Our Vision and Missions
Our Vision
To maximise forest utilities for humans today and in the future.
Our Missions
To develop and make available:
- New approaches to inventory our forest resources
- Decision support systems to manage our forests sustainably under risk
- Communication tools that will bring our findings to all people with an interest in forests.
Our three mission goals can be abbreviated by the terms UNDERSTAND – FORECAST – COMMUNICATE. Most of our work takes place at the intersection between at least two of these mission goals.
Our Research
People at FORM focus on questions related to the development and enhancement of IT based decision support systems (DSS) used in the management of forest resources. These DSS cover various management scales, ranging from a single forest stand to landscape level, as well as time scales, ranging from tactical (short term) to strategic (long term).
Based on information on current forest conditions - obtained via traditional inventories or using remotely sensed data (e.g. lidar) - our DSS predict the development of forest conditions over time, allowing a comparison of the consequences of various management approaches and uncertainties, such as those associated with climate change.
Our findings aid decision makers in understanding the consequences of their choices, facilitate engagement, and allow optimising material flows into the forest wood value chain.
The output from such complex models is, however, often quite abstract and difficult to interpret. A focus of the research group therefore lies in the development of immersive experiences, allowing users to view both the model as well as modelling output in a virtual environment.
Research at FORM bridges creative, conceptual, and scientific alliances between traditional research in forestry, forest management, remote sensing, and virtual reality applications.