H2020 FORESTMAP Project: Fast and cost-effective integrated web platform for forest inventories

Understanding Our Forest Resources Researchers have developed a fast, cost-effective web-based tool that will revolutionize the way we remotely obtain forest inventory reports. Forest inventory is an important tool in forest management, providing data on forest resources in a given area. However, traditional forest inventories are expensive and time-consuming, and any delays or inaccurate information could lead to costly and ill-informed decisions.

The EU-funded FORESTMAP project addresses these challenges. "Our goal was to lay the foundations for a forest inventory and analysis platform, known as Forestmap, that operates in different European countries, with a particular focus on areas with LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data," highlights David García, the project's business director. A clearer view of forest resources Forestmap is an intuitive interface that allows users to generate forest inventories of a chosen area without the need for fieldwork. It is inexpensive, fast, and reliable. In addition to providing classic information on key forest parameters, such as wood volume, species, heights, diameters, and spatial distribution, three complementary modules have been implemented.

One of them is a fire module, which assesses fire risk and fire spread within the plot, with the spatial distribution of risk. "Another module focuses on assessing carbon stocks, their annual increase, and analyzing recent storage losses due to disturbances. A third module provides forest management recommendations, indicating which wood harvests can be carried out and how much wood can be sustainably harvested," García reports. Managing our forests The platform is operational in eight pilot areas in seven European countries, where forestry agents can access it free of charge (up to three hectares) to conduct a diagnosis of a specific plot and experience the potential of this technology.

The innovation targets timber industries, private landowners, and forestry consultants, providing a tool that will increase forest competitiveness among SMEs, a key EU objective. "Another important outcome of the project is that we were able to conduct a forest scan of specific plots with a high level of precision, which is of great interest to both forest owners and managers, as well as forest industries and companies interested in purchasing timber," García highlights. This also provides a tool to assess forest carbon stocks and their annual increase. "We would like to highlight the tool's contribution to addressing the challenge of forest fires, a growing threat in EU countries."

The information provided by the Forestmap platform is very valuable for assessing what types of prevention interventions can be carried out to reduce the risk of forest fires in an area," explains García. Expansion to all of Europe is on the horizon. "Expanding the platform to all of Europe is a challenge we want to work on to provide both forest owners and managers with a simple and rapid source of information for decision-making," confirms García.

In the long term, the project hopes the platform will have an impact on the timber market. "It will help provide forestry industries and companies with highly accurate, applicable information across the entire territory to assess the quantity of timber available on each plot, enabling them to make purchasing estimates, timber prospecting, and more strategic assessments linked to resource availability in specific areas," García concludes.