Title: Tree Sway

Research Area: Environmental Seismology

Increased extreme weather events aggravate tree mortality. Therefore, the tracking of the tree vitality through specific traits and environmental parameters, such as sap flow, leaf angle, or soil moisture, is commonly used. This project applies a new approach by acquiring continuous seismic noise data of trees using an array of seismic stations to potentially analyze tree sway.

Aims

The project aims to isolate the seismic fingerprint of tree sway by measuring the seismic oscillation. This new method could potentially reveal the dynamics of individual trees and their interactions with climate variables.

Problem

The obtained seismic data brings challenges such as separating the tree signals from impacts like noise from animals and man-made surroundings.

Technology

• We use a dense seismic array to measure elastic waves generated by tree sway.
• We perform classical time series and frequency related analysis methods as well as array processing (e.g., Matched Field Processing).

Publications

• Roth, J., Mora, K., Al-Halbouni, D., Richter, R., Kattenborn, T., Wieneke, S. J., Bastos, A., Weigelt, A., Wirth, C., and Umlauft, J.: How trees sway and what it tells us about their overall vitality, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-11562, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-11562, 2024.

Team

Supervisor

• Dr. Josefine Umlauft

Team Members

• Jana Roth
• Dr. Karin Mora
• Prof. Dr. Djamil Al-Halbouni

Partners

• Ronny Richter
• Prof. Dr. Teja Kattenborn
• Dr. Sebastian Johannes Wieneke
• Prof. Dr. Ana Bastos
• Prof. Dr. Alexandra Weigelt
• Prof. Dr. Christian Wirth