At the end of July 2026, media headlines highlighted an increasing number of dangerous wildfires that are threatening people, cities, environments and economies. In France and Spain, the battle to contain wildfires faced another heatwave – or more dramatically, as the New York Times recently summarised: “Europe is Burning.”
Meanwhile, Canada experienced its “worst wildfire season [that] fuels calls for national agency to tackle threat”. And the US National Interagency Fire Centre reported: “So far this year, 43,145 fires have burned more than 4.5 million acres across the US, exceeding the 10-year average for both the number of fires and acres burned.”
Digital twins – essentially digital representations of real-world environments and phenomena, in this case of forests and trees – can now help researchers to gain a better understanding about how forests grow and function; forest managers develop better strategies to maintain and leverage timber productions; and firefighters and emergency workers prevent, contain and extinguish wild fires.
Finnish researchers at the forefront
Not surprisingly, the most forested country in Europe, Finland, has an important stake in the development of virtual representations of forests. Besides its environmental importance, forestry is also a major economic part of the country’s economy. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland, the forestry sector represents 16.9% of the country’s export revenue.
At the University of Helsinki, terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is used to better understand forests, their structure and their ecosystems. Associate professor Eduardo Maeda says: “TLS provides us with a new way of looking at forests – not just from above, but from within. It helps us understand tree growth, forest responses to disturbances and the effects of forest structure on biodiversity and capacity for recovery.”
He adds that a better understanding will guide decision-makers to create more effective policies and planning guidelines to bring human activities and environmental considerations in balance.
Maeda is heading the Terrestrial Ecosystem Dynamics Research Group (Tree-D Lab), which also leverages field measurements, satellite data, and sensor-enabled drones to investigate “the intricate interactions among natural ecosystems, human activities and climate”.
The Finnish research and innovation organisation VTT Technical Research Centre is developing a digital twin of forests to support sustainable forest management as part of the European Union’s Destination Earth initiative. Destination Earth (DestinE) aims “to monitor the effects of natural and human activity on our planet, enable users to anticipate extreme events and test and adapt policies addressing climate-related challenges”. The model takes into considerations health and growth data of forests as well as potential impacts of climate change.
According to Matti Mõttus, principal scientist at VTT: “Tools that function in accordance with the same principles and standards, regardless of national borders, are needed for the understanding of the carbon balance of forests and estimating how climate change impacts it at the global level.” The digital twin is harnessing a wide range of analytics and modelling.
Digital forests proliferate internationally
Researcher David Carter at Michigan State University is using with digital twins to investigate how forestry professionals can test different strategies in a simulated environment. Working with Matthew Sumnall from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Carter leveraged lidar technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to map 90% of the 3,555 trees in a pine stand, a contiguous community of trees which can form entire forests.
When comparing real-world measurements with their digital modelling they realised that that the digital twin can predict with high accuracy trunk diameter and volume of each of the trees. The simulation showed ways to preserve 15% more timber to drive future growth and thereby increased profits.
In Canada, the city of Guelph used lidar technology to map trees within the city environment, capturing height and diameters of the trees and the height of the lowest branch and expected crown area. The data was leveraged to create a digital twin that will guide improvement strategies for urban forest management.
The Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona created an open-air laboratory in the Collserola Natural Park in Spain to understand how drought is affecting forests and to develop prediction and visualisation models such as the Catalan Forest Laboratory’s ForestDrought app.
The data represent a centre piece in developing a better understanding of fire risks. Rafael Poyatos is a researcher at CREAF and leading FUNBOSC, an initiative to develop a monitoring network in Catalonian forests. Poyatos states: “The objective is to create a system that helps to track the amount of water that trees store and transport and whether there is an impact from drought.”
Satellite data will advance forestry and digital twins
European Space Agency (ESA) satellite missions will now provide crucial support to develop accurate and current information to design reliable representations of the global forest conditions. Three initiatives will improve data availability and the ability to create digital twins and extended-reality (XR) applications well beyond forestry, including measuring biodiversity, supporting sustainable agricultural practices, and ice and glacier measurement.
- The CHIME (Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission), which is scheduled to launch in 2029, will provide “hyperspectral observations to support new and enhanced services for sustainable agricultural and biodiversity management, as well as soil property characterisation”.
- The FLuorescence EXplorer (FLEX) mission is expected to take off in September of this year. Flex “will provide global maps of vegetation fluorescence that can reflect photosynthetic activity and plant health and stress … for a better understanding of the global carbon cycle, but also for agricultural management and food security”.
- The ROSE-L (Copernicus Radar Observing System for Europe at L-band) mission is slated for 2028. ROSE-L “will provide information for monitoring forest type and cover in support of biomass estimation, as well as soil moisture, vegetation and land ice”.
Such a potential wealth of information generated is intended to help VTT’s efforts, Mõttus explains, adding: “The data produced by the upcoming satellite missions will provide more precise information on, for example, deforestation, the biochemical composition of forests and the photosynthesis that indicates their vitality.” The digital twin can also support other goals such as forest biodiversity by “understanding the different aspects of how forest management can affect our natural environment in the changing climate”.
VTT is also heading the Forest Digital Twin Component (Forest DTC), which launched end of 2024 and is funded by ESA. Forest DTC “will create a pre-operational digital replica of forest systems”. The initiative’s initial goal is the demonstration of various use cases, including growth and fire-risk modelling, forest management options and modelling of diverse forest types.
Another project that will provide input to understanding forest-related dynamics is TerraDT, which supports “the modelling of the Earth system to better understand and predict climate change”. TerraDT, which feeds into DestinE, addresses currently existing gaps in environmental modelling to fight and adapt to climate-change effects.
Towards efficient and adaptive forest management
Scientists at Michigan State University also created a digital twin of a forest. The twin will enable forest managers to develop, assess and evaluate management strategies in the virtual representation to find most effective approaches before implementing them. The team around forestry professor David Carter developed the AI-enabled tool to represent pine plantations. Loblolly pines cover some 35 million acres, or more than 50,000 square miles, in the southeastern part of the US.
Pines are planted in rows, but not all rows are precise nor are the trees identical. The researchers now showed that up to 15% more timber could be preserved for future use by moving the starting point of a row. Carter adds: “Even a modest change in thinning practices could appreciably move the needle.”
These pines represent commercial value as a resource for products ranging from paper tissues to plywood. Mapping such a sizeable forest, even parts of it, for investigation is a daunting task, but the research team employed lidar – an advanced sensing technology – and AI to capture a segment of the forest to conduct their research. (The emerging network of mutualistic technologies discusses how such a combination of advanced sensors, AI, and digital twins and XR, will drive new applications – robotics also plays a role in this context.)
The digital platform allows researchers to put management and maintenance strategies to the test before turning them into reality. Such twins also will offer managers an opportunity to consider “what if” scenarios such as prolonged droughts, heat waves and other conditions that are conducive to wild fires to test mitigation and adoption options.
In the northwest of the US, Temesgen Hailemariam, professor of forest management at Oregon State University, is working on similar projects. His team uses lidar, satellite imagery and sensor networks in combination with AI to create digital twins that can display the changing conditions of forests. Such ongoing monitoring of vital forestry data can be the foundation to create management strategies and explore alternative scenarios. Managers will be able to develop increasingly adaptive approaches to ensure that biodiversity, timber production and wildfire resistance are moving towards a better overall balance.
Hailemariam provides the rationale for developing 21st century approaches to managing forests, stating: “Forests today face unprecedented complexity, rapid change and increasing uncertainty. The future of forest management therefore demands a fundamental shift from periodic assessments and static planning to intelligent, adaptive systems capable of continuous observation, learning, prediction and proactive management.”
Martin Schwirn is the author of ‘Small data, big disruptions: How to spot signals of change and manage uncertainty’ (ISBN 9781632651921) on foresight and horizon scanning. Schwirn has advised companies internationally for SRI International and Business Finland. He is a strategy and innovation consultant for Global 2000 companies.
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