Information

The unit carries out foresight activities and provides policy-relevant information, applications, tools and methods. With the developed methods and tools we create new value-added products based on existing European datasets and information. These products are available to the general public and/or serve as input to other research projects and the science-policy dialogue. Using state-of-the-art scientific knowledge on the European forest resources we also contribute to assessments and reports on Europe’s forests and forest biodiversity.

The unit’s workplan highlights the following research and information themes:

  • EUROFOREST portal
  • Interface between users and service providers of remote-sensing based forest products (GMES projects: GSE Forest Monitoring stages 1-2 and extension REDD and EE, GNU, Geoland2, HELM)
  • Provision of geographically explicit data (forest area, tree species, growing stock, biomass, carbon, forest accessibility, bio-E constraints, biodiversity impact assessment)
  • Contract work for the European Environment Agency (EEA framework contracts (EEA FC) on forestry and agriculture i.e. compilation of state-of-the-art knowledge and spatial information)
  • PhD research projects on remote sensing applications for forestry: Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) Based Harvesting Planning in the Context of Precision Forestry (Funded by Ponsse), and Obtaining Pan-European Indicators of Forest Structural Diversity by means of Airborne Laser Scanning (funded by Metsähallitus).