As part of Singletree, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) is designing the development of a decision-support algorithm to optimise forest management interventions at the level of individual trees.
The goal is to enable forest managers to define specific objectives—such as promoting biodiversity, increasing resilience, or enhancing the growth of particular species—and receive precise, data-driven recommendations on which trees to harvest and which to retain. This approach would allow for virtual marking of trees, streamlining operations and opening the door to blockchain-based tracking of forestry actions.
📷 Discussions with our project partner SFB #StaatsforstbetriebKantonBern in Bern, Switzerland.
To ensure the optimisation model aligns with real-world needs, WSL has been actively engaging with the three Singletree Living Lab value chains. These discussions have offered early insights into current management practices and highlighted key opportunities for digital transformation.
📷 Field discussions with local forest managers in Castilla y León, Spain
Beyond field-level engagement, WSL is also working closely with the scientific community to refine the conceptual foundations of its model. This has included in-depth collaboration with Singletree partners, a review of current scientific literature, and the presentation of their initial approach at events such as Swiss Global Change Day (SGCD) 2025 and the FORMEC symposium.
To ground their optimisation framework in actual data, the WSL team recently conducted a field inventory and LiDAR survey in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. The resulting single-tree dataset will serve as a testbed for the first iteration of the optimisation algorithm, tailored to Central European case.
