Georgios Arseniou is Assistant Professor
& Extension Specialist of Urban
Forestry in the College of Forestry,
Wildlife, and Environment at Auburn
University, USA. David W. MacFarlane
is Professor of Forest Measurements
and Modeling in the Department of
Forestry, Michigan State University, USA.
Pasi Raumonen is Professor of Applied
Mathematics in the Faculty of Information
Technology and Communication
Sciences, Unit of Computing Sciences,
Tampere University, Finland.
Unlocking the
Inner Structure
of Urban Trees:
A Novel Approach to Quantifying
Heartwood and Sapwood
By Georgios Arseniou, David MacFarlane, and Pasi Raumonen
20 CityTREES
Understanding what lies beneath the bark of a tree
has long required destructive methods—cutting trees
down, slicing stems and branches, and measuring wood
sections manually. While accurate, this approach is
unsuitable for valuable urban trees where preservation is
paramount. A new study led by the authors (see above)
introduces a highly precise method for quantifying total
above-ground sapwood and heartwood volumes in trees
using terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and advanced mod-
eling. This innovation marks a significant step forward
for urban forestry, where decisions about tree health,
structural safety, carbon storage, and wood utiliza-
tion increasingly require urban tree-specific models.
