Forest Information Trends and Undercurrents
Changing forest products markets brings forth a whole suite of questions about forest resources and operations. Some are new; others have been around for a while but need a better answer to address current market constraints. In my recent webinar for the Forest Resources Association (FRA), I described these market-driven questions as “a sharper focus on product” due to so many questions being directly related to forest products. Prevailing market conditions often form undercurrents that drive forest technology use. As forest businesses refine their operations to address markets, there will be increased use of forest technology to answer these questions, understand what products exist on a landbase at a given time, and exactly where they are located.
The good news is that many technologies needed to address these questions already exist, at least in component form. The last decade has produced considerable technological advancements like LiDAR, machine learning algorithms, drones / UAVs, mobile devices / applications, and much more. We aren’t waiting for the technologies to be developed. We are at a point now where we need to figure out effective utilization and enable adoption.
It becomes a matter of figuring out how to make simple data transformative. Take drones, for example. I’ve taken to saying that drones have the potential to become “the next GPS” for foresters. To understand the true utility of drones, it helps to look back on the history of foresters’ use of the Global Positioning System (GPS). A forester who worked through the GPS adoption years recounted the immense value of simply being able to go into the woods, stand in a spot for a few minutes, and go back to the office with the location of that point. That simple data, just a few point locations, was used to georeference maps and completely transformed how they did their work. If we can achieve that level of transformation with a few points, imagine what we can do with the imagery and LiDAR data that can be collected with drones.
Our improved ability to access vast stores of remote sensing data extends far beyond the capabilities of drone-based collection alone. Aerial imagery providers have developed substantial capacity for efficient, large-scale data acquisition. As a result, we are well-positioned to leverage a wealth of high-resolution, accurately georeferenced, and up-to-date imagery and LiDAR. In parallel, significant and ongoing investment from both the public and private sectors continues to expand the availability of satellite data. These efforts are not only delivering current datasets but also establishing sustained data pipelines that support long-term, scalable workflows.
All these developments place the forest industry in a unique position. The many technologies that emerged over the past decade are transitioning out of the “boutique” phase of the technology life cycle and into the “commodity” phase, where availability increases and costs come down. This provides an opportunity to combine multiple technologies, leveraging each of their strengths without breaking the bank. With integrated solutions, we can start looking for outcomes greater than the sum of the parts, and we have a wealth of data ready to be poured into these workflows.
Market forces will likely drive us to seek more and better information to support faster solutions. The tools and data are teed up and ready for us to increase efficiency and find additional value. It is just a matter of challenging ourselves to turn these into our next transformative technologies.
This edition of Woods to Mill follows up on a recent webinar. FRA members can access recordings of past webinars in the ‘Resources’ section of our website.
