Enabling services for JRC Centre for Earth Observation
The Centre for Earth Observation (CEO) of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre has published an invitation to tender for enabling services in connection with the European forest monitoring activities. Within the framework of the Forest Information from Remote Sensing (FIRS) project, the CEO programme launched the FMERS (Forest monitoring in Europe using remote sensing) as a CEO application project in support of the services of the Commission. The goal of these projects is to satisfy the information requirements within the European Commission by using earth observation data to complement the information already being collected using more traditional methods. The outputs from this study will serve to support EC services in DG VI. The main aim of this contract work is to develop and implement methodologies for applying optical and microwave remotely sensed data (of different resolutions) for the provision of standardized geo-referenced and statistical information describing the forested and other wooded land of Europe. The two topics to be addressed are: - 1: Forest area and other wooded land (i.e. location and size); - 2: Forest composition and vegetation type (i.e. species composition in main groups). The contractor is asked to provide mapped and statistical information for both topics using remotely sensed data of different spatial resolution. The results obtained from each sensor-type will be quantitatively compared in a way so as to illustrate the limitations and the benefits of using the different data types for assessing forest and other wooded land in Europe. Both topics (1) and (2) will be carried out for the two large study regions in Europe. The work should be completed by June 1998. Tender documentation may be obtained from: European Commission Joint Research Centre Mr. P. Churchill TP 441 I-21020 Ispra Tel. +39-332-785425; Fax +39-332-785461 E-mail: ceo.helpdesk@irc.it Completed tenders should be sent to the same address.