From 2-5 June, 2025, the FLUXCOM Workshop was held at the Hotel am Schlossberg in Ziegenrück, hosted by the FluxCom team at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena. The workshop brought together researchers to explore how ecosystem CO₂ and water fluxes respond to environmental stress and extremes, factors that remain underrepresented in current ecosystem models.

Project partner, Alba Viana-Soto participated virtually and delivered a presentation on the EO-based disturbance monitoring system for Europe, which leverages Earth Observation data to track and assess forest disturbances. These disturbance signals, whether caused by fire, pests or harvesting, play a critical role in identifying stress events that impact carbon and water fluxes, ultimately improving the accuracy of ecosystem predictions.

A key highlight of the workshop was on the European Forest Disturbance Atlas, developed under the ForestPaths project. The atlas now spans 1985 to 2023 and provides high-resolution maps of annual forest disturbances across 38 European countries. Using Landsat satellite data, it captures various events including fires, bark beetle outbreaks, windthrow and logging.

For the first time, this comprehensive dataset is open-source and operationally updated each year, accessible via Google Earth Engine Apps. It features:

• The year of the most recent disturbance

• The frequency of disturbances

• The disturbance agent
  
  

The atlas will support the development of empirical models to better understand disturbance dynamics and serve as a reference for broader forest change assessments across Europe.

Read more about the Atlas here and listen to the newest podcast episode of ForestChats to learn more.