Improve forest management methods, models and tools for increased productivity and adaptability and to address conservation objectives;

Tools for monitoring and mapping land use and land cover change, landscape dynamics, forest condition, fire severity, and ecosystem services;

Results transfering from breeding programs to end users: genetic improvement of forest species for increased resistance to fire and climate change; new cloning protocols for genetically improved species;

Promoting non-timber forest products to improve the forest’s resilience to rural fires: adding value to non-timber forest products; revitalizing the natural resin sector;

Integration of information systems for fire suppression decision processes.

This area also focuses on the use of remote data collection (e.g. geospatial data, data from different sensor typologies, statistical data), IoT and other innovative technologies (within the forest 4.0 concept) applied to forest and fire management, with the aim of introducing science and technology at all systems levels, through the development, implementation and routine use of decision support systems, from the operational to the strategic level.

Some of the expected results will include:

The Forest 4.0 concept and technologies to support the daily activities of forestry professionals and smallholders, including smart applications for forest inventory, and mechanization solutions for forestry operations adapted to the national context