AlpMon Project: Near Real-Time Monitoring of Alpine Forests ...46a0c2a7-703a-4aa7-8be0...Alpine forests are an important and growing economic resource: • 9% of all EU27 above ground

www.joanneum.at/digital

The ASAP - AlpMon Project: Near Real-Time Monitoring of Alpine Forests

www.catalysts.cc/projects/alpmon/

Prof. Dr. Mathias Schardt----------------

supported by

partners


Alpine Forest Facts

Alpine forests are the dominant LULC class of the Alps:• 46% forest cover in Alpine area (Alpine Convention report)

Alpine forests are an important and growing economic resource:• 9% of all EU27 above ground forest biomass is in the Alpine Convention area• 32.5 billion US$ = estimated economic value of forest products in Europe (FAO, 2010),

estimated economic loss due to bark beetles in Lower Austria in 2017: 35 Mio. €, furtherincrease of beetle infestations expected for 2018 due to the exceptionally dry spring

Other important socio-economic functions of Alpine forests:• recreational: tourism, leisure activities, sports,…• environmental: habitats, clean air and water,…• security: sustainable natural resources, protection against natural hazards,…


Alpine Forests are @ risk

Climate change impacts on Alpine forests

• increase of storm damage• increase of drougth damage• -> increased risk of insect infestations

• AT 2017: new record in bark beetle damage

timber vol. damaged by storm and bark beetles in AT, 2017 (BFW)Öst. Forstzeitschrift 04/2018


Alpine Forest Management Needs

• Forest owners, forest managers and forest administration need fast and geolocatedinformation on forest changes & damages, especially for remote areas

• such information will allow rapid initiation of mitigation measures to prevent furtherinsect infestations

FF Schäffern, 2017


AlpMon: Alpine Forest Services

AlpMon Service 1

• near real-time forest changedetection based on S-2 time seriesanalysis & a change alert system

• long-term trend analysis

AlpMon Service 2

• improved forest maps• forest border & tree line• dominant leaf type & tree species• tree cover density



AlpMon Services will be availablethrough a web-based user interface

AlpMon User Interface (mockup)

AlpMon Services are processed and runon the EODC cloud infrastructure

https://www.eodc.eu/

2012 (t1)

Copernicus Nutzbar Machen 730. Mai 2017

TCD change detection

TCD change detection2015 (t2)


Change Detection ResultForest recovery


2001Change Detection Service Province of Salzburg

2011Changed Areas between 2001 and 2011


AlpMon: Sentinel-2 Processing

• Fully automated Sentinel-2 (pre-)processing chain in Joanneum Impact Software

• daily check for new imagery for pre-defined granules -> if YES: start pre-processing

• ToA to BoA with Sen2Cor

• cloud/snow masking based on enhanced Sen2Cor scene classification

• topographic normalization in IMPACT (global: SRTM; Austria: LiDAR ndsm)

• calculation of (vegetation) indices and Tasseled Cap transformations

• time series analysis based on Least Squares estimates & Kalman Filter

• can be run on various cloud environments via docker containers


AlpMon: NRT Forest Change Service

change is detected

- email/sms alert- new change layer

in user-interface + download ofshapefile

change is analysed

- size of affected area- date of first detection- change type (storm, harvest)- timber volume (from CHM)

pre-processing & time series analysis


AlpMon: NRT Forest Change Tool

iteratively reweightedleast squares estimation

Kalman filter & outlierdetection

raw observations- Tasseled Cap- spectral bands- indices…



20.06.2017 31.08.2017 TC brightnessif multiple outliers detected-> change confirmed



• Detected change areas are analysed for change type• storm damage

• harvesting• clear-cut• forest thinning

• Differentiation of change types is based on• spectral properties of change areas (e.g. no debranching yet)• intensity of initial change signal• spatio-temporal analysis (previous logging in neighborhood?)• user confirmations -> future reference areas• future ideas: include wind speed maps/wind speed models

COSMO-DE model


AlpMon: Bark Beetle Infestations

• bark beetle infestations cannot be detectedby tools that analyse rapid changes

• at the early stages of infestation, spectralchanges are very small

• when spectral changes are high, thetrees are already dead

• Therefore: a trend analysis tool is currentlybeing developed and tested at bark beetlesites in Lower and Upper Austria to detectinfestations at the earliest possible stage

June 2017 June 2018

OÖ 2018: removal of infested stands


AlpMon: Borkenkäfer-Verdachtsgebiete

Juni 2017 Juli 2018• Ca. 600 Borkenkäfernester > 20x20m erhoben• Referenzbild: Mitte August 2017• Kiefer + Fichte

• Automatisierte Klassifikationsmethode• Test verschiedener Input Daten• Mono- vs. multitemporal



Juni 2017 Juli 2018• Ca. 600 Borkenkäfernester > 20x20m erhoben

• Automatisierte Klassifikationsmethode• Test verschiedener Input Daten• Mono- vs. multitemporal

• Klassifikation von Borkenkäfer -Verdachtsgebieten



Juni 2017 Juli 2018• Detektion der Borkenkäfer-Nester mittels Satellitenzeitreihen

• Linker Punkt (=blau): Borkenkäfernest• Rechter Punkt (=orange): nicht befallen

• Erstdetektion am 30.06.2017 (Bild in der Mitte)



Juni 2017 Juli 2018• Sentinel-2 Szene von 28.09.2018

• Truppenübungsplatz Allentsteig



Juni 2017 Juli 2018• Sentinel-2 Szene von 28.09.2018

• Klassifikationsbeispiel:• Rot = Verdacht auf

Borkenkäfernester mit Stand September 2018







Juni 2017 Juli 2018• Klassifikationsbeispiel



Juni 2017 Juli 2018• Klassifikationsbeispiel


AlpMon: Dominant Leaf Type Map

AlpMon DLT map @ 10m Copernicus HRL Forest DLT map @ 20m


AlpMon: Tree Species Map

Tree species separation based on phenologic differences

spring autumn Sentinel-2 image

tree species classificationbeech

alder


AlpMon: Tree Cover Density Map

• based on knn regression classifier• rapid annual updates possible• input data:

• outdated LiDAR ndsm for training• a summer Sentinel-2 scene/mosaic

S-2 image2015 LiDAR ndsm 2012

LiDAR TCD2012

S-2 TCD2015

TCD change2012-2015

from Ciancio et al. 2006


• The demo sites for the AlpMon services are the Austrian Bundesland Steiermark / Styria and selected bark beetle sites in Lower and Upper Austria

• The AlpMon Services can easily be expanded to full Alpine scale

• Test users are from a variety of forest entities:

• forest owners and forest owner representatives• private forest companies• private forest offices• forest administration offices (Landesforstdirektion)• governmental organistations

AlpMon: Demo Sites and Test Users



www.catalysts.cc/projects/alpmon/

For more information on

• our AlpMon Services • our custom-tailored EO

forest solutions

visit our project website:

Documents

AlpMon Project: Near Real-Time Monitoring of Alpine Forests ...46a0c2a7-703a-4aa7-8be0...Alpine forests are an important and growing economic resource: • 9% of all EU27 above ground