RESEARCH PROGRAMME 4:
FOREST RESOURCES AND INFORMATION

Head of Programme: Dr. Tuula Nuutinen

The following research directions identified in the current EFI Strategy are addressed in this Programme:

  • Future development and potential of European forests as renewable resources for wood, energy, water and other goods and services
  • Foresight studies on future conditions of forest-based well-being in Europe
  • State-of-the-art of forest research in Europe


A major activity within this programme is applying available data and knowledge on European forests and forestry to serve policy and decision makers/making processes as well as forest related research disciplines by producing value added information products. The programme also maintains and develops competencies in tools and methodologies which enable international comparisons and future projections in strategic research issues. Development and application of the European Forest Information Scenario Model (EFISCEN) in collaboration with Alterra has taken place over many years.

Most important ongoing projects

As ongoing core business EFI maintains and develops European forestry databases and information analysis tools. Currently, at EFI’s website there are three main service points for information products and services: The EuroForest Portal and Databases and Information Services .

The EuroForest Portal offers easy access to information resources about forests and the forest sector in Europe. The core of the portal is a metadatabase containing descriptions and links to resources. The service was launched on 1 October 2007 and is further developed (e.g. a news section was launched in March 2008), maintained and kept up-to-date by EFI.

EFORWOOD – Tools for Sustainability Impact Assessment of Forestry-Wood Chain. The Project aims to develop a quantitative decision support tool for Sustainability Impact Assessment of the European Forestry-Wood Chain. Research Programme 4 develops a user-friendly version of the sustainability impact assessment tool (ToSIA).

FIRE PARADOX – An Innovative Approach of Integrated Wildland Fire Management Regulating the Wildfire Problem by the Wise Use of Fire: Solving the FIRE PARADOX. The results of this Integrated Project aim at responding to the societal needs of reducing the impacts of disastrous wildfires by setting their limits with prescribed and suppression fires. Research Programme 4 is involved in a number of policy reviews with relation to fire and CO2 and will build the FIRE PARADOX data management platform.

GMES projects – EFI is participating in several projects under the GMES programme. GMES aims at the delivery of user driven operational monitoring services, combining in-situ monitoring and Earth Observation data and models. EFI identifies monitoring needs with users and from policy requirements; reviews the utility of delivered services; gives input to definition of best practices and functions as interface between service users and service providers. The main projects that Research Programme 4 is engaged in are the GMES Service Element for Forest Monitoring , the GMES Network of Users and the geoland2 project. Research Programme 4 is contributing in geoland2 to the definition of next generation pan-European forest mapping products. Based on the forest mapping products and ancillary data layers, forest (environmental) indicators will be developed to support European forest and environmental policy reporting processes. EFI contributes to the Forest User Interface and Forest Service Consolidation parts of Geoland2 (collection of user requirements, formulation of service specifications, user utility assessment, etc.), as well as to project communication, training and dissemination of materials.

BEE – The objective of the project "Biomass Energy Europe" is the harmonisation of biomass resource assessments with focus on the biomass potential for energy in order to improve the consistency, accuracy and reliability of biomass assessments. EFI is a partner in the project and responsible for the coordination of R&D in the Work Package 'Dissemination and Networking' (WP2). EFI is also involved in other Work Packages: 'Status of Biomass Resource Assessment' (WP3), 'Analysis of Biomass Resource Assessments' (WP4), 'Harmonization of Biomass Resource Assessments' (WP5) and WP6, 'Illustration Cases', in which a set of illustration cases will be built. EFI will be involved in the EU-27 & Pan-European illustration case. To a small extent, EFI will also be involved in Work Package 7 (Integration, Evaluation and Recommendation). EFI's tasks in all the Work Packages are connected to forestry and forestry residues.

For more projects under Forest Resources and Information Programme, see Project Database

For staff in the Forest Resources and Information Programme, see Staff pages