it_team4_FOREst 10 May 2022IT4forest supports MIYA e.V
Zichow, a small village in North-East Brandenburg (53.18798, 14.06668) was one of the first Tiny Forest sites in Germany. But how big is the tiny forest? And how many trees are growing in the dedicated area? To find out Ramazan Bülbül, it4forest enthusiast, backed MIYA e.V. with technical expertise and analysis. FST graduate Stefan Scharfe – one founder of MIYA e.V. – promotes Tiny Forest across Germany and had turned to Prof. Dr. J.-P. Mund for support.
Tiny Forests refer to an innovative planting methodology originating in Japan. Since 2020. the non-profit association MIYA e.V., located in Eberswalde and affiliated to HNEE, plants Tiny Forests all around Germany following the Miyawaki method. Tiny forests offer a number of benefits – among others they provide a diverse habitat for flora and fauna, provide a good microclimate and protect against extreme heat, filter pollutants such as nitrogen and sulfur oxides from the air and remove fine dust particles, absorb water, store it and act as retention areas during heavy rainfall. Areas of low ecological value are particularly suitable for this method, which can be transformed into self-sufficient ecosystems within a short period of time through appropriate soil regeneration and dense planting.
With support of It4forest and HNEE, Ramazan Bülbül a HNEE, FST graduate and it4forest team member tested the potential of applying handheld laser methods for the monitoring of Tiny Forests. The adaptive workflow design as shown below presents the methodical fundament of this handheld laser application study.
The Tiny Forest field of 20m x 45m was scanned following a snake-wise pattern. The scanning track started at point “A” and finished in a closed path revisiting the starting point.
The field data scanning was followed by several data pre-processing and data analysing steps presents in the workflow diagram like geospatial data clipping point cloud thinning and volume calculation, terrain normalization, watershed segmentation and vegetated surface reconstruction.
Applying the watershed segmentation method the it4forest.de team detected 2337 of the 2400 planted trees in the Tiny Forest, at a level of 0.4m above ground in spring 2022.
Even though the heights of the young trees were yet only between 30 and 200 cm, it was possible to detect the correct number of individuals. The tested methods of data processing and segmentation measurements provided information regarding the total biomass, height distribution, DHB distribution and crown diameter distribution. In the future it will be possible, to continuously collect data this way and to precisely show the growth dynamics of Tiny Forests.
Authors: Ramazan Bülbül1, Stefan Scharfe2 & Jan-Peter Mund1
1 it4forest.de team HNEE, Department for Geoinformatics and Remote Sensing (www.it4forest.de)
2 Miya e.V., Eberswalde (https://www.miya-forest.de)
