What is vegetation management?

29 November 2024

Authors

Alexandra Jonker

Editorial Content Lead

Alice Gomstyn

IBM Content Contributor

Dan Mishra

ESG & Environmental Intelligence, Product Growth

What is vegetation management?

Vegetation management is the targeted control or removal of unwanted vegetation. It involves various control methods to reduce the risks of overgrown or invasive plants, hazardous trees, weeds and other vegetation.

 

Many industries rely on vegetation management to operate safely and efficiently. Overgrown vegetation can encroach on right-of-way areas such as roads, transmission lines and railways. This overgrowth can have dangerous consequences, such as traffic accidents, wildfires and power blackouts. Unwanted or invasive vegetation can also put biodiversity and native wildlife habitats at risk.

While manual vegetation checks are the norm, this approach can be costly and time-consuming. Today, organizations can employ an integrated vegetation management method, which combines several control methods: biological, chemical, mechanical and cultural.

They might also take a data-driven approach to vegetation management by collecting geospatial data (such as data from LiDAR drones) to monitor vegetation growth. Insights driven by artificial intelligence (AI) also help businesses make more informed and proactive vegetation management decisions.

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Why is vegetation management important?

Vegetation overgrowth can affect the safety, effectiveness and operations of many industries, communities and critical infrastructure. Effective vegetation management is important for:

  • Power grid stability
  • Transportation flows
  • Wildfire mitigation
  • Habitat and land protection

Power grid stability

Electric utilities have expansive grid infrastructure and failures can affect millions of people and businesses. Overgrown trees touching power lines cause many blackouts. In some regions, vegetation causes up to half of the power outages, and in the US, this figure reaches as high as 92%, as reported by the Federal Energy Commission.

Some regions have federally mandated transmission line or utility vegetation management. The US Electric Reliability Standard FAC-003-4 set by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) requires that utility companies trim vegetation around transmission lines to prevent outages. Each utility company must develop and implement its own vegetation management plan that conforms to local requirements and any right-of-way or easement agreements with property owners.1

Transportation flows

Vegetation management is also critical for the safety and efficacy of the transportation sector. High winds or other extreme weather conditions can fell trees, which can then obstruct railroads or highways. When this infrastructure shuts down, rail and toll operations lose revenue and can incur significant cleanup costs.

Blocked roads are also a public safety concern. Blockages can prevent people from attending important medical appointments. They might also inhibit ambulances and fire trucks from reaching emergencies.

Wildfire mitigation

Poorly managed plant growth poses a fire hazard when in contact with utility lines, especially in climates prone to wildfires, such as those of California, Canada and the Amazon rainforest. According to the California Public Utilities Commission, wildfires attributed to power lines make up around half of the state’s “most destructive fires.”2

Wildfires can cause devastating damage and significant disruption to communities and economies. And, as the Earth’s temperature rises due to climate change, so too will the frequency, severity and length of wildfire seasons.

Habitat and land protection

Vegetation management is crucial in controlling invasive plant species, such as the fast-growing Kudzu vine. Invasive species can threaten local ecosystems, wildlife habitats and biodiversity.

Alternatively, planting the right vegetation can stabilize soil and prevent erosion. Added vegetation can also help recover topsoil health and slow or prevent chemical runoff, which can improve water quality in the area. 

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What is integrated vegetation management?

Integrated vegetation management (IVM) combines several different vegetation control strategies. An IVM approach often works to create more stable and reliable plant communities while also reducing risks to humans and furthering environmental stewardship. Integrated vegetation management programs are often more cost-effective than traditional vegetation management programs.3

For example, mowing was the primary method of vegetation management for Indiana's 90,000 miles of roadways. By incorporating other vegetation management tools, such as herbicides and native plantings, the state found “drastic cost reductions.” In particular, the state achieved a cost savings of over 40% with one herbicide application instead of one mowing cycle.4

Vegetation management methods

There are considered to be four types of vegetation management control methods. Each method contains various treatments.5

Biological

Biological vegetation management practices use living organisms to control or destroy unwanted vegetation. This method might involve animals, plants, fungi or insects. Biological controls can be living systems (flocks of grazing sheep) or beneficial predators (parasites and plant pathogens).

Chemical

Chemical vegetation management most often refers to the use of herbicides, which are chemicals used for weed control. To reduce harm, herbicides are often applied in a selective, targeted manner.

Mechanical

Mechanical vegetation management (or manual vegetation management) relies on humans and machines to remove or destroy unwanted plant life. Tree pruning, directional pruning, tree removal, tree trimming, brush removal and mowing are all considered mechanical vegetation management treatments.

Cultural

Cultural vegetation management uses specific plants or biological material (such as mulch and compost) to control unwanted vegetation or build a more desirable plant community. This method might involve reseeding to reintroduce native plant species or targeted, prescribed burning.

How can technology support vegetation management?

Often, vegetation control methods are labor-intensive and fail to adequately respond to risks in real time. For example, a railroad might have a vegetation management plan that involves regular removal of tree branches near tracks. At times, the work is done prematurely, leading to unnecessary financial costs. Other times, unexpected vegetation on the tracks due to an extreme weather event might mean that scheduled inspections happen too late.

With a data-driven approach combined with the right technology, an organization could more proactively manage vegetation, identifying overgrowth before it becomes a problem and prioritizing work based on risk.

Data-driven vegetation management

Organizations can use several geospatial data sources to remotely gain insights about vegetation and its risks.

For example, LiDAR data and satellite images can help businesses evaluate vegetation according to various metrics, such as a plant’s distance to a power conductor or the amount of vegetation encroachment into a right-of-way area. Weather data can also provide valuable information about vegetation. It can help model risk due to high winds or flooding and forecast growth patterns.

These data sources can enable organizations to more efficiently use limited budgets and reduce threats to their infrastructure and assets. In highly regulated industries, such as utilities, it can also aid in meeting regulatory mandates.

AI for vegetation management

By combining predictive analytics with geospatial data, organizations can unlock AI-driven insights about vegetation. These insights enable them to make more informed and proactive decisions about vegetation management—predicting encroachment or overgrowth before it happens.

AI can also be used to enhance geospatial data. For example, when vegetation or cloud cover obstructs asset view, AI can fill in the gaps in satellite imagery.

Footnotes

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1 "Transmission Line Vegetation Management," Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), 17 November 2021.

2 "Wildfire and Wildfire Safety," California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

3, 5 "Integrated Vegetation Management Fact Sheet," United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 20 March 2024.

4 "Integrated vegetation management (IVM) for INDOT roadsides," United States Department of Transportation, 01 March 2014.

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