Forests in Europe provide a plethora of goods and ecosystem services to European societies. In order to meet the growing demand on forest products and for ensuring the different forest functions, especially under a changing climate, forest information is becoming more and more important. Forest information of high quality is essential to knowledge-based European policy making, which in turn should ensure the sustainability of the forest’s products and services. Also, multiple international and European reporting obligations require forest information for monitoring of forests and their sustainability. In addition, high quality forest information can improve forest-related scenario models and other environmental modelling. Sources of forest information in Europe are manifold and are mainly derived for national purposes, leading to different levels of quality and details depending on the country. For European purposes and applications, however, consistency of this information and its comparability between countries are essential, as differences in quality could influence decision-making processes and may lead to wrong conclusions.

The aim of this Ph.D. study was to investigate, how and to which extent the need for harmonised forest information can be satisfied using remote sensing methods. In conclusion, the study showed that it is possible to derive harmonised forest information of high spatial detail in Europe with remote sensing. The study also highlighted the imperative provision of accuracy parameters for the spatial units of any foreseen application, as it is crucial for evaluating the fitness for purpose. Yet, the lack of comprehensive reference data limits large area accuracy assessments. Improvement of reference data availability is, thus, a prerequisite for better decision-making processes in Europe as otherwise the reliability of the information used could remain partly unknown.