Exhibit on climate-induced dehydration of the tree population.

The dramatic consequences of the climate-induced water shortage are taking place, invisible to most people, in a distant nature that mostly still gives a healthy impression on our doorstep. With the project TRACING TREES we would like to show, using an exemplary tree as an example, that meanwhile also urban flora is threatened by drought.

The exhibit TRACING TREES consists of a wooden model with three layers of soil, which are 20cm, 50cm and 80cm deep under the turf and a Plexiglas tree, which is illuminated from the inside with RGB LEDs. In the cross-sectioned earth layers, three LCD displays show the respective measurement values for moisture, and at the same time the tree changes color from a healthy green to an alarming orangish when there is a lack of water. Another display shows the date of the measured values, which can be changed via pushbuttons. In this way, the abstract data is conveyed interactively and vividly. By exploring the temporal course of the humidity values, the viewers experience how little influence isolated precipitation has on the deep layers of the earth, which are increasingly approaching the red zone.

In this case, the measured values come from public services of Kassel. However, this data source could be adapted to the exhibition site.

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Team:
Lucas Kern
Marcel de Medeiros
Sun Nuo
Oliver Scharf
He Wang
Jiayi Li

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Wood and plexiglass model, 4 LCD displays, 2 buttons, RGB LEDs, Arduino

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Data source:
AUREA-Sensorik‐Reallabor
https://www.kassel.de/einrichtungen/aurea