The whole of Europe is feverishly looking for new ways to use farm,
forest and fishery resources more responsibly and sustainably and
to promote the production of the best possible raw materials in
order to increase the availability of food, energy and
biomaterials. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, the
Finnish Forest Centre and MHG Systems Oy Ltd are among the
organisations that have joined forces to accelerate European
bioeconomy with the help of big data technologies based on...Request free trial
The whole of Europe is feverishly looking for new ways to use farm,
forest and fishery resources more responsibly and sustainably and
to promote the production of the best possible raw materials in
order to increase the availability of food, energy and
biomaterials. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, the
Finnish Forest Centre and MHG Systems Oy Ltd are among the
organisations that have joined forces to accelerate European
bioeconomy with the help of big data technologies based on aerial
and satellite images and on open forest data provided by Finnish
Forest Centre. The Finnish partners have developed, among other
innovations, a unique mobile application that puts forest data to
more efficient use.
“Population growth and urbanisation are
increasing the demand for natural resources, which is putting a
strain on the Earth’s carrying capacity. The European DataBio
(Data-driven Bioeconomy) project aims to
develop new sustainable ways to use forest, farm
and fishery resources and to communicate real-time information to
decision-makers and producers – land- and forest owners, farmers
and fishermen”, explains Research
Professor Caj Södergård from
VTT, who acts as the project’s Technology
Manager.
The project has now resulted in the launch of 26 bioeconomy pilots
in 17 different countries. The Finnish consortium is responsible
for forestry pilots that are aimed at, among
other things, making the collection and sharing of data easier
across the value chain.
“One of the Finnish consortium’s innovations is a
globally unique concept based on forestry standards,
which allows landowners and forestry operators to collect data on
their forests using a smartphone and upload the data
to the Finnish Forest Centre’s forest resource
database with the help of an application called Wuudis”,
explains Seppo Huurinainen from MHG
Systems, who coordinates the DataBio project’s forestry
pilots.
“This facilitates the payment of sustainable forestry subsidies and
makes it easier to collect information and keep forest inventories
up to date, as the application accurately calculates the volume and
quality of the trees left in a stand after care works and
harvesting”, Huurinainen adds.
Also scalable to other countries
The Wuudis service and the associated
mobile application as well as standardized forest resource data
concept provided by the Finnish Forest Centre can be easily scaled
to other countries. The mobile application can be also used to
monitor the effects of storms, snow, pests, diseases and the like.
The solution developers are currently in talks with potential users
in Spain and Africa, for example.
Another Finnish pilot has developed a service concept based on
inventorying forests using drones. Thousands of hectares of forest
have already been inventoried with the help of the service this
summer.
All the pilots included in the project involve
developing common software tools for analysing and refining
information flows. The results of the pilots and
the new solutions are also expected to create new business
opportunities and increase the use of big data technologies in the
bioeconomy industry’s primary production.
“We are very excited, anticipating tangible success stories showing
there is real value for all in using big data technologies in
bioeconomy”, says Dr Athanasios
Poulakidas from Intrasoft International,
who acts as the DataBio Project Coordinator.
The Finnish partners involved in the project are VTT, MHG Systems
Ltd, the Finnish Forest Centre and Senop Oy. The project consortium
also includes partners from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany,
Spain, Norway, Poland, Italy, Greece, Israel, the Netherlands,
Denmark, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Estonia, France and
Romania. The project, which is due to end in 2019, is
co-financed by the EU’s Horizon 2020
programme.
More about the
project: https://www.databio.eu/en/
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