Andreas Schuck

Compilation of a European forest map from Portugal to the Ural mountains based on earth observation data and forest statistics

Abstract This article focuses on the approach of combining the information from both remote sensing and forest inventory statistics in order to produce a European forest proportion map covering the area from Portugal to the Ural mountains. For this purpose, a calibration method was developed, tested and applied to the pan-European area. The resulting forest map was analysed on a pixel-by-pixel basis and given to inventory and remote sensing experts for consultation. When comparing both the result of the calibrated forest map with that of the original AVHRR mosaic of the area it was found that the satellite-derived estimates of forest area closely matched the ground inventory statistics indicating the high accuracy obtained from the AVHRR mosaic alone. Most visible discrepancies were found in northern Europe where the inventory data showed less forest than the image data. In southern Europe, the inventory data displayed more forest than the AVHRR image. This project was carried out for the European Commission, Joint Research Centre in 1999/2000 (contract no. 17223-2000-12 F1SC ISP FI) mainly by the European Forest Institute and VTT Information Technology.

Reactions to geovisualization: an experience from a European project

The paper is written jointly by two parties, computer scientists specializing in geovisualization and experts in forestry, who cooperated within a joint project. The authors tell a story about an attempt of the geovisualizers to introduce the foresters to the concept and principles of exploratory data analysis and to the use of visualization for systematic and comprehensive data exploration. This endeavor should be considered as an informal experiment rather than a rigorous scientific study. Unlike customary tests of the usability of specific tools and techniques, the geovisualizers did not give the forestry specialists a series of tasks to carry out by applying geovisualization tools and did not try to measure how well the foresters performed. The idea of the geovisualizers was to demonstrate the principles and power of exploratory data analysis to the foresters by example. For this purpose, the geovisualizers performed an exploration of a non‐trivial data set by themselves and reported the procedure, the principles, the techniques, and the findings to the foresters. The reaction of the foresters uncovered a range of fundamental issues that are relevant to geovisualization and information visualization research. The authors analyze these issues from their perspectives and formulate a set of questions which researchers in geovisualization should be asking.

European Forest Information System — EFIS. a Step towards Better Access to Forest Information

The 1989 EU regulation (EEC) No. 1615/89 stated that the European Commission should set up a European Forest Information and Communication System (EFICS) in order to address the need for sound forestry information at the European level. The main objective of EFICS is to collect, co-ordinate, standardise and process data concerning the forestry sector and its development. Existing data should be utilised and in particular, statistics compiled by the European Community’s statistical office and information from the Member States and other available and accessible data bases, both at the national and international level. The main objective of the European Forest Information System (EFIS) project is to design and build a fully operational prototype of a reliable forest information system. The functionalities of the system include the compilation, processing, analysis and dissemination of available forestry information from various data sources and of various data formats on an international, national and regional level. The challenge for EFIS lies within the creation of an information system that allows flexible analysis options addressing diverse user needs, access restrictions and rights, and adequate and appropriate technological possibilities for the creation and presentation of value-added products. This paper describes the present state of the project and the challenges in improving the access and distribution of forest related information available through the Internet.

Network for a European forest information service - developing a metadata schema as a collaborative action of data providers, users and system developers

This paper addresses the development of a metadata schema for forestry related information resources in the course of the Accompanying Measure project under the Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources Programme of the European Commission (QLK5-CT-2002-30638). It describes the use of metadata standards, and in particular that of the Dublin core metadata initiative. Quality in data description was one of the central issues. An approach to elaborating quality reporting within the schema is presented. The metadata standards need to be robust based on the principles of interoperability, technology independence, and be easily upgradeable. Promising examples at the current stage of interoperability technology are DCMI for catalogue functionality, and XML schema, Web-services, or also resource description framework schemas, for distributed database functionality.

Mapping Forest in Europe by Combining Earth Observation Data and Forest Statistics

This study aimed at combining information from both remote sensing and forest inventory statistics in order to improve the knowledge on the distribution of forests in Europe. For each of the EU-15 countries the target was to produce a NOAA-AVHRR-based forest map which corresponds to the official statistics reported for the regional or province level. The statistical data were based on the European forest statistics compiled by the Statistical Office of the European Communities, Eurostat. The target variables were forest, other wooded land and other land. A reflectance image mosaic of 49 images acquired from the AVHRR instrument of NOAA 14 satellite was used as the reference satellite data. The Corine Land Cover database was selected as the most appropriate database for representing ground data. In a first phase, the percentage forest proportion was estimated for each AVHRR pixel, using the Corine land use classification as training data to establish the link between the five classes (forest, other wooded land, and within the forest class, coniferous, broadleaf and mixed forest) and the AVHRR spectral response. In a second phase, the area of each class was calibrated (based on the concept of a confusion matrix) in order that the computed forest areas corresponded to the reported area of forest land within the NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) regions (Eurostat). Total forest was mapped for the entire European Union using National-level (NUTS 0) or sub-national level statistics i.e., NUTS-1 and NUTS-2 respectively. Benefits and limitations of the method are discussed in this paper. In summary the ethodology of calibration itself proved to be well suited to the problem of combining two independent data sources to one value-added product.

Treaty enforcement services using earth observation (TESEO) theme carbon

Earth observation techniques using optical and SAR data were developed to help the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. Forest area and major tree species were mapped in study sites in Italy and Finland. Forest biomass was estimated in a plantation in Borneo using very high-resolution data. Results showed that instruments similar to Landsat Thematic Mapper are effective to provide required forest area information. C-band SAR can also be used in pure forest and non-forest mapping. A major challenge is to obtain reliable ground training and validation data as well as adequate and high-quality imagery for the reference year 1990 of the Protocol. Keywords-forestry; Kyoto Protocol; Landsat; SAR

Forest Resources for Employment and Regional Development

From 1995 to 1999, the European Forest Institute (EFI) conducted the project FORWARD (Forest Resources for Work Opportunities and Regional Development)to investigate the contributions of forestry and the forest sector to the economic development of remote regions in Europe. This paper is a summary of the qualitative module of the project. In addition to the traditional qualitative approach,based on gathering information on the situation in the different study regions and then testing this coded information against the initial hypothesis with the aim of arriving at more general conclusions, a formalised approach towards qualitative comparative research was also applied in the project. Ragin’s qualitative comparative approach uses Boolean logic to compare case study information. The results support the stressing and, if need be, creation of regional and local specific identities. They also point to the important role of horizontal and regional networking in achieving success at the regional level. The presented examples also examine the role of the degree of institutionalisation of the sector. The results show that in some of the more successful examples, forest-sector-related activities have profited from a high level of governmental regulation and institutionalisation, at least as regards the use and processing of timber resources. To what degree such rigid structures can adapt to new demands remains to be questioned.