New tree monitoring systems: from Industry 4.0 to Nature 4.0

Recently, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have grown rapidly and represent now a unique opportunity to improve our environmental monitoring capabilities at extremely low costs. IoT is a new system of thinking in which objects, animals or people are equipped with unique identifiers and transfer data a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. IoT has evolved from the convergence of wireless technologies, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and the Internet. The development of these technologies in environmental monitoring domains allows real-time data transmission and numerous low-cost monitoring points. We have designed a new device, the TreeTalker©, which is capable of measuring water transport in trees, diametrical growth, spectral characteristics of the leaves and microclimatic parameters and transmit data in semi-real time. Here we introduce the device’s features, provide an example of monitored data from a field test site and discuss the application of this new technology to tree monitoring in various contexts, from forest to urban green infrastructures management and ecological research.