How Emerging Digital Forestry Technologies Can Support Indiana Landowners
Erica Kronenberger and Zhao Ma
Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University
Background
Indiana is home to more than 4.8 million acres of forestland, of which 4.6 million acres are timberland, and this amount increases every year1. Eighty four percent of Indiana’s forests is privately owned1. Active management is necessary to conserve the ecological, recreational, and economic benefits that Indiana forests provide. Whether landowners manage their land independently or work with a consulting forester, collecting information about forest conditions through traditional inventory methods can be time-consuming. Digital forestry technologies are emerging and have the potential to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and scale at which forest data can be rapidly collected and analyzed. Consequently, landowners and forestry professionals may be able to spend less time gathering forest data and more time making informed management decisions.
Digital forestry technologies and platforms
Digital forestry integrates geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing technologies, and decision-support software to collect, analyze, and interpret forest data. Examples include Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and true-color imagery, as well as AI-supported analytical tools used to evaluate current forest conditions and predict changes over time. These technologies can be deployed on a variety of platforms and at multiple scales, allowing users to collect information ranging from individual trees to entire landscapes. For example, ground-based systems such as backpack-mounted sensors and smartphone applications can best support under-canopy inventory, while unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are frequently used for above-canopy monitoring and mapping. Aircraft and satellites can capture information across broader landscapes, allowing users to assess larger forested areas more efficiently. The most appropriate technology depends on the type of data being collected and the scale at which it is needed. Together, these technologies enable users to collect, analyze, and visualize forest data to support more informed forest management decisions.
Potential applications of digital forestry technology in Indiana
Indiana's forests face several environmental challenges that will benefit from timely and accurate data to support effective management decisions in the coming years. Invasive plant species are a major concern, as are changes in species composition, including shifts from oak-hickory forests toward beech-maple forest types. Indiana's forests are also aging, resulting in lower growth rates and higher mortality rates in some areas. Monitoring changes in species composition and forest age is critical for understanding how Indiana's forest landscape is changing over time.
Digital forestry technologies can help address these challenges by providing efficient methods for assessing forest conditions across large areas. For example, remote sensing and digital mapping tools can support the identification of invasive species hotspots, monitor the effectiveness of treatment efforts, and track changes in forest composition over time. These technologies have the potential to improve the speed and consistency of forest inventories, helping landowners and forestry professionals identify issues before they become more difficult or costly to address. Of the different digital forestry tools available, recent survey research suggests that GIS and smartphone-based applications may be especially valuable for private forest landowners in the Eastern U.S.2
Another important advantage of digital forestry technologies is their applicability across a range of property sizes. Large-scale tools such as aircraft and satellites can be useful for assessing extensive landscapes, while UAVs, backpack-mounted sensors, and smartphone applications can provide valuable information at the stand or property level. As a result, these technologies can support landowners across a wide range of ownership sizes.
Connecting technology and landowners
The benefits of digital forestry technologies depend not only on the tools themselves, but also on how these tools are communicated with and adopted by potential end-users, including landowners. Ensuring that landowners can access and effectively use digital forestry technologies and the associated data and other products is critical for translating technological advancement into forest management action. Without accessible tools and products, even the best data may go unused. As digital forestry technologies continue to advance, involving landowners, forestry professionals (including both public and private foresters), and other end-users throughout the development process can help ensure that new tools address relevant management challenges and priorities.
Promoting Economic Resilience and Sustainability of the Eastern U.S. Forests (PERSEUS) is a collaboration among Purdue University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Maine. The PERSEUS project aims to advance digital technologies for forest inventory and analysis through both product development and dissemination. One of the project's primary goals is to provide publicly available geospatial information and decision-support tools that assist landowners, forest business owners, foresters, natural resource professionals, and students. Potential end-users are engaged in the research and development process to help ensure that technologies are relevant, practical, and responsive to stakeholder needs and priorities. As tools are developed, they are brought to landowners and other potential end-users for feedback that informs future iterations of digital forestry tool development and products. This iterative and collaborative approach supports the development of tools that are both scientifically robust and useful for real-world decision-making.
Accessible tools for forest management
The iForester app, available for iPhone 12 Pro and newer models, is a free smartphone application developed by the Purdue Institute for Digital Forestry (iDiF). Using smartphone sensors and AI-assisted measurements, the app allows users to estimate tree diameter without specialized equipment, making basic forest measurements more accessible to landowners and forestry professionals. Features that will soon be available in the app include height and volume estimations, as well as species identification.
The Data to Science (d2s) platform is another example of ways in which the PERSEUS project seeks to make digital forestry information more accessible to the public. Developed by researchers within iDiF at Purdue, the d2s tool is a publicly available data-sharing platform that stores and visualizes forestry and agricultural data collected from UAVs. Users can also take advantage of built-in measurement tools to estimate distances, height, areas, volume, and other landscape characteristics. By bringing together geospatial imagery and analytical tools, the platform makes it easier for researchers, forestry and agricultural professionals, and landowners to explore landscape conditions and characteristics.
uTREE, another product of iDiF at Purdue, is a cloud-based mapping tool that uses AI to locate and identify trees from aerial imagery. The platform allows users to assess tree composition and canopy characteristics across large areas more efficiently than traditional field-based approaches alone, generating detailed tree-level inventory data that can support urban greening, planning, and sustainability initiatives. Although originally developed to support urban forestry applications, uTREE demonstrates how AI-driven mapping technologies can provide rapid, landscape-scale information that may also be valuable to landowners and natural resource professionals.
Challenges and considerations moving forward
While digital forestry technologies can improve the efficiency and scale of data collection and analysis, they may be more effective when used to complement, rather than replace, traditional field-based assessments. Many landowners and forestry professionals value the opportunity to visit their woods and assess forest conditions firsthand using established field methods. Some also express concern that increasing reliance on digital technologies could reduce the need for human expertise and forestry-related jobs. These preferences and concerns are important for informing the development and promotion of digital forestry technologies, rather than being viewed simply as barriers to adoption. Doing so may require digital forestry experts, technology developers, and end-users—including landowners, forestry professionals, and others—to reconceptualize these tools as decision-support resources rather than replacements for field-based expertise. For landowners, digital tools can be designed to help them better understand their properties and, in turn, support more informed decision-making regarding sustainable forest management and long-term forest resilience. Likewise, forestry professionals can use these technologies to enhance existing inventory and analysis methods, reducing the time spent collecting and processing data while allowing more time to work directly with landowners on supporting their management planning and decision-making. For many Indiana landowners, digital forestry technologies may be most valuable through partnerships with forestry professionals. These partnerships can improve access to specialized equipment, technical expertise, and training needed to collect, interpret, and apply forest inventory data effectively.
Despite significant advances in digital forestry, important technological challenges remain. For example, species identification continues to be among the greatest technological barriers to advancing digital forestry applications. While advances in AI and machine learning are improving species identification, these technologies are still being refined to increase accuracy and reliability. As these tools continue to improve, they will better support applications important to Indiana landowners, such as identifying invasive species and mapping forest composition and structure.
Beyond technological limitations, operational challenges such as accessibility remain an important consideration for widespread adoption. The cost of equipment, software, and data storage may limit access for some landowners, while ensuring that users have access to the training and resources needed to effectively learn and use these technologies remains an important consideration.
To ensure that digital forestry technologies are accessible, trusted, and useful for Indiana landowners, it is critical to address these social, technological, and operational challenges through meaningful engagement with landowners, forestry professionals, and other end-users in the technology development process, outreach and educational opportunities tailored toward specific end-user groups, transparent data management practices, and partnerships that expand access to digital forestry technologies will be. As these technologies continue to evolve, landowner feedback will remain an important source of information for guiding future development and application.
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