Faculty Affairs and Academic Programs
Ethan Williams
Physical Sciences; Math
Earth and Planetary Sciences
UC Santa Cruz
Dendroseismology: A Scalable Monitoring Framework for Forest Hydrology
Every tree responds to wind like a flexible beam: its resonant frequencies depend on both mass and stiffness, which change as water is gained or lost. By recording these vibrations with low-cost accelerometers, we hypothesize that it is possible to infer whole-tree water content continuously and non-invasively, something that conventional sensors cannot achieve. We term this new approach “dendroseismology.” We will develop and test dendroseismology in California’s coastal redwood forests, where declining fog and rising evaporative demand are tightening water budgets and threatening forest resilience. A high-fidelity observatory tree will be instrumented with accelerometers, sap-flow, soil-moisture, and meteorological sensors to calibrate mechanical and hydraulic models. A second, distributed network of low-cost accelerometers will then be deployed across the UCSC Forest Ecology Research Plot to observe how hydromechanical properties vary across species, soils, and terrain. The resulting data will reveal how mechanical parameters and inferred water storage evolve with environmental forcing. Beyond hydrology, the approach promises to provide a new lens on canopy-wind interaction, soil-root coupling, and biomechanical adaptation.
