Harmonised statistics and maps of forest biomass and increment in Europe

Abstract

Forest biomass is an essential resource in relation to the green transition and its assessment is key for the sustainable management of forest resources. Here, we present a forest biomass dataset for Europe based on the best available inventory and satellite data, with a higher level of harmonisation and spatial resolution than other existing data. This database provides statistics and maps of the forest area, biomass stock and their share available for wood supply in the year 2020, and statistics on gross and net volume increment in 2010–2020, for 38 European countries. The statistics of most countries are available at a sub-national scale and are derived from National Forest Inventory data, harmonised using common reference definitions and estimation methodology, and updated to a common year using a modelling approach. For those counties without harmonised statistics, data were derived from the State of Europe’s Forest 2020 Report at the national scale. The maps are coherent with the statistics and depict the spatial distribution of the forest variables at 100 m resolution.

Spatiotemporal modeling of vegetation dynamics in a changing environment: combining earth observation and machine learning

“…The latter case fits the previously examined European situation quite well, especially regarding the quantification and reporting of spatially explicit products of forest attributes. The European National Forest Inventory Network (ENFIN) was established in 2004 to promote the harmonization of NFIs across Europe, aiming to make data and estimates comparable across borders and over time (Vidal et al, 2016); while ENFIN has achieved good results in harmonizing forest biomass at a European level (Avitabile et al, 2024), the full potential of these advancements has yet to be realized in creating universally accepted mapping products, relegating many of the existing vegetation attribute maps to stratification tools (Ceccherini et al, 2022;Latifi et al, 2015;Latifi et al, 2012;McRoberts et al, 2012) rather than direct reporting resources, as also evidenced in the experimental designs of Chapter 3 and 5 of this thesis.…”