Forest Flux project implementing service chains in Forestry TEP

Inspired by the Assesscarbon project blog posts, we decided to start a blog series highlighting projects utilizing Forestry TEP. In the coming weeks, we will introduce ongoing projects and the role of Forestry TEP in these projects. From there on, we will continue updating you on the key achievements of these projects.

We will start the introductions from the Forest Flux project (2018-2021), funded by the European Union (Horizon 2020). The project creates and pilots cloud-based services for the prediction of structural forest variables and for carbon assimilation. Forest Flux takes advantage of the rapid increase of Earth Observation data from the Copernicus programme and developments of cloud computing technology. It implements world-first service platform for high-resolution maps of traditional forestry variables (like height and basal area) together with forest carbon flux estimates (like net primary production). The services implemented in the Forest Flux project allow users to improve the profitability of forest management while taking care of the ecological sustainability.

The Forest Flux services are built on the Forestry TEP platform. This expands the service offering of the platform and allows web-based market access that is unrestricted by country boundaries. The platform enables easy commercial interactions of players of different sizes and backgrounds. The services built in the platform include:

1. Forest structural variable services: provision of information on forest area and forest status and their changes.
2. Carbon storage and flux services: provision of information on the biomass and carbon balance of the forests.

The processing of the final piloting phase is currently in progress. This involves creation of dozens of products forest structure variables and carbon fluxes for nine pilot users. The final piloting phase involves up to around 4000 hours of processing time, creating 3 TB of output datasets in the target areas of the users spread out in different parts of Europe as well as in Paraguay and Madagascar.

Projects such as Forest Flux help Forestry TEP platform to expand the service offer with services that meet the needs of forestry stakeholders and to develop robust and fast processing approaches for large processing tasks. Through these types of projects, Forestry TEP will be able to serve better both its current and future customers.