EFFORTE

Summary

Forests and forestry will play a key role in making a European bio-based economy a reality. By applying modern technology to forestry techniques, the EFFORTE project will improve efficiency and sustainability throughout the entire forest-based value chain within EU.

EFFORTE recognises that, like many businesses, forestry can be viewed as a chain of events over a long of time. As such, it can be improved using data analysis approaches that can optimise each stage adding value step-by-step and as a whole. In addition, deploying geographic information systems in combination with information about stand and soil properties, EFFORTE will help increase revenues and production while reducing undesirable environmental impacts.

The EFFORTE project is based around three core elements of technology and know-how covering the fundamentals of soil mechanics. Firstly, seeking to avoid soil disturbances, accelerate machine mobility and assess persistence of soil compaction and rutting. Secondly, improving the productivity and efficiency in silvicultural operations in tree planting and young stand-cleaning operations. Finally it seeks to develop precision forestry based on data analysis (‘big data’) to increase cost-efficiency and boost new business opportunities.