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Project Journal: Large Scale Remote Sensing and Integrated Data Systems for Forest Hydrology

  • oliviapowell09
  • 11 minutes ago
  • 3 min read
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Understanding how water moves through forested landscapes is essential for smarter land-use decisions, better flood management, and long-term climate resilience. From 2019 to 2024, The MBIE Endeavour Forest Flows programme, led by the Scion Group, now part of the Bioeconomy Science Institute, set out to close critical knowledge gaps in forest hydrology, particularly within New Zealand’s radiata pine plantations, which cover nearly 5% of the country’s land area.


To do this, the team deployed a large-scale network of sensors, custom-built monitoring systems, and advanced modelling tools. The goal was simple: uncover how planted forests manage water across a wide range of environmental conditions. The execution, however, was anything but simple.


Led by Dr. Dean Meason, the programme installed over 1,700 sensors across nine forest catchments, each chosen to represent different combinations of soil type, rainfall intensity, and forest age. Over five years, this network collected more than 390 million data points, tracking rainfall, sap flow, soil moisture, and water age with unprecedented precision.


To make this possible in steep, remote terrain, Scion partnered with inFact to co-develop FlowLab, a bespoke monitoring system built from the ground up for forest environments. FlowLab is a low-power, long-life sensor platform designed to operate autonomously for years with minimal maintenance. It combines multiple environmental inputs into a unified telemetry system, allowing real-time data collection from some of the most challenging locations in the country.


The system’s architecture was key to its success. FlowLab used dynamic routing across a wireless mesh network, allowing each sensor node to pass data through its neighbours until it reached a base station. This eliminated the need for line-of-sight connections and assured reliable transmission even in dense forest canopies and rough terrain.


Every component, from the enclosures to the firmware, was engineered to withstand New Zealand’s harsh forest conditions, including prolonged UV exposure, humidity, and temperature swings. The result was a robust platform that kept data flowing without interruption.


The resulting datasets triggered the development of catchment-scale digital twin models, which combined ground-based telemetry with aerial and satellite data to simulate water movement over time. These models captured both typical seasonal variation and responses to high-intensity rainfall events.


Several key findings emerged:


  • Radiata pine forests retained up to 60% of rainfall during storm events in some catchments.

  • Shallow soils showed higher infiltration capacity than previously assumed.

  • Plantation forests contributed to year-round baseflow in some small streams.

  • Some sites supported native vegetation regeneration beneath the canopy.


These outcomes provide an improved evidence base for evaluating the hydrological impacts of planted forests and have already begun to inform land-use policy and forestry regulation.


Building FlowLab wasn’t without its challenges. Transmission reliability was a major hurdle, especially in steep terrain. inFact developed a mesh routing algorithm that allowed data to navigate around signal dead zones without manual configuration. Power consumption was another key concern. With limited access for maintenance, the system needed to run for years on minimal energy. Energy-efficient components and smart sleep-cycle logic helped make that possible.


With the Forest Flows programme now complete, the impact it’s left is evident. It’s shown that planted forests can retain rainfall, support baseflow, and reduce peak discharge during storms - making them powerful tools for climate adaptation. And it’s proven that with the right technology, we can understand and manage these systems better than ever before.


Scion and inFact are now working on a second-generation version of FlowLab. Gen2 will be more compact, easier to deploy, and compatible with a wider range of sensors. There’s growing interest from commercial forestry and regional authorities to apply the system to new sites and use cases.


Looking ahead, international partnerships, including with NASA, are set to expand the platform’s reach and help to develop global understanding of forest-water dynamics. For inFact, it’s been a privilege to help engineer the tools that made Forest Flows possible - and we’re excited to see where the data leads next.


 


 
 
 

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