TY - JOUR

T1 - Growing stock monitoring by European National Forest Inventories

T2 - Historical origins, current methods and harmonisation

AU - Gschwantner, Thomas

AU - Alberdi, Iciar

AU - Bauwens, Sébastien

AU - Bender, Susann

AU - Borota, Dragan

AU - Bosela, Michal

AU - Bouriaud, Olivier

AU - Breidenbach, Johannes

AU - Donis, Jānis

AU - Fischer, Christoph

AU - Gasparini, Patrizia

AU - Heffernan, Luke

AU - Hervé, Jean Christophe

AU - Kolozs, László

AU - Korhonen, Kari T.

AU - Koutsias, Nikos

AU - Kovácsevics, Pál

AU - Kučera, Miloš

AU - Kulbokas, Gintaras

AU - Kuliešis, Andrius

AU - Lanz, Adrian

AU - Lejeune, Philippe

AU - Lind, Torgny

AU - Marin, Gheorghe

AU - Morneau, François

AU - Nord-Larsen, Thomas

AU - Nunes, Leónia

AU - Pantić, Damjan

AU - Redmond, John

AU - Rego, Francisco C.

AU - Riedel, Thomas

AU - Šebeň, Vladimír

AU - Sims, Allan

AU - Skudnik, Mitja

AU - Tomter, Stein M.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors

PY - 2022/2/1

Y1 - 2022/2/1

N2 - Wood resources have been essential for human welfare throughout history. Also nowadays, the volume of growing stock (GS) is considered one of the most important forest attributes monitored by National Forest Inventories (NFIs) to inform policy decisions and forest management planning. The origins of forest inventories closely relate to times of early wood shortage in Europe causing the need to explore and plan the utilisation of GS in the catchment areas of mines, saltworks and settlements. Over time, forest surveys became more detailed and their scope turned to larger areas, although they were still conceived as stand-wise inventories. In the 1920s, the first sample-based NFIs were introduced in the northern European countries. Since the earliest beginnings, GS monitoring approaches have considerably evolved. Current NFI methods differ due to country-specific conditions, inventory traditions, and information needs. Consequently, GS estimates were lacking international comparability and were therefore subject to recent harmonisation efforts to meet the increasing demand for consistent forest resource information at European level. As primary large-area monitoring programmes in most European countries, NFIs assess a multitude of variables, describing various aspects of sustainable forest management, including for example wood supply, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity. Many of these contemporary subject matters involve considerations about GS and its changes, at different geographic levels and time frames from past to future developments according to scenario simulations. Due to its historical, continued and currently increasing importance, we provide an up-to-date review focussing on large-area GS monitoring where we i) describe the origins and historical development of European NFIs, ii) address the terminology and present GS definitions of NFIs, iii) summarise the current methods of 23 European NFIs including sampling methods, tree measurements, volume models, estimators, uncertainty components, and the use of air- and space-borne data sources, iv) present the recent progress in NFI harmonisation in Europe, and v) provide an outlook under changing climate and forest-based bioeconomy objectives.

AB - Wood resources have been essential for human welfare throughout history. Also nowadays, the volume of growing stock (GS) is considered one of the most important forest attributes monitored by National Forest Inventories (NFIs) to inform policy decisions and forest management planning. The origins of forest inventories closely relate to times of early wood shortage in Europe causing the need to explore and plan the utilisation of GS in the catchment areas of mines, saltworks and settlements. Over time, forest surveys became more detailed and their scope turned to larger areas, although they were still conceived as stand-wise inventories. In the 1920s, the first sample-based NFIs were introduced in the northern European countries. Since the earliest beginnings, GS monitoring approaches have considerably evolved. Current NFI methods differ due to country-specific conditions, inventory traditions, and information needs. Consequently, GS estimates were lacking international comparability and were therefore subject to recent harmonisation efforts to meet the increasing demand for consistent forest resource information at European level. As primary large-area monitoring programmes in most European countries, NFIs assess a multitude of variables, describing various aspects of sustainable forest management, including for example wood supply, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity. Many of these contemporary subject matters involve considerations about GS and its changes, at different geographic levels and time frames from past to future developments according to scenario simulations. Due to its historical, continued and currently increasing importance, we provide an up-to-date review focussing on large-area GS monitoring where we i) describe the origins and historical development of European NFIs, ii) address the terminology and present GS definitions of NFIs, iii) summarise the current methods of 23 European NFIs including sampling methods, tree measurements, volume models, estimators, uncertainty components, and the use of air- and space-borne data sources, iv) present the recent progress in NFI harmonisation in Europe, and v) provide an outlook under changing climate and forest-based bioeconomy objectives.

KW - Bioeconomy

KW - Climate change

KW - Forest history

KW - Natural resources

KW - Remote sensing

KW - Sampling

KW - Sustainability

KW - Timber volume

U2 - 10.1016/j.foreco.2021.119868

DO - 10.1016/j.foreco.2021.119868

M3 - Review

AN - SCOPUS:85121108129

VL - 505

JO - Forest Ecology and Management

JF - Forest Ecology and Management

SN - 0378-1127

M1 - 119868

ER -