FRESh LIFE – Demonstrating Remote Sensing integration in sustainable forest management

The FRESHLIFE event, organised by Caprarola Municipality with the sponsorship of the Order of Agronomists and Forestry of Viterbo, took place in Caprarola on 29^th November 2019. The workshop showed the results of the LIFE project and practical proposals for Monte Venere area, one of the three study area of the project.

After the registration of the participants, the Mayor of Caprarola, Eugenio Stelliferi, opened the workshop with greetings and thanks for the Project activities carried out by the Municipality of Caprarola, in synergy with University of Tuscia. After brief considerations on the necessity of forest management, the Mayor gave the floor to prof. Portoghesi.

The first presentation outlined the main targets of the project, on the basis of the principle of sustainable forest management and forest multifunctionality. First, currently recognized forest functions and the ideas of sustainable development and sustainable forest management were point out. Then, on these basis, the FRESHLIFE project was introduced and the goals of the project, the partners involved and the actions carried out were explained to the audience.

Dr. Tomao, following Portoghesi’s presentation, detailed the tecnichal approach to collect field data and to acquire remote sensing data (Action B2) and explained the main project results (Action B3). The last presentation, by Dr. Cruciani, introduced practical proposals within the actions B4 and B5, with particular reference to the Monte Venere area. The proposals are based on the implementation of the geographic decision support system for the forest resources management (Forest Information System – FIS ) as result of the action B4.

The audience took part in the final discussion with comments and questions, expecially related to the practical proposals, in response to the recent adoption of the Forest Management Plan supporting a strictly conservative management of Monte Venere forest. Dr. Vincenzi Andrea, who followed the project on behalf of the Municipality, drew the workshop conclusion.

The Municipality of Caprarola, local partner together with the University of Tuscia, organize a final event on November 29th.

During the day the results achieved from the project and the proposed methodologies will be presented to local stakeholders focusing on the potentials offer by the Forest Information System and Sustainable Forest Management for the territory around the demonstration site.

Here below the agenda with more details about the venue and the registration to the event —> download pdf

In the context of Action B.5 “Upscaling project” we developed a Forest Information System (FIS) for an additional forest area in Tuscany: “Riserva Naturale Statale Biogenetica di Vallombrosa”. The experiences and results achieved during the activities in the other  three demonstration sites were the base to develop the Vallombrosa FIS.

The FIS was develop to support the revision of Forest Management Plan in Vallombrosa and to give to the students of forestry courses of University of Florence the opportunity to use FIS during their field courses.

The area covered by Vallombrosa FIS is 1000 ha and the spatial data related to Forest Indicators were generated using UAV photogrammetric data acquired by eBEE and the LiDAR data acquired by aircraft in 2015 by Tuscany Region.

Field data acquisition

Remote sensing data acquisition by ebee UAV

Screenshot by the Forest Information System on QGIS and, below, map of the growing stock for the Vallombrosa National Reserve

Last week in Curitiba (Brazil) Anna Barbati (University of Tuscia) presented the results of our project during the XXV IUFRO World Congress.

Here below some pictures from the session named “Innovative application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in Forest Science and Management” during which she talked about “What UAV remote sensing can tell us about sustainability of forest
management at operational level: lessons learned from the EUfunded
FREShLIFE project”.

The presentation is available for download at this link —> DOWNLOAD

In these last phases of the project we are starting to work on the up-scaling of the results. In order to better understand how to maximize the impacts an analysis of the preferences of the subjects involved is fundamental.

At the link below a quick Q/A survey to have both a wide understanding of the benefit of the Fresh Life project products in your daily work and tips about how to improve their potential in the project results’ up-scaling.

https://forms.gle/ZQ7Y9af6UZkZD86X9

Thanks for your help!

This week we had an interesting training session organized by our partner Regione Molise in collaboration with the University of Molise and the University of Florence.

During the two days of training different stakeholder were guided trought the metodologies developed by the project from the field surveis to the elaboration of the data to create maps of the Sustainable Forest Management indicators.

Here below some photos of the days.

On the 7th and 8th of May we had the monitoring visit of the project in the demonstration site of Bosco Pennataro.

Here below some pictures of the days and the link at the Report For Policy Makers that was presented during the meeting.

REPORT FOR POLICY MAKERS –> pdf download