Forest Carbon Services of Project Forest Flux were developed on Forestry TEP
The three-year Forest Flux project Innovation Action project of the Horizon2020 program was successfully completed according to the original schedule. Forest Flux developed a service chain to support sustainable forest management. The services provide up-to-date and reliable information on forest structure, primary productivity, carbon stocks, and their changes. In addition, forecasts for the development of these variables can be computed.
Forest Flux services were implemented on the on Forestry TEP, which enables integration of the Forest Flux products with the business processes of end users. The services are now ready for the operational use but they are continuously developed further.
The services are offered from the same process of data refinement. In this process, the outputs of the previous phase are inputs to the next phase. The earlier phase outputs are also products that are delivered to the users.
Information is increasingly demanded for forest management purposes, to prove responsible asset management to the shareholders, and to follow the European policies and treaties.
Most of the products of Forest Flux are digital maps with associated metadata on map reliability, source data, and processing history. Quality assurance procedures were defined for all service elements. Specific software was developed for the quality assurance of the forest structural variable estimation and category classifications.
Forest Flux services were developed for operational users in six countries from boreal to temperate and sub-tropical zones. They are thus applicable for worldwide operational use.
A commercial service entity for forest structural and carbon flux variables is available from Forest Flux. This enables frequent monitoring of forest resources and carbon for forest owners, timberland management companies, investors, the insurance sector, as well as governmental and intergovernmental bodies.
The services improve the profitability of forestry through provision of information on the value of forest asset while promoting its ecological sustainability.
The Forest Flux services will improve success and growth of European value adding service provision industry, thus providing jobs and prosperity for society. The services also help society adapt to climate change and manage forest resources in a sustainable manner. See more in Forest Flux Final Report.
Tuomas Häme
Forest Flux project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program under grant agreement No 821860.