Located in the heart of the Western Carpathian Mountains, Slovakia has a high share of its forest land in mountainous or hilly terrain. In this morphologically and geologically difficult terrain, an adequate harvesting system is required to operate efficiently, prevent environmental degradation and secure forest workers' safety. A large proportion of machinery used in harvesting operations in...
Intensive forestry operations can lead to soil compaction, plastic soil disturbances, and rutting, which negatively impact soils, vegetation, and water bodies. Although many studies have explored the main factors influencing soil damage, it remains unclear whether wood extraction methods and driving direction affect the impacts of forest machinery. Specifically, the differences in soil damage...
The identification of standing tree species, forest timber assortments, and on-site as-sessment of their quality and value using images would be widely useful for a variety of applications. In this study, we used the Orange data mining software to classify images of forest wood assortments by tree species and value. The software applies deep learning algorithms for image classification. Our...
Mechanized cut‑to‑length harvest operations with clear cutting as the final operation within the rotation is the predominant harvest method in Fennoscandian forestry. However, interest in continuous-cover-forestry (CCF) methods is increasing. CCF methods such as shelterwoods and patch cuttings can contribute to maintain stand continuity and can provide ecological and social benefits but may...
Harvester data with accurate GNSS position provides a potentially valuable source of detailed information for forest inventory in first-thinning stands. In thinning operations performed with modern harvesters, all trees along strip roads are removed, forming a systematic line sample that represent approximately 15–20% of the stand. This study investigates how strip road trees can be identified...
Ground-based forest harvesting operations can substantially disturb soil through mechanisms such as compaction and rutting, posing long-term risks to forest productivity and sustainability. In boreal forest systems, soil trafficability maps derived from the depth-to-water (DTW) index are commonly used to identify areas vulnerable to machine-induced soil damage. However, the applicability and...
Forest harvesting operations inevitably affect forest ecosystems, and in order to apply Sustainable Forest Operation a careful planning is essential mainly with high level of mechanization employed. This case study was developed within the framework of the AGRITECH project in one of the first living lab activated. The study area is located in Central Italy in a Turkey oak forest managed as...
The current development of harvesters and harvesting systems makes it possible to calculate timber volume with a high accuracy, albeit over bark. Despite this, countries where timber is traded based on under-bark measurements, such as Poland, continue to measure volume manually or using photo-optical methods. Meanwhile in Finland, where over-bark measurement is in use, the volume calculated by...
Forest management faces increasing uncertainty due to climate-driven changes in forest dynamics, disturbances and growing economic constraints on timber harvesting, particularly in mountainous terrain and areas with limited forest accessibility.
For policy implementation and long-term planning, both in government and the timber industry, it is essential to have estimates about the future...
The digital transformation of forest inventories needs the validation of consumer-grade sensors over different phenological stages. This study evaluates the seasonal measurement agreement of stand-level basal area (BA) estimates and operational efficiency between the TreeScanner smartphone application and the FJD Trion P1 professional personal laser scanner (PLS). Research was conducted in...
Boom-corridor thinning (BCT) has been proposed as a promising alternative for treatment of dense stands with small-diameter trees, as it promote higher harvester productivity due to effective crane work in comparison to traditional selective thinning (ST). BCT can be performed using high to low degree of systematic approach, from strict (following a strict pattern) to flexible (adjusting the...
Rut formation, entailing both a disturbance of soil functions and impaired machine mobility, is a common risk when operating ground-based forest machines under unfavourable soil conditions. As a complement to technical approaches such as flotation tires or bogie tracks as well as planning support tools such as trafficability maps, we present a concept of trafficability prediction for a...
Harvester-mounted mobile laser scanning (HarvMLS) is a novel approach to quantify forest structure in situ during harvesting operations. However, its reliability relative to established aerial- and ground-based laser scanning systems remains unknown. In this study, we quantified forest structure, assessed structural changes caused by thinning, and benchmarked HarvMLS against drone-based laser...
The accurate measurement of individual, high-quality logs is a critical operational task in the timber trade, particularly during timber auctions where roundwood is traded individually and commands premium prices per cubic meter. In these high-stakes environments, even minor deviations in volume estimation can result in substantial economic losses for either buyers or sellers. Consequently,...
Selecting the most appropriate harvesting system is a critical decision in forest operations. In practice, this choice is often based primarily on the experience of forest technicians or logging contractors. Increasingly, however, there is a need for more objective and transparent approaches that can support decisions in complex operational contexts. In recent years, the integration of...
Fungal sapwood discolouration is a major cause of value loss in Norway spruce sawlogs and directly affects grading outcomes according to EN 1927-1. Spores of fungi responsible for sap-stain are naturally widespread in forest ecosystems and spread via insects, wind, rain splash, and contaminated harvesting equipment, increasing the risk of quality loss during log storage.
This study...
The increasing frequency of severe windstorms in Central European forests has led to extensive salvage logging operations that can have lasting effects on the integrity of the soil and related pedological and biological functioning.
This study quantified the extent and degree of soil disturbance following fully mechanized salvage logging in the University Forest Enterprise near Brno, Czechia,...
Tree diameter at breast height (DBH) and tree height (H) are essential parameters for monitoring forest growth and estimating carbon sequestration. Conventional field-based measurements are labor-intensive, time-consuming, and costly. In recent years, LiDAR technology has increasingly been applied in forestry due to its efficiency and long-term cost-effectiveness. However, extracting DBH and H...
Mountain forests often provide protection against gravitational natural hazards and supply multiple ecosystem services but are increasingly vulnerable to climate-change-enhanced disturbances due to legacies of past spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst.) promotion. To optimize the allocation of limited operational resources, forest managers must spatially prioritize interventions that balance...
In Mediterranean forestry, thinning of pine forests is mainly done with traditional harvesting system (THS) due to its versatility and low investment and relocation costs compared to specialized machinery. However, THS is based on winch coupled to farm tractor with a large share of manual work for felling and processing tasks. The increasing lack of workforce for these activities may be solved...
This study analyzes and compares the productivity and economic efficiency of pull-through delimbers and processors in the processing of whole trees from partially mechanized timber harvesting in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In forest-rich and topographically challenging regions such as the Black Forest, fully mechanized harvesting systems often reach operational limits. As a result, adapted...
For given wheel loads, the ground pressure exerted by off-road vehicles such as forwarders is to a large extent influenced by tire width and tire inflation pressure. Thus, wide flotation tires, but also flotation bogie tracks, are well-established means of reducing soil disturbance and maintaining machine mobility in forest operations. While reduced tire inflation pressures applicable in...
Accurate single-tree volume estimation is fundamental to forest inventory and operational planning in timber harvesting. Conventional volume estimation relies on field-measured tree dimensions such as diameter at breast height (DBH), tree height, and occasionally upper-stem diameters, which are labour-intensive and costly to acquire at scale. Mobile laser scanning (MLS) offers an efficient...
Reliable, high‑throughput evaluation of internal wood quality is a critical enabler for modern mechanized forestry and downstream processing. We report a compact set of results from an imaging‑based workflow for automated analysis of roundwood, focusing on (i) robust separation of bark from solid wood and (ii) consistent detection of slices containing internal defects such as knots, cracks, or...
In even-aged young Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) forests, first thinning plays a crucial role in maintaining sustainable carbon sinks. However, forest owners often postpone thinning due to the low operational productivity (m³ Eₕ⁻¹), which reduces profitability and, consequently, contractor and industry interest. To address this sustainability challenge, we modeled boom-corridor thinning with...
Soil compaction caused by forestry machinery poses a significant challenge to the sustainability of forest ecosystems, affecting not only physical soil properties such as pore space and water retention but also biological activity—a key driver of nutrient cycling and soil regeneration. Traditional methods for assessing biological activity are often invasive or labor-intensive. A promising...
Accurate timber measurement is essential for forestry and the wood industry. Lower-value assortments such as pulpwood or energy wood are commonly assessed by manually measuring the gross stack volume and converting it to net volume using conversion factors. These traditional methods are labor-intensive and prone to human error, highlighting the need for fast and objective digital...
Production planning in a Nordic context involves scheduling volumes purchased from private woodlot owners for harvest by independent cut-to-length (CTL) contractors. Planning goals include operational targets for production volume fulfillment, relocation efficiency, and ground damage. The FORAC Harvest Arena provides an online training environment where managers and students can work towards...
In Mediterranean forest regions such as the Pyrenees, Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF) is widely applied to maintain structural complexity and keep trees standing after harvesting. This approach often requires extraction systems that are flexible, minimally damaging, and capable of operating under variable terrains and stand structures. Among ground-based machines, the skidder is one of the...
Reliable end to end traceability of individual sawlogs from the forest to the sawmill is a key enabler for digitalisation, process optimisation, and value recovery in the forest value chain. Code based log identification using computer vision offers a scalable alternative to physical tagging, but its practical deployment is challenged by variable visual conditions, partial occlusions, and...
Forest operations are increasingly exposed to the impacts of climate change. In northern regions such as Quebec, a significant amount of wood is harvested and transported during the winter, when the ground is frozen. These operations are environmentally friendly and less costly. However, climate change is expected to lead to shorter frost periods, prolonged spring thaws, and shifting...
Soil degradation resulting from mechanised timber harvesting on mountain slopes represents a critical challenge to the long-term sustainability of forest ecosystems. In the Ukrainian Carpathians, the extensive network of skid trails established during logging operations frequently becomes the primary source of erosion, soil compaction, and hydrological disruption. Despite increasing...
The forestry–wood sector faces a growing need to increase efficiency, transparency, and trust across the supply and processing chain. In roundwood (log) trading, however, a pronounced information asymmetry often persists: buyers make decisions based on limited or non-comparable data on the quality of individual assortments, which increases transaction costs, raises the risk of disputes, and...
Selective logging in structurally complex stands requires technologically flexible skidding systems capable of operating under pronounced environmental and operational uncertainty. Variability in terrain morphology, soil bearing capacity, timber assortment dimensions, and dynamic resistance to motion creates a stochastic decision environment in which conventional deterministic design...
The accuracy of round wood volume determination is fundamental to planning and accounting for individual processes in the wood trade. The rapid technological development of mobile devices, including computers, digital cameras, and automated systems, has enabled the emergence of practical data acquisition tools. This also applies to various areas of forest management. One option in this regard...
Forest roads are a critical component of forest management infrastructure. They ensure access to timber resources but may also support recreation, conservation and access to rural areas. In Norway, extreme precipitation events have lately caused widespread road failures and erosion and have highlighted limitations in existing drainage design standards. This study presents final results from...
Value-based bucking is a central optimisation task in cut-to-length harvesting systems, where stem segmentation into assortments determines both product distributions and economic performance.
In Norway, harvester price matrices are typically harmonised within procurement regions, even though considerable variation exists in stem form, internal wood quality, and other tree-level...
Knowledge of costs and profitability are fundamental for planning of all forest operations. Skogkurs is developing a new generation of web-based decision support tools for harvesting, silviculture and forest road networks. These replace traditional Excel-based spreadsheets for increased availability and usage in the field.
For more widespread use such tools need functionality and...
Accurate, early and cost-effective field information is a bottleneck for both forest and orchard production systems, especially when decisions depend on reproductive potential and individual tree or hedge structure. The ARGUS consortium develops and validates operational UAV and terrestrial LiDAR workflows to (i) automatically quantify reproductive organs in maritime pine crowns and chestnut...
In Sweden, half of the forest area is owned by approximately 300 000 non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners. While most harvested timber is produced by companies using harvesters and forwarders, NIPF owners still contribute a substantial share of the total time spent on forest work. A large part of this work concerns logging, where tractor-based equipment, using chainsaws, tractor-mounted...
A study was conducted on dynamic modeling and efficiency optimization in tree cutting by logging machines. A mathematical model was established, considering continuous reduction of tree mass, dynamic response of the driving system, and time-varying acceleration. The variation of feed rate and its impact on cutting performance were analyzed, particularly during simultaneous pruning operations....
Forest road infrastructure plays a multifunctional role in mountain forest management, with a focus on enabling efficient forest management while potentially altering catchment hydrology and flood response. Despite their importance, the quantitative hydrological effects of forest road networks under varying maintenance conditions are not well understood, which limits evidence-based planning...
Forestry operations are under growing pressure to supply sawlogs as quickly, cost-effectively and customer-specifically as possible. In fully and highly mechanised timber harvesting systems, harvesters and processors take on a key role at the front end of the wood supply chain, as they determine the assortment lengths directly in the machine. The commonly used length measurement systems rely...
Traditional measurement methods have limitations in data accuracy and compliance with international traceability standards. In the context of forest management and supply chain digitalization, there is a need to develop and test new tools that improve the effectiveness of wood sourcing and tracking. This study evaluated the performance of a digital wood sourcing, tracking, and quality...
The aim of the study was to characterise the effects of timber skidding using a prototype battery-powered Salamander 600 4×4 micro-skidder and the impact of this operation on the topsoil layers along the skid trail. The tests were carried out in a young oak stand growing in a mountain broadleaved forest habitat, on sloping terrain with an average slope of 15° (26-27%) and numerous obstacles in...
The application of large language models (LLMs) in forestry is still experimental to large extent, specifically in highly specialized subdomains such as the European castaniculture. This scientific initiative presents CastaneaGPT, a domain-specific digital assistant which is designed to support sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) management in Italy and beyond. CastaneaGPT is conceived as both a...
Annual logging planning with optimization solutions relies on measurable criteria for felling area conditions and suitable weather. Increased data precision improves the reliability of the optimization assessing logging feasibility and simulates the effects of varying weather scenarios. Which leads to effective process management by centralizing planning of harvesting . The study aimed to...
Accurate estimation of harvested wood volume is one of the most crucial processes for billing. It makes the roundwood trade a key task in forest management. Globally, in many countries, measurements are conducted using the traditional volumetric sectional method with analog tools. Currently, many digital alternatives, such as photo-optical methods supported by smartphones or ad hoc-designed...
Harvesting operations in short-rotation eucalyptus plantations present increasing challenges, particularly when balancing diverse operational practices and performance expectations. Variability in field operations further complicates decision‑making, underscoring the need for models that capture realistic productivity dynamics. This study used a simulation-based approach to evaluate how the...
Climate change has altered weather patterns, resulting in longer dry periods followed by heavy rainfall, which is increasingly impairing the water and soil protection functions of our forests. The storage of precipitation water and the delay of runoff processes are fundamental forest functions that should be taken into account in forestry measures in silvicultural and technical forest...
Pack-mules are the archaic logging system that prevailed in the Apennine mountains until few decades ago. Today, despite the dramatic reduction in the number of teams, this system still survives, contrary to all expectations. Given that the system has its merits and cultural value, there is an interest in preserving and enhancing it, perhaps even expanding it.
To do so, however, we must...
In Finland, thinning operations are carried out annually on approximately 0.5 million hectares. Due to the labour‑intensive and costly nature of field inspections, official harvesting quality assessments produced by the Finnish Forest Centre are conducted on less than 1% of this area. For many years, the aspect with the greatest need for improvement has been thinning intensity. Harvester...
Globally, road transportation is a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One possible option to lower GHG emissions of road transportation is to use alternative fuels, for instance liquefied biogas (LBG) and electricity, on vehicles. During recent years, LBG-powered trucks have grown in number even on the road transportation of the forest sector, such as timber trucks and woodchip...
Ongoing climate change and associated damaging events are leading to a significant need for large-scale forest regeneration. The key challenge is to efficiently address the increasing demand for reforestation despite a shortage of skilled workers by means of automated processes. In Germany, reforestation is still predominantly carried out manually and is associated with high labour intensity....
Climate change mitigation requires transformative changes in high-emission sectors, particularly the construction industry, which is responsible for a significant share of global greenhouse gas emissions. The increasing interest in wood-based construction reflects its potential to reduce the global warming potential (GWP) of the built environment while strengthening forest-based value...
Reliable forest stand delineation is a fundamental prerequisite for forest management, harvesting system allocation, and spatial planning. Conventional stand boundaries are typically derived from visual interpretation in the field or from aerial imagery, making them time-consuming, experience-dependent, and only partially reproducible. In response to increasing disturbance dynamics and the...
Greenhouse gas emissions from forest management operations are currently gaining global attention for tackling climate change by reducing the carbon footprint of forestry activities. This study aimed to quantify the carbon footprint of a full rotation teak (Tectona grandis) plantation, identifying key emission sources in silviculture and harvesting This study assessed the carbon footprint of...
Forestry operations are facing increasing structural challenges, including a shrinking skilled workforce, heightened safety requirements, and rising expectations for productivity with reduced environmental impact. These create a clear need for automation technologies that can support or eventually perform demanding tasks autonomously. In 2021, our AORO platform marked a significant milestone...
Efficient wood logistics is essential for minimizing operational costs and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In Poland, several symptoms of inefficiency—including the fragmentation of forest operations leading to frequent machine relocations, extended transport distances, and the need to move machines to designated parking locations after each working shift—highlight the need for a...
Two-stage trucking systems are increasingly used in steep-land harvesting in Aotearoa New Zealand to reduce the need for the quality of roading and landings required to allow access for on-highway high productivity motor vehicles (HPMV’s). In these systems, stems or processed logs are trans-shipped between a constrained extraction/processing landing and a larger storage and load-out skid using...
In 2026, an Italian machine manufacturer developed a new light yarder designed to match the specifications drafted in 2024-2025 by CNR, through a survey of small-scale logging contractor preferences (presented at FORMEC 2025). That study stressed the importance of practicality and low cost, and directed design efforts towards a lightweight, compact machine that can cope with poor...
In Finland, the forest industry has taken several steps toward more sustainable wood procurement. For example, biogas-powered timber trucks have been introduced, and large companies now require that biodegradable chain oil is used in harvester heads. Biodegradable hydraulic oils entered Finland’s market in the late 1980s and were adopted in forest machinery largely due to industry demand....
Accurate tree species identification in young boreal forests is critical for sustainable forest management, biodiversity monitoring, and bioenergy resource assessment. However, current remote sensing approaches predominantly rely on single-sensor methodologies, limiting classification accuracy in complex young stands where trees exhibit similar heights, small crowns, and subtle spectral...
Wood supply chain and transportation logistics are critical drivers of resilient forest value chains, enabling the reliable, sustainable, and cost-effective flow of a unique renewable resource. In recent years, operational volatility has increased due to disturbance-driven salvage wood peaks, tighter labor markets, and rising expectations about emissions. Despite the sector’s relevance to...
Forest environments pose significant challenges for automated driving due to dense vegetation, irregular terrain, varying illumination conditions, narrow skid roads, and limited or unreliable GNSS availability. In contrast to structured road environments, skid roads often lack clear boundaries and may contain unpredictable obstacles such as branches, uneven ground, and irregularly spaced...
Bark stripping is a major disturbance factor in Central European forests and leads to reduced growth, increased susceptibility to fungal infection, and elevated mortality risk. In operational forest management, severely damaged trees often need to be removed in order to avoid economic losses and secondary infections. Reliable and objective detection of bark stripping is therefore highly...
Forestry cranes play a critical role in mechanized logging operations, yet their core mechanical architecture has changed little over the past decades. As a result, they consume substantial energy, much of which is continuously required to support their own structural mass and payload against gravity, even when not performing productive work. While prior research has focused extensively on...
Forest operations managers handle multiple sources of uncertainty when planning wood supply. Wood sourcing for Nordic forest industries typically include both internal and external suppliers, where the first-line for solving operational deviations from delivery plans involves re-planning of internal supply operations.
This paper presents an adaptation of the typical monthly wood supply plan...
Mixed species forests have been increasingly recognized as an important pillar of sustainability driven ecosystem management under uncertain and more frequent extreme environmental and social conditions. Although knowledge about the resilience of mixed stands has remained somewhat fragmented, the growing frequency of climate related risks has indicated that the importance of mixed stands is...
Steep-terrain forestry ($>30^\circ$) demands a radical departure from conventional machinery to balance operational efficiency with soil protection. This study evaluates a dual-solution framework developed by MSE: the "Shin-Raptor II," a specialized 6,400 kg class lightweight winch-assisted (WA) base carrier, and the "Feller Buncher Saurus (FBZ)," an innovative attachment for integrated...
To meet climate goals and limit global warming there is an urgent need to decarbonize road freight transport, including the forestry sector’s transport. Previous studies have shown that electrification is an effective means for carbon abatement in freight transport and will play a key role. In the project TREE (Transition to efficient electrified forestry transport) 12 electric timber and wood...
Automated Deep Learning for Forest Resource Mapping to Drive Efficient Operational Planning
The efficient planning and execution of mechanised forest operations rely heavily on near-real-time, spatially explicit intelligence regarding forest resources. While the rapid growth of multi-source data—from national inventories to satellite imagery—presents a major opportunity to optimize these...
Growing environmental concerns and increasing pressure on natural resources have intensified the demand for robust sustainability assessment tools in industrial sectors. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) enables the systematic quantification of material and energy inputs, as well as associated environmental emissions, across the entire life cycle of products and technologies. In mechanized forest...
The study will present the implementation of a smart monitoring system based on LoRaWAN technology to support the improvement of safety and operational efficiency in cable yarding on steep slopes.
As a case study area, a typical harvesting intervention with cable yarder in the Italian prealps was chosen.
An LTE-enabled LoRaWAN gateway was mounted on the tower yarder to ensure a stable...
Our project focuses on the development of a teleoperation system for a forestry delimber operating in full-tree applications in Canada. In many regions, full-tree processing involves repetitive tasks: feeding stems, delimbing, cutting to prescribed lengths, handling, and stacking. These operations require precision, are physically demanding, and take place in remote environments. The forestry...
Efficient dispatching of timber trucks is a major determinant of cost, productivity, and supply reliability in forest transport systems. In operational contexts, where transport distances are long, pickup locations vary daily, and mills operate under strict time windows, dispatching decisions must account for dynamic constraints including queue conditions, service times, driver duty limits,...
Precise forest management under the increasing pressures of climate change necessitates a transition from static inventory databases to dynamic, high-resolution digital twins. Current modelling approaches frequently rely on episodic remote sensing data, such as LiDAR or aerial photogrammetry, which suffer from temporal latency and fail to reflect the immediate structural changes following...
Demand and price for logging residues in Sweden have increased due to the security situation in Europe and ambitions for energy independence and low‑carbon energy systems. Accurate information on the volume and spatial distribution of logging residues from final fellings is therefore highly valuable for contractors, wood fuel suppliers and end‑users (heating and combined heat‑and‑power...
The demand for domestic energy wood and pulpwood in Finland has been high due to the increased use of forest chips and the cessation of wood imports from Russia. The forestry operations in the supply chain still face a persistent and long-standing challenge: young, often untreated first‑thinning stands are characterised by high stem densities and small‑sized harvested trees, which result in...
According to our Roadmap 2035 Vision for Forest Machine Data and Sensor Technologies in Finland, forest resource data in 2035 will be substantially more accurate in terms of tree volume, quality, changes, harvestability and soil information. Accurate, single-tree interpreted forest resource data will provide high-quality pre-operational information for cost- and energy-efficient,...
Truck weight regulations play a central role in shaping the efficiency, safety, and infrastructure impacts of timber transportation in the southern United States. Under federal law, gross vehicle weight (GVW) is limited to 80,000 lbs. (36,287kg) on interstate highways, while in Alabama, state roads permit up to 88,000 lbs. (39,916kg) through a 10% allowance. This study surveyed logging...
One of the most important parameters for the successful establishment of forest stands and forest habitat restoration programs is forest seedling quality. Some of the traditional methods for seedling quality assessment are invasive, time consuming, and labor-intensive. Hyperspectral imaging, in contrast, provides a noninvasive evaluation method, making it a new and a promising tool for...
Heavy forestry machinery like harvesters or forwarders may damage machine operating trails during their operation by causing rut formation. This damage is mostly due to a combination of the loaded weight of these machines and soil condition, which can also result in increased wheel slip. Therefore, having a method to calculate slip in real time will result in a better understanding of caused...
Seepage water can occur when wood chips are stored outdoors. In relation to precipitation, the amount of seepage water is small. It contains high levels of dissolved organic matter. If such water enters surface waters, it could pose a threat to aquatic life. If the water seeps into humus-rich forest soils, microorganisms decompose the dissolved organic matter of the water quickly and thus...
Electrification is emerging as a key technological pathway for future forest harvesting systems to address existing challenges. These include reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving energy efficiency, and strengthening the resilience of the forest sector to external disruptions, as it is currently heavily dependent on fossil fuels for harvesting and in-forest operations. Major...
Despite increasing fully mechanized timber harvesting, motor-manual operations are still required, for example for the selective removal of high-value individual trees, in sensitive stands or difficult terrain, in calamity patches, or in small private forests. Besides physical strain, these motor-manual tasks entail an elevated accident risk for workers, caused for instance by deadwood,...
This study estimated the availability of unused materials for woody biomass power generation plants registered in FIT (Feed-in Tariff) as the supply potential through the introduction of trailers with 20-t payload instead of trucks with 10-t payload which were widely used on winding road networks in mountainous areas of Japan. As a result, supply potentials of used and unused materials were...
Uncertainty in harvesting output and road accessibility significantly affects supply chain planning and the ability to meet customers’ demand for high-quality wood products in a timely manner. Despite a long-term harvest scheduling, variations in product volumes can reduce delivery precision and increase the risk of product backorders. Weather conditions also influence landing accessibility;...
Climate-driven forest mortality is having an increasingly significant impact on harvesting intensity, the stability of wood flows, and the medium-term availability of timber. However, translating climate signals into operationally meaningful indicators remains challenging, as the strength of the relationship between drought and mortality depends on the spatial scale. This study evaluates the...
The idling of forest machines reduces the energy and cost efficiency of wood-harvesting operations. This study estimated the idling times of forest machines using automatically collected machine big data. The study also examined the impact of machinery type, harvesting enterprise, seasonal variation, engine power, and machine manufacturing year on fuel consumption during idling. Furthermore, a...
High-quality, diverse annotations remain a bottleneck for deploying computer vision in
forestry, where scenes are highly variable and targets are defined by operational context rather than appearance alone. A preliminary, fully autonomous dataset creation workflow is presented that links harvester-mounted RGB video to StanForD production records. The pipeline uses visual language models...
Log truck weights in the US state of Georgia are governed by state law, including limits for gross vehicle weight, single axle, and tandem axle weights. A very small percentage of loads are inspected by law enforcement, however. Some forest products mills have internal policies regarding the weight of delivered loads to reduce liability and protect mill infrastructure. The objectives of this...
Bioenergy accounts for approximately 30% of Sweden’s energy supply, of which about 80% is derived from the forest sector, e.g. in the form of logging residues such as treetops and branches. In recent years, both demand and prices for logging residues have increased in Sweden, driven by societal decarbonisation efforts and ambitions to strengthen national energy independence in response to...
In thinning operations in rotation forestry, reasonable thinning intensity is key to ensuring favorable development of the stand in terms of sawlog yield, growth loss, and carbon sequestration. In recent years, realized thinning intensities in the Nordic countries have often violated recommended limits, and operators have voiced their desire for decision support and reporting assistance in...
In countries with a large forestry sector, road transportation is responsible for a considerable fraction of territorial carbon dioxide emissions. At the same time, heavy road freight in rural areas is arguably one of the most challenging cases for electrification. In the project TREE: Transition to efficient electrified forestry transport, 12 fully battery electric roundwood and wood chip...
Resilient forest value chains depend on the adaptive capacity of forest managers at all scales. Small-scale forest owners, who manage a substantial share of Europe’s forest area, play a critical role in ensuring sustainable timber supply, safeguarding biodiversity, and maintaining multifunctional landscapes. However, their decision-making environment is becoming increasingly complex and...
This study assesses the quality and energy potential of softwood plantation harvest residues from south-east Queensland, with the aim of supporting emerging biomass markets. The focus is on the effect of different comminution methods—chipping and grinding—and, for chipped material, the influence of screening.
Harvest residues, mainly clearfall tops and other off-cuts, were collected from...
More competitive wood supply is dependent upon increasing load sizes for timber trucks. With a background of increasing percipitation and temperatures the latest revision of Norwegian forest road standards have been adapted with improved construction and drainage specifications. However, the existing forest road network has been constructed over a time span of 60 years, throughout the...
Accurate estimation of a tree’s expected leaning direction is essential for safe and controlled felling, particularly in complex crown architectures or winch-assisted motor-manual felling operations. In practice, such decisions rely primarily on visual assessment by experienced forestry workers. The extent to which this estimation reflects the tree’s actual mechanical mass distribution and the...
Two-stage trucking systems in New Zealand forest harvesting operations have become increasingly common, with their adoption rising from 8% to 24% since 2016. Despite this growth, productivity modelling research remains largely reliant on elemental time studies, which typically generate small datasets covering only several days of work. This study presents an automated, data-driven framework...
In Finland, the forest sector currently needs and will continue to need new workers. With demographic development, the age groups are becoming smaller and more urbanized, which means that young people may not have any contact with the forest sector before applying for education. Previous studies have emphasized that students’ perceptions of different educational paths and occupations can be...
The practice of poplar forest establishment, maintenance, and harvesting varies globally, potentially inducing significant effects on cost structures and environmental impacts. In Romania, for instance, a typical life cycle involves operations such as ground clearing, stump removal, soil milling, pit drilling, and manual planting, followed by several cultivation stages, thinning, and...
Forest harvesting operations increasingly require real-time, non-destructive tree-level information to support precision decision-making directly within machine workflows. Although harvester-mounted Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) systems provide detailed three-dimensional representations of tree stems, most existing processing approaches depend on full point cloud reconstruction, frame alignment,...
Receiver-reported Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) accuracy metrics (e.g., horizontal accuracy estimates derived from solution covariance) are sometimes used as proxies for positional reliability in forestry applications. However, their predictive validity under canopy and obstruction remains insufficiently quantified. This study evaluates the relationship between receiver-reported...
The economic sustainability of energy-oriented forest supply chains depends on the ability to process low-value biomass using robust and cost-efficient technologies. In such contexts, reducing maintenance requirements, minimizing downtime, and maximizing operational productivity are essential to maintain profitability. Conventional grapple-saw systems, although widely adopted, are primarily...
Forest operations are a cornerstone of the forest-wood sector, mobilizing tens of millions of cubic meters of wood each year. These resources serve multiple societal needs: timber for construction and furniture, industrial wood for paper, cardboard, and panels, and energy wood for heating and biomass. Sustainable forest management ensures that forests continue to provide these resources while...
One of the key objectives of Estonia’s current National Energy and Climate Plan 2030 is to reduce national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80% compared with the 1990 level. In line with the European Green Deal, the Estonian government has also committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2050. Meeting these ambitious targets requires a substantial increase in the use of renewable energy...
Modern Swedish forestry has contributed to a substantial decline in ground lichen, a key winter forage resource for semi-domesticated reindeer, while demand for timber and bioenergy continues to increase. This study develops and tests a generic, easily implemented GIS-based screening method to identify priority areas for lichen-adapted young stand management that can simultaneously support...
Reliable and up-to-date forest road information is essential for sustainable forest operations, affecting technical road classification, timber transport accessibility, and maintenance planning. However, conventional road inventories are often incomplete, outdated, and costly to maintain due to their reliance on manual surveys and expert assessments. Over the past four years, we have developed...
The aim of this contribution is to present the analysis of the professional interests and motivations of young people regarding forestry careers. An online survey (N = 162) was conducted in May 2025. The study identifies the profile of a typical forestry candidate as an individual from a rural area, men or women, who prioritizes job security and personal satisfaction over high financial...
Forest cable yarders are a highly effective timber extraction system, particularly in steep mountainous terrains. Operating these systems demands high expertise, as does the preliminary planning and ground layout of the lines. Accurate field tracing and post-installation verification are critical to ensure technical feasibility (e.g., maintaining ground clearance for suspended loads) and...
Forestry operations require the creation and maintenance of internal networks called extraction trails (cloisonnements), which are essential for machine movement and silvicultural work.
Currently, marking and updating these networks in the field remains costly, time-consuming, and sometimes imprecise.
The SCAN project aims to modernize and optimize the management of these infrastructures...
The energy utilisation of shrub biomass requires specialised machinery adapted to shrubland conditions, enabling efficient harvesting and collection in cost-effective formats suitable for energy production. Proper handling is essential to minimise soil contamination and ensure the production of high-quality biofuels. Current harvesting technologies integrate clearing and biomass collection...
Skogforsk has carried out reoccurring tests of harvesters with a focus on value recovery (including e.g. damages, measuring accuracy, optimization efficiency) and StanForD implementations since the mid 1990’s. A new test with seven different final felling harvesters was carried out in the autumn of 2025 in one single location north of Uppsala. The test was carried out in a Norway spruce stand...
AI models are becoming increasingly important in forestry operations, enabling robotic systems to automatically detect and classify forest features such as stems, logs, rocks, and roads from vehicle-mounted images. This automation enhances operational efficiency, reduces human error, and supports sustainable management through real-time monitoring and analysis. However, the development of such...
The need for safe, efficient and standardized training methods has promoted the use of virtual reality simulators as an alternative tool to conventional training, especially in high-risk operational industries. These simulators allow technical skills to be developed while reducing operating costs, physical and environmental risks, and machinery wear, and facilitate the controlled and safe...
Efficient bucking systems and careful timber handling are key factors in maximizing timber value. To evaluate the performance and long-term advancement of such systems, Skogforsk has conducted a series of large-scale wood value trials. The most recent study, conducted in 2025, compared seven leading harvester systems under operational conditions. Data were collected in a spruce-dominated final...
Short-rotation coppice is a modern industrial crop, and its profitability depends on the mechanisation of all management operations. Once the crop is mature, trees can be felled with a variety of machines, but shears represent the most effective solution. However, shears can cause some stump damage, raising concerns about stump mortality and re-sprouting vigor, both crucial to coppice...
The labor shortage is becoming a growing problem in the European forestry sector. As current data collection techniques rely on field labor, data collection for the purposes of forest road design is more difficult than in the past. For that reason, there is a need to identify more efficient field data collection method. The previous method of field data survey in forest road design process was...
This study analyzes and compares the productivity and economic efficiency of pull-through delimbers and processors in the processing of whole trees from partially mechanized timber harvesting in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.In forest-rich and topographically challenging regions such as the Black Forest, fully mechanized harvesting systems often reach operational limits. As a result, adapted...
Utilising biomass (tree branches and treetops) for energy purposes is a common practice in mechanised forest operations. Collecting biomass, however, may be time consuming if, for easy and effective forwarding, the harvester operator is focussed only on timber piling, but not paying attention to biomass piling. To make biomass forwarding more effective, placing it in piles is an alternative...
The forestry sector is undergoing a rapid digital transformation, driven by the demand for accurate, timely, and actionable data. Across public, private, and industrial operations, the challenge remains the same: bridging the gap between field data collection and the decision-making processes that guide sustainable forest management. This presentation highlights how G.A. Logix has developed...
New Zealand’s forest harvesting workforce faces persistent retention challenges. The lack of clear forestry career paths, poor employment conditions, and limited awareness of opportunities have contributed to retention rates of only 30% after three years in the forestry industry (MPI, 2019; Workforce Insights, 2022). In a highly mechanised sector where operator capability is central to...
The presence of standard-compliant forest road networks is essential for the sustainable management of forest ecosystems and the efficient execution of forestry operations. Enhancing the resilience of these roads to environmental impacts, preventing water erosion, and extending their service life depend on positioning engineering structures at the optimal topographic locations along the route....
Precision forestry seeks to improve the sustainability and efficiency of forest management by applying new technologies to characterise individual trees. Accurate tree-level characterisation, typically through remote sensing, facilitates optimising timber yield and minimising waste. To that end, optimal bucking methods can be applied given accurate enough estimates of tree features. Among...
Modern cut to length (CTL) harvesters increasingly incorporate positioning information as part of their standard data output. This information ranges from machine traces that continuously log machine movement, to base machine positioning during felling, to the positioning of stumps and, ultimately, each processed log. While high accuracy GNSS receivers with coordinate corrections can...
In Japan, woody biomass power generation is increasing due to the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme. However, woody biomass power generation suffers from low energy efficiency. Therefore, improving energy efficiency through combined heat and power (CHP) generation is being considered. Preferential treatment under the FIT program for small-scale facilities (generating less than 2 MW) has begun, and...
Information about the trafficability of gravel roads is of paramount importance for sustainable, cost-effective, and year-round delivery of timber for industrial use. For heavy vehicles like a timber truck, it is essential that the roads are in a trafficable condition when they are being driven on. The trafficability of forest roads varies depending on the season and weather conditions. Many...
Manual handling in forestry and nursery work involves repetitive low postures, trunk bending, and short-distance load carriage, all of which can elevate the risk of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). Passive exoskeletons are sometimes suggested as a practical way to reduce postural exposure and strain, but their effectiveness varies depending on the job. Their effectiveness depends heavily on...
Weather events such as tornados and hurricanes can significantly impact forest stands and create operational challenges for harvesting and utilization. Rapid salvage following events is critical in the southeastern US due to the onset of insect damage and wood discoloration due to blue stain fungus. In September 2024, Hurricane Helene impacted the region as a Category 4 hurricane, with...
improving productivity and operational efficiency. However, despite increasing levels of mechanization, transport-related activities such as log extraction, uphill hauling, load stabilization, and auxiliary water transport continue to expose workers to significant ergonomic and safety risks. Challenging terrain conditions, whole-body vibration, repetitive movements, awkward postures, and time...
The Birds Directive protects wild bird species, their habitats, and prohibits deliberate disturbance during the nesting season. Forest operations—particularly timber harvesting—during the nesting season may have negative impacts on bird habitats, breeding success, and populations. The recent decision of the EU Court of Justice creates a need to specify and clarify national regulations...
In Sweden, half of the forestland is owned by approximately 300,000 individual private forest owners. In total, they spend about 11 million work hours per year on forest management activities in their forests. Each to fulfill their own personal goals with forest ownership. Typical activities are planting, pre-commercial thinning and undergrowth clearance. Contractors are often hired for...
One-third of forestland ownerships in Minnesota are comprised of privately-owned, family forests. The majority (65%) of those family forests are found on less than 8-hectare parcels and the owners of which commonly have alternative land stewardship objectives that differ from traditional forest management goals. Timber harvesting as a management objective is universally low in priority for...
Maintaining the competitiveness of the forest sector requires a holistic understanding of interactions across the forest-to-value chain, particularly within harvesting and transport operations where inefficiencies can propagate system-wide effects. This work presents a conceptual framework based on systems dynamics and systems-based thinking to investigate structural behaviour, feedback...
The use of the cut-to-length method as a wood harvesting system creates a demanding operating environment for harvester operators, especially in the Nordics. In addition to the harvesting method itself, high productivity demands and environmental conditions such as terrain, weather, vibration and cabin tilting increase the demands of the operator’s work. This environment places mental,...
The positive effects of soil preparation on the survival and growth of planted seedlings have been widely known for a long time. However, recent studies have highlighted the importance of developing new technical solutions for soil preparation to mitigate its harmful environmental impacts. For example, particular interest has fallen upon methods that reduce the intensity of soil disturbance...
Overseas studies and emerging data from within Aotearoa New Zealand indicate that those working in forest environments experience a significantly elevated risk of suicide. Yet the limited research conducted within global forest industries has primarily focused on psychosocial conditions and their health impacts, under-recognizing how structural and cultural forces interact to shape workers’...
Norway has a forest road network of 50 000 km, where a single road typically has 4-5 owners. The current road network has been progressively extended since the 1960s. As a result of climate change and transition to heavier timber trucks, maintenance practices are becoming increasingly important.
Over the last decades there has been increased focus on cooperation between forest owners and...
Selecting a timber harvesting system is a context-dependent decision that requires substantial expertise to balance economic performance, environmental impacts, operator safety, and technical feasibility. In practice, system choice is influenced by stand and site conditions (e.g., slope, extraction distances, soil conditions), machine characteristics and operational constraints, and trade-offs...
To mitigate wildfire risk in the western United States, forest fuel treatments such as mechanical thinning and prescribed burning have been widely implemented in fire-prone areas. While these treatments play a critical role in reducing wildfire hazards, they also present both opportunities and challenges. A substantial amount of biomass generated from fuel treatments offers new opportunities...
To ensure the continued functionality and intended purpose of forest road infrastructure, regular maintenance interventions are required. Maintenance operations employ technologies with differing levels of mechanization, which subsequently influence task difficulty and workers’ exposure to occupational noise. The study examined a technological system representative of practices in small...
Working conditions in forests are changing mainly due to the current state of forests as a result of climate change. More deadwood and pre-damaged wood are being felled, and there is more deadwood, especially in the crowns of the deciduous trees to be felled. As the risk increases, so does the potential danger of accidents. The results of the KWF accident statistics...
This study examines the barriers to entry for third-party log truck drivers in the southern United States and situates those barriers within the broader structure of the log trucking workforce. Using a mixed-methods design, a 23-item survey was administered in person at 23 fuel stations, yielding 573 completed responses from company, independent, and third-party drivers in Alabama, Louisiana,...
Traditional forest measurement techniques which are carried out using calipers and diameter tapes are accurate but they require a lot of manual work in large scale operations. The recent advancements in mobile LiDAR technology which can be installed in consumer-grade devices like smartphones and tablets have introduced new possibilities of quick and remote tree measurement. ForestScanner and...
Digitalizing the forest supply chain is essential for building resilient value chains that can handle increasing regulatory and environmental complexity. However, implementation is currently hindered by fragmented systems and breaks in communication between harvesting, logistics, and processing. The lack of integration, which is often caused by proprietary data formats, undermines the digital...
Growing interest in logging residues in Sweden, resulting from geopolitical developments and ambitions for energy independence, has intensified the need for precision planning of wood fuel supply. More than 15 years ago, Skogforsk developed a system that uses harvester production files to forecast volume and location of logging residues at stand level. Implemented through the calculation...
The layout configuration of machinery in forest products manufacturing facilities plays a critical role in occupational health and safety, operational efficiency, and production sustainability. In sawmills, timber processing plants, panel production units, and surface treatment lines, machine placement is generally designed according to production flow and space constraints. However, ergonomic...
Using geotechnical engineering principles to assess slope stability typically uses a factor of safety to define the ratio of resisting to driving forces along a potential failure surface. Accurate estimation of the Factor of Safety is central to evaluating shallow landslide susceptibility, yet field-based measurements of soil strength are rarely available across steep, remote terrain. This...
The FORS4Wheels is a Croatian Science Foundation project that is focused on the experimental and quantitative analysis of the accessibility of forest and urban green trails for wheelchair users, to determine the relationship between the morphological characteristics of trails and the biomechanical as well as subjective load experienced by users. The study integrates geodetic, engineering,...
As the forestry sector transitions toward the era of Forestry 4.0, the integration of digital planning into physical field operations remains a critical bottleneck. Traditionally, in high value thinning tree selection and marking, essential for sustainable forest management and selective harvesting, rely on manual application of spray paint. This analog process is not only labour-intensive but...
ABSTRACT. Transportation is a strategic activity in the forestry sector, primarily due to its high impact on timber production costs. In Brazil, this activity, along with timber harvesting, represents a significant portion of the wood production cost delivered to the mill. This study aimed to evaluate the production cost of road forest transportation based on operating distance...
Stump grinders have long been used to remove stumps after trees have been felled. These machines are particularly useful in hard-to-reach areas, such as urban areas, where it is important to remove the stump quickly without damaging the immediate surroundings. When using stump grinders, it is important to correctly determine the efficiency of this process due to the high labor costs. The...
This study examines a real-time assistance concept designed to enhance operator decision-making and cognitive ergonomics in mechanized cut to length (CTL) forest harvesting. The concept integrates augmented reality (AR) visualization and mobile LiDAR sensing into a head-up hologram display (HUD) system that projects environmental information directly into the operator’s line of sight. Grounded...
Eucalyptus coppice management remains strongly dependent on motor-manual operations performed with combustion-engine chainsaws, despite their well-documented environmental and ergonomic limitations. These tools contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and increase operator exposure to noise and hand–arm vibration, raising concerns regarding both sustainability and occupational health. The...
The complex operation of forestry machines in the forestry work environment places high demands on the machine operator. Inexperienced operators are unable to meet these requirements during their learning phase, resulting in very low productivity during operation. On the other hand, experienced drivers are facing a high workload under the very varying working conditions during long...
This research is carried out within the national project Tech4You – Technologies for climate change adaptation and quality of life improvement, funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Against a global backdrop of growing attention to illegal timber sourcing and the need for clearer information on wood logistics, movement, and marketing, the study examines a blockchain-based...
More than 90% of the forest territory in Quebec is publicly owned, and as is the forest road network, which is funded through the user-payer principle. There is a publicly available database (AQRéseau+) that contains information on forest roads and their characteristics. Since there are more than 450 000 km of forest roads in the province of Quebec, this database is useful for forest...
Forest road networks are essential infrastructure supporting mechanized forestry operations. These roads must be sufficiently stable to ensure the safe operation of forestry machines. In Japan, many forests are situated on steep terrains, where access by forestry machines is not possible without properly constructed roads, making it necessary to construct narrow roads at high density. Today,...
Forested peatlands and forest wetland areas provide a large variety of ecosystem services and support biodiversity. Thus, particularly in the implementation of national strategies to mitigate climate change and enhance biodiversity, these areas are increasingly becoming the focus of management action. Consequently, they require inclusive forest management plans to guarantee the provision of...
Terrain trafficability affects average skidding distance (ASD) calculations through economic impact and environmental restrictions during skidding operations. This research tested the possibility of using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with a LiDAR sensor in determining inaccessible forest areas for skidding operations based on restricting terrain slope and/or ground obstacles....
In Sweden, approximately 75 million m3sub of timber are harvested each year, predominantly using single‑grip harvesters. Maintaining wood value is essential, and the process begins already at the harvesting stage. The Wood Value Trials is a Swedish comparative study evaluating seven large harvesters from different manufacturers. Each machine felled and processed 30 Norway spruce stems,...
Cable-based technologies have been a backbone for harvesting on steep slopes for decades. The planning of a cable road is a complex task. It essentially comprises the definition of the start and end points of a cable road, as well as the intermediate supports. It must ensure permissible forces (in particular skyline tension) are not exceeded, maintain sufficient clearance between the load path...
The aim of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of timber harvesting in mountainous fir stands undergoing thinning, where trees were either pre-designated for removal by forestry services or selected independently by the machine operator. We hypothesized that differences in stand perception, particularly in terms of areas of visual focus and variability of eye activity, might...
Skidders used in forest operations are regarded as specialized machines optimized for effective and safe wood skidding across rugged terrain. Their dimensions, design, and various technical attributes are primarily influenced by practical considerations, such as productivity, durability, energy efficiency, environmental sustainability, and immediate worker safety. However, there is limited...
Mongolian forests have accumulated large quantities of deadwood due to forest aging and limited utilization. While in Europe the retention of deadwood is often considered to enhance biodiversity, in Mongolia it is increasingly regarded as a driver of forest degradation, contributing to wildfire risk, insect outbreaks, and declining forest health. Consequently, active removal and utilization of...
Forest inventory data collection in operational forestry remains largely dependent on manual measurements recorded on paper forms or fragmented digital tools. Such practices increase the risk of transcription errors, compromise traceability between plots and trees, and generate delays between field acquisition and subsequent analysis. In remote forest environments, limited network connectivity...
Mobile sensing and deep learning approaches offer strong potential to modernize forest road inventories and support applications such as technical road classification, operational planning, and maintenance decision support. Over the past four years, we have developed and validated RoadSens, a vehicle mounted proximal sensing platform that combines stereo vision, GNSS based geo referencing, and...
A pilot operation was carried out to mechanically harvest gorse (Ulex europaeus) in Reserva del Saja, Cantabria–Spain, at two selected sites: Ruente and Cruz de Sopeña. The aim was to implement and evaluate a shrub biomass extraction treatment using a single-pass system that cuts, shreds and pneumatically conveys the material into a front-mounted container, while documenting operational...
Forest simulation input typically relies on data derived from conventional field inventories. However, field inventory surveys are often characterized by labor intensity, time constraints, and inherent scalability limitations. In contrast, recent advancements in remote sensing and digital technologies have significantly improved the ability to collect data in forested areas. In this context,...
Forest roads are one of the most important components of the infrastructure for forestry in Austria and Europe. They ensure operational efficiency in forest management and the provision of essential ecosystem services, particularly with regard to preserving their multiple functions for society. Forest roads also have a significant impact on the generation of runoff within forested catchments...
An integrated harvesting site monitoring methodology was developed to support data-driven forest management and root rot risk assessment by combining operational harvester data, field measurements, and spatial analysis. The study aimed to evaluate whether terrain and multispectral predictors can reliably distinguish healthy from root rot–damaged stands at the sample plot level.
Root rot...
Tower yarders have been a well-established harvesting technology in European mountain forestry since the 1960s. Despite their long-standing practical relevance, the dynamic tensile force of the cable system under real operating conditions remains insufficiently understood. While in situ measurements of skyline forces are available, the contribution of guylines is commonly overlooked, even...
In Europe, long-distance road transport of timber is commonly carried out by trucks, either as single units or in truck–trailer configurations. In mountainous forests characterized by rugged terrain and frequent curves on forest roads, tractor–semi-trailer combinations often face access constraints at roadside landings. Under such conditions, single trucks and trucks with trailers represent...
Cistus laurifolius (rockrose) biomass was harvested in a mechanised operation at CEDER-CIEMAT (Cubo de la Solana, Soria, Spain; mean internal transport distance for the harvested biomass ≈3.50 km round trip). The work was carried out in six plots grouped into two age classes (three young-rockrose plots and three old-rockrose plots), allowing performance and losses to be reported...
In most wood supply areas, forest roads form vast infrastructure networks that structure socio-economic activities, territorial access, and ecosystem organization. In Québec, Canada, these roads now extend over 485,000 kilometers in public forests, demanding coordinated management by forestry industrials, recreation organizations, First Nations, and municipalities. Yet only twenty percent of...
The aim of the project was to develop an autonomous robot for planting forest crops and reforesting reclaimed and post-agricultural land. Unlike traditional planting methods, the advantages of the innovative automated system include: elimination of manual labour – the worker only remotely controls the operation of the machine, increased efficiency – extended operating times, selection of the...
Accurate stem volume estimation is critical for forest inventory and timber value assessment. While traditional field measurements combined with wood density analysis provide reliable data, they are often destructive and time-consuming. Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) offers a high-resolution, non-destructive alternative through advanced algorithms like AdQSM. This study aims to validate the...
In recent years, Japan's timber supply has been on the rise. The timber supply in 2023 was 34,259,000 m3, an increase of nearly 60% over the past 10 years. Forestry production activities require the presence of workers. The purpose of this study is to find ways to further promote forestry production activities by analyzing the current state of forestry labor from several perspectives....
This research investigated the resilience of European forest value chains (FVCs) under increasing climate, market, and operation-related disturbances, focusing on how innovation and management practices enable adaptive and sustainable forestry systems. Resilience was defined as the capacity of FVCs to absorb shocks, adapt operations, and maintain core production and ecosystem functions.
A...
Winch-assisted harvesting technology is becoming increasingly common in Alpine countries and in forests on steep terrain. However, research into the impact of this technological system on forest soil and stands remains limited. In a study conducted at three different sites, we measured several parameters on sample profiles perpendicular to the skid trail, including rut depth and compaction,...
SingleTree is an EU-funded project that develops optimized single-tree value chains to enhance climate change adaptation, forest resilience, multifunctionality, and the cascading use of woody biomass within precision forestry systems.
These value chains are enabled by innovative forest monitoring and management strategies that integrate (1) AI and remote sensing, (2) adaptive...
Working with Trees
In Central and Eastern Europe, mechanical timber harvesting is becoming increasingly important every year. In most cases, it dominates other levels of technology in timber harvesting. The aim of the study was to investigate the efficiency of machine harvesting in terms of productive work time in productive stand. Timber harvesting was carried out using a Rottne H-14 harvester. The study...
