Imagine walking through Darmstadt's Westwald forest and seeing the majestic trees. But did you know that over 65% of them are damaged? This is a serious problem! However, current methods of monitoring tree health are not exactly precise – they tend to be subjective and inaccurate.

Now the soil comes into play. It's like the heart of the forest. It supplies the trees with water and nutrients and protects them from pollutants. But if the soil itself is damaged, this can affect the trees even more. This has not only ecological but also economic consequences.

This is where our team comes in! Prof. Iwaszczuk uses multispectral cameras to assess the health of the trees. We also consider the soil parameters in terms of soil chemistry (Prof. Bigalke) and soil fauna (Prof. Heethoff). Never before have all these aspects been examined simultaneously. In our interdisciplinary project, we will combine quantitative and qualitative information about the tree crowns with chemical, microclimatic and faunistic data of the forest soil.