STS4ForestStress: Developing Spectral, Temporal, and Spatial Analysis Techniques for Monitoring Forest Stress under Changing Climate

The European forest is experiencing growing stress due to climate change.

Fires, drought, insect and disease outbreaks are devastating forests, significantly impacting forest vitality, carbon storage and ecosystem functions, threatening the sustainable management of forest resources.

This project responds to the urgent need from the forest sector for forest stress monitoring, by developing cutting-edge remote sensing and earth observation techniques for stress identification. First, cross-disciplinary collaborations will be built from four monitoring and experimental campaigns across Sweden.

The comprehensive database from the campaigns will then be used to develop advanced techniques in spectral, temporal, and spatial analysis, and ultimately establish methodologies for monitoring forest stress.

The project will tackle multidisciplinary problems to understand the forest decline process under drought stress and bark beetle infestation.

Breakthroughs are expected in the early detection of forest stress using remote sensing, and in the differentiation of stress types from earth observation data.

This project involves the collaboration between the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Lund University with world-leading teams in remote sensing, earth observation, forest disturbance ecology, and tree physiology.