We have recently passed the 24 months (out of 48) mark of our project, and we are happy to share with you the summaries of our public-facing project deliverables that have been published by our consortium.
Important to note: all our public-facing deliverables are available on our website, in our “Resources” section, here
The PathFinder project explores approaches to complement existing forest monitoring systems through the development of additional field sample survey protocols. This includes implementing a standardized plot design that has the flexibility to be employed in any country. D1.1 proposes a European-wide field sample survey, which is envisioned as a supplement to the functional monitoring programs already in place (largely country-level National Forest Inventories, or NFIs).
This offers new possibilities in terms of harmonized data analysis and reporting capabilities, such as a consistent monitoring framework that can be leveraged regardless of variations in country-specific monitoring programs. Effective forest management and policy at the European level increasingly require relevant data on key forest variables to be delivered with increasing frequency. This deliverable facilitates this with uniform and timely reporting of forest carbon stocks as well as biodiversity indicators across Europe.
To do so, Pathfinder aims to integrate remote sensing data products and modelling techniques with the supplemental survey design. This should help to overcome various harmonization issues and enable high-quality co-registration of field measurements with European-wide remote sensing imagery. Data obtained from these efforts can be used to generate purely model-based or model-assisted estimates of key variables at greater frequency time intervals than is currently the case.
Finally, in an effort to facilitate stakeholder engagement and solicit feedback from relevant experts, various co-creation workshops were held prior to the issuance of this report. Major takeaways include recognising design constraints linked to actionable data, identifying sample survey constraints for both carbon stock and biodiversity assessments simultaneously, major challenges in monitoring forest disturbances, sample plot size characteristics, and concerns for minimum diameter thresholds. This input was ultimately incorporated into the design proposal outlined in the deliverable.
Authors: UGoE 🇩🇪 and NIBIO 🇧🇻
