DECISIONAL SUPPORT SYSTEM TO MAP FOREST RESOURCES

"The goal of the project is to develop and test a modular decision support system that allows you to implement precision forestry practices in a simple and intuitive way.
This system will make it possible to transfer the procedures developed in the research field to companies in the forestry sector, such as:
 GIS technologies, multi-scale remote sensing
 forest space modeling
 computer algorithms implemented in decision support system.
The system will allow companies, in a simple, guided and intuitive way, to:
- upload the company parcels (or other data) and automatically extract the cartographic maps of the company forest resources, and the topographical data of interest by crop unit (eg altitude, slope, accessibility);
- use derived thematic maps and decision support algorithms for:
- quantify the forest variables;
- obtain support in drawing up forest management plans and authorization applications for forestry operations through the thematic maps and the data collected on the ground;
- draw up a register of interventions in the company and forestry operations through an IT and cartographic database;
- acquire data on the interventions carried out in their management plans in order to update company information
This will make it possible to radically change the method of drafting management plans, allowing, during the review phase, to have updated information and reduce costs, thus strengthening the market power of companies
The main expected impact is to propose a change in the approach to forest management through the use of the computer system that allows the integration of different databases in an automatic and simple way. The goal is to develop a simple system that can be easily used to obtain information and documents on a corporate scale.
The new technologies will thus contribute to increasing the economic added value of forestry activities by reducing the costs for the preparation and control of management plans and favoring the integration of the estimation of multiple ecosystem services, giving a new vision to classic forest management and that implemented. it mainly aims only at the quantification of the productive aspect.
The project aims to introduce a change in the way of forest management and planning by improving control in data acquisition and implementing new technologies that allow to obtain precise information through decision-making tools and algorithms in a simple way. decrease the time of collection of data on properties, update the information with standardized methods and with short times (2-3 years).
The implementation of the decision support system, in fact, will allow access to technologies that are currently precluded due to the lack of programming skills on the part of companies and technicians in the sector. This will make it possible to implement that technological leap which is indispensable in order to implement new approaches and improve the decision-making and production chain of the forestry sector.
More specifically, changes are expected in the entire community that manages the forest heritage of the Calabria Region with a potential socio-economic impact, which will allow:
• Changes in the way forest managers are able to set up routine work;
• the most sustainable use of forest resources based on the set of indicators defined by Forest Europe, the former Ministerial Conference on the protection of forests in Europe, which can be easily estimated using the IT system;
• Changes in income levels from the forest sector thanks to the possibility of saving money on the acquisition of forest data;
The most important expected impact of this project network is that the proposed methodologies could improve the competitiveness of the forest sectors of the Calabria Region by reducing the costs of obtaining information which, using traditional tools, are currently very high.
Furthermore, the system module created on a regional scale will allow all companies and technicians who need it to access a first base of information, establishing a profound change in the retrieval of information on Tuscan forest systems and in particular on all the municipalities falling within the Calabria Region."