INSPIRES: Smart Data for Resilient Forests

Leveraging Intelligent Informatics and Smart Data for Improved Understanding of Northern Forest Ecosystem Resilience (INSPIRES)

The Northern Forest Region (NFR) and Big Data

• NFR covers 26 million acres and is home to over 2 million people that stretches from Maine though northern New Hampshire, Vermont and New York
• Highly diverse and transitional ecosystem with a history of natural disturbance and mixed land use
• Land use pressures, invasive pests, and abiotic stressors on the rise
• Current forest-related information is highly varied, ranging from coarse national-scale coverage to incomplete and often sparse regional and local
• Limited and rather patchy availability of ecological data confounds systematic assessment of NFR
• Big Data approach that integrates contrasting forest information, ownership, management units, and underlying ecology is needed, which could create a “natural laboratory” for scientific experimentation
• Our Digital Forest Framework will effectively harness the region’s complex working landscape and digital information diversity