COST Action E43

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COST Action E43 Harmonisation of National
Inventories in Europe Techniques for Common
Reporting Monitoring Forest Resources for
Sustainable Management Meeting of the UNECE/FAO
Team of Specialists Forestry Commission 231
Corstorphine Road, EH 12 7AT Edinburgh,
Scotland 21-22 May, 2007 www.metla.fi/eu/cost/e4
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27 European countries, USA and New Zealand June
2004 June 2008
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Cost Action E43Objectives

• To harmonise the definitions and concepts to
• produce comparable information
• To support countries, particularly with new
• inventories
• To promote the use of scientifically sound and
• validated methods

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3 WGs of COST E43

• Harmonised definitions and measuring practices
  of NFIs
• Harmonized estimation procedures for carbon
  pools and carbon pool changes
• Harmonized indicators and estimation procedures
  for assessing components of biodiversity with
  NFI data

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The way towards harmonization
International definitions
NFI descriptionsQuestionnaires
Comprehensive information on the current
situation of NFIs
References Definitions
Analysis of harmonization options
Building Bridges
Results calculation
Recommendations for harmonizing results at the
European level
Comparable estimates
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Concepts and variables with reference
definitions

• WG1
• Forest land, Other Wooded land
• Tree components, Volume of growing stock,
  Standing volume
• WG2
• Forest (from WG1), Cropland, Grassland, Wetlands,
  Settlements, Other land
• Five carbon pools (Above and Below ground
  biomass,
• Dead wood, Litter, Soil carbon)
• Afforestation, Reforestation, Deforestation
• Forest management
• WG3
• Five core variables (Forest type, Deadwood,
• Ground vegetation, Naturalness, Stand
  structure)

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Results of WG1, Forest definitionCoverage
classes used

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Forest definitionCrown Coverage Classes Used
Results of WG1
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WG1, Forest Area and Volume of Growing Stock
versus DBH Threshold

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The key issues of WG2

• UNFCCC reporting
• Kyoto reporting
• Definitions and decisions already by 2006
• Annual figures to report
• Land-use change estimates
• State and change in 5 carbon pools

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WG2 results, Land use issues

• Approaches to estimate land-use change

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WG2 results, KP - baseline

• Data for the baseline year (mostly 1990)

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WG2 results, KP ARD activities

• The basis for ARD estimation

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Use of NFI data for 5 carbon pools ()
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Development steps of WG3 activities
References for core variables
?
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Result of WG3
Specific biodiversity data are collected on dead
wood?
11 countries are currently assess deadwood in
time series
harmonised report on deadwood (changes in time
and in decay stages) will be possible
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Questionnaires result of WG3
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WG3 Attributes ranked by the number of NFIs
assessing them
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Result of WG3
15 European countries currently describe the
vertical stand structure by assessing the number
of layers. data harmonisation is possible
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Impact, science

• Current status of NFIs, differences and
  similarities in concepts and definitions
• Methods to analyse and create definitions
  quantitatively
• The role of NFIs in UNFCCC LULUCF and Kyoto
  reporting
• Quantifying biodiversity assessment and the
  possibilities of NFIs in biodiversity monitoring
• Methods to convert NFI estimates from one
  definition to another (building bridges)

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Impact, technology

• European forest monitoring system
• can be built on NFIs
• full advantage of local knowledge
• full advantage of a long time methodological
  work and time series
• FAO, UNECE/FAO, MCPFE, JRC, EEA, DG ENV
• actively participating
• Global impact, similar processes are being built
  elsewhere with the support of FAO, e.g., Asia
  process, Montreal process

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Impact, technology, cont

• Building up European forest information supply on
  the national inventories
• maximized benefits from inventories
• 500 000 visited plots
• maximized advantage of local knowledge and
  requirements together with international
  requirements

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Cost Action E43Office holders

• Prof. Erkki TOMPPO (Finland), the Chairman of the
  Action
• Dr. Klemens SCHADAUER (Austria), Vice-Chairman
• Three Working Groups
• Dr. Claude VIDAL (France), leader, WG1
• Dr. Adrian LANZ (Switzerland), deputy leader, WG1
• Prof. Göran Ståhl (Sweden), leader, WG2
• Dr. Emil CIENCIALA (Czech Republic), deputy
  leader, WG2
• Prof. Gherardo CHIRICI (Italy), leader, WG3
• Dr. Susanne WINTER (Germany), deputy leader, WG3

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E43, coordination

• Up to now
• 7 Management committee meetings
• 7 Joint working group meetings (8th in June
  in
• Helsinki)
• 8 Steering committee meetings
• 2nd Questionnaires, all WGs
• 7 STSM and 10 Task Force meetings
• for analysing the questionnaires,
• defining references and building bridges

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Future activities

• 3 MC and JWG meetings
• Several STSMs, TF meetings
• Building bridges a challenge
• field data with different definitions, work,
• gt resources, some promising progress in 2007
• Publications
• Country Report, status in each participating
  country
• Scientific papers (so far 3 1 2)
• Harmonised results

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Future activities, cont

• Inventory teams involved, high commitment of all,
  particularly core people and groups
• Ambitious tasks with a lot of work
• A new action to continue the work

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• Thank you !