SMHI Timbr

The forestry industry has long been working on finding solutions to the problem of ground bouyancy. Poor ground capacity means, among other things, that felling is slower, and more costly as fuel consumption increases. With SMHI Timbr you can plan felling and thinning in a smarter way. You can avoid felling on areas with poor bearing capacity.

SMHI Timbr is a digital service (planning tool) designed for the harvesting manager, which helps to understand if the ground in each harvesting site will be able to carry forest machinery without causing any ground damage. The product aims to streamline harvesting and spare the woodland.

The product is based of the ground conditions 

Changes in our climate - shorter winters and more extreme weather, cause the forest conditions to change rapidly. It also contributes to the fact that, as before, it was a clear decision to plan felling, today it is not.

SMHI Timbr is based on SMHI's hydrological forecasts and the product's index of bouyancy is based on hydrological forecasts describing the water's path through the ground. The hydrological basic forecasts are continuously developed by SMHI's hydrology researchers. For SMHI Timbr, we process these together with other data sets in order to respond better to how the land is wearing.

SMHI Timbr tells how the forest's land is in the coming month, which facilitates planning work for deforestation. With unique processing of large amounts of data, SMHI creates a high-resolution month-long predictions of ground bearing capacity. Climate change makes it difficult for experienced harvesting managers because it makes ground buoyancy harder to predict.

SMHI Timbr
The image illustrates several factors that affects the ground bearing conditions of the forest

Current status

Currently, several forest companies are testing the product and if you are interested about SMHI Timbr, it is available for Sweden at the moment.

The product was launched in conjunction with Elmia Wood in June, 2017, where SMHI was participating.