Living Labs in Finland focus on precision forestry and carbon monitoring

Living Labs are at the core of the FORESTCARBOVISION project and are used to test and validate integrated forest carbon farming technologies. After the project, they will continue to operate as demonstration sites.

Pilot testing and demonstration activities were launched at Living Lab sites in Finland in 2025, and the technical and organisational foundations for demonstrations were successfully established. In Finland, pilot activities focus on precision forestry and advanced forest carbon monitoring at Living Lab sites near Joensuu and Oulu. The work is carried out in cooperation with Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) and Oulu University of Applied Sciences.

UAV-based LiDAR and RGB data were collected over approximately 180 hectares of forest. Several new methods were tested, including ultra-high-density laser scanning, smart oblique photogrammetry, and digital forest twin generation. Tree-level attributes were extracted and used to model growth, competition, and above-ground carbon sequestration. Initial analyses indicate that optimised thinning scenarios can significantly increase forest growth and carbon uptake under realistic operational conditions.

The sites establish reference conditions for future before–after comparisons and long-term carbon assessment. The work continues with full-scale pilot testing.