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Looking at forestry from a digital lens
presentation
posted on 2021-02-26, 00:05 authored by Alan TanABSTRACT / INTRODUCTION
Forestry is one of the key industries in New Zealand, delivering an export worth of approximately $6.4 billion
in 2018 [1]. However, management of forest assets and forestry operations in New Zealand have stuck to the
“boots-on-the-ground” approach; relying on sending ground-crews into the field to assess and report on the
situation on the ground. Challenges such as scale of forestry plots, size of trees and complexity of work
environment in forestry already pose issues for innovation in forestry. With COVID-19 exacerbating existing
challenges such as labour and freedom-to-operate, there is now an even stronger motivation to innovate
within forestry operations.
In line with the theme for eResearch 2021, we will present current work within our remote sensing and data
science research focusing on innovating how New Zealand forestry operates. We will also present some of
the challenges and lessons we drew from our experience and journey, thus far, in transforming New Zealand
forestry into a high-productive, efficient and technological advance industry sector.
Dr. Alan Tan is a senior data scientist in Scion, where he contributes strategically and technically to Scion’s
data science research initiatives. Dr. Tan’s research interest is in the applications of Deep Learning in 3D
remote sensing data, data visualisation, distributed systems and high-performance computing. He obtained
his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Waikato.