ForestPaths will make use of remote sensing and other geospatial data to improve the monitoring of European forests, as well as to improve forest ecosystem modelling. It will use remote sensing data from COPERNICUS, which utilises satellite imagery from the European Space Agency. These will be complemented by data from NASA's Landsat archives.
Pan-European forest disturbance maps
Existing disturbance maps lack proper attribution of disturbances – whether they were caused by wind, fire, bark beetle or human action. ForestPaths has produced annual, wall-to-wall European forest disturbance maps for 1984-2023 with innovative algorithms that allow the attribution of disturbances to their underlying disturbance agent.
Read morePan-European forest composition and structure maps
ForestPaths produced consistent and fine-scale maps of forest composition (e.g., dominant tree species, number of species) and structure (e.g., height, diameter, density, biomass). They provide European layers of dominant tree genus, canopy height, canopy cover and foliage height diversity for the year 2020 at 10 m resolution based on Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data.
Read moreHigh conservation value forests in Europe
ForestPaths will map potential high conservation value forests by identifying forest areas subject to limited harvesting in the past four decades which have high biomass carbon stocks, as well as biological and structural diversity. The structural diversity map can support policy implementation under the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and help harmonize forest management across member states, striking a balance between strict protection and sustainable forest use.
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