A pan-European forests mortality assessment using long-term satellite records
Abstract
Accumulating evidence suggests increasing forest mortality across Europe as a consequence of past land use and ongoing climate change. However, the exact rates and trends of forest mortality remain elusive for Europe at the continental scale, mainly due to a scarcity of long-term mortality monitoring and the challenge of harmonizing national forest inventories. We aim at closing this knowledge gap by using long-term satellite records to reconstruct more than three decades of forest mortality across Europe and analyze its agents and patterns at the continental scale. Our specific objectives are to (I) estimate national-level forest mortality rates and trends over the time period 1984 to 2018; to (II) attribute mortality trends to causal agents by integrating remote sensing and social-environmental data into a data-driven attribution approach; and to (III) map forest mortality consistently at a spatial grain of 30 m across Europe, allowing for spatial pattern analysis of past forest mortality events. We build on a rich set of methods and experiences gained during previous work focusing on six countries in Central Europe. Here, we propose to extent our research to cover 32 European countries, four biomes (boreal, temperate, montane and Mediterranean forests), and more than 170 million ha of forests. Moreover, the project will deliver the first continental scale attribution of mortality to causal agents, presenting detailed maps of the causes of forest forest change in Europe. Given the social and ecological importance of forest mortality, the results of the project will be of high relevance for a range of future research, including the study of European carbon stocks and biodiversity, and for developing simulation models accurately predicting changes in forest mortality into the future.
Forest disturbances Forest management Landsat Global change Remote sensing
Publikationen
Mitarbeiter*Innen
Rupert Seidl
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Rupert Seidl
rupert.seidl@boku.ac.at
Project Leader
01.03.2019 - 28.02.2019