Project description
Detailed information about European forest resilience
Accurate information about how climate change impacts European forests is essential. The EU-funded FORWARDS project will prototype the ForestWard Observatory to provide timely and detailed information on European forest resilience. It will generate evidence-based knowledge to guide management using the principles of climate-smart forestry, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity preservation (CSF & Restoration). FORWARDS will connect forest information obtained from the ground and remote sensing by integrating the concept of Monitoring Supersites and innovative methods to characterise cause-effect relationships of forest disturbances. It will develop tools for European-wide spatially explicit projections on forests and regionalised CSF & Restoration trajectories to assess synergies and restoration activities.
Objective
FORWARDS will prototype The ForestWard Observatory to provide (a) timely and detailed information on European forests’ vulnerability to climate change impacts, (b) science-based knowledge to guide management using the principles of climate-smart forestry, ecosystem restoration, and biodiversity preservation (CSF & Restoration), and (c) stakeholder engagement and public participation in decision-making processes. We capitalize on data from existing networks (e.g. ICP Forests) and expand this with a Network of Pilot sites through 5 FORWARDS Demo cases plus ~50 trials established via grants to third parties. We will reconcile the current divide between forest information obtained from the ground and remote sensing by incorporating the concept of Monitoring Supersites and novel approaches to more comprehensively characterize cause-effect relationships of forest disturbances. Tools for European-wide forward-looking and spatially explicit projections on forests as well as regionalized CSF & Restoration trajectories will be developed jointly with stakeholders to evaluate synergies and trade-offs of conversion and restoration activities. These will be used to provide good practice guidance on effective CSF & Restoration management practices. The ForestWard Observatory will be constructed under the principle of co-design to address the information needs by users and stakeholders. FORWARDS interacts with several established networks on CSF & Restoration and effectively utilizes five dedicated grant calls to implement forest observations and test CSF & restoration measures. The ambition is for The ForestWard Observatory to become a long-lasting legacy of FORWARDS, which supports decision making across scales to boost the uptake of good CSF & Restoration management practice throughout Europe (local scale for management practice), while efficiently informing about climate change and disturbance impacts and resilience of European forests (regional to EU scale for policy making).
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringremote sensing
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and management
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesforestry
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
750 07 Uppsala
Sweden