One third of European forests deteriorated
Press release — Tomorrow, in the International Auditorium in Brussels, FutMon, the EU’s largest LIFE+ project, will present a comprehensive update on forest information in Europe today. Over 2.5 years and equipped with 16 mio Euro EU co-financing, 38 partners from 23 Member States redesigned the existing forest monitoring system. It is now based on around 300 intensive monitoring plots and 5500 large scale plots in the forests stretching from Northern Lapland to the South of Sicily.
Press Release - Monday June 20th - for immediate release
One third of European forests deteriorated
over past 10 years
Tomorrow, in the International Auditorium in Brussels, FutMon, the EU’s largest LIFE+ project, will present a comprehensive update on forest information in Europe today. Over 2.5 years and equipped with 16 mio Euro EU co-financing, 38 partners from 23 Member States redesigned the existing forest monitoring system. It is now based on around 300 intensive monitoring plots and 5500 large scale plots in the forests stretching from Northern Lapland to the South of Sicily.
“New surveys now provide data on changing climate and reactions of forest ecosystems” says Dr. Martin Lorenz from vtI Hamburg, leader of the project, and further states that “FutMon provides the relevant data for pressing issues like nitrogen deposition, the carbon cycle, forest growth and extending markets for bioenergy, as well as biodiversity and nature conservation.”
Results from the monitoring programme show that:
- Forest trees respond to an increased frequency of summer heat and drought over the last decade for central Europe. Decreasing vitality of forest trees under such conditions is documented by the data. There were no significant changes in forest health status over the past ten years on two thirds of the plots, but deterioration prevailed on the remaining third.
- Unbalanced nutrient supply in the forest soils caused by nitrogen deposition is widespread and critical nitrogen deposition loads are still exceeded on around half of the plots. Nitrate leaching to the ground waters and relations to vegetation and lichen species diversity are documented by the programme.
- Forests in Europe help mitigate climate change. Carbon uptake by forests is presently thought to correspond to around 10% of the emissions. Monitoring results show that nitrogen deposition accelerated tree growth and thus carbon uptake. But these climate change mitigation effects may decrease in future because forest growth cannot be endlessly accelerated. Growth models in Europe rely on the monitoring data to quantify these effects.
Precise, up to date and cost efficiently acquired information is of utmost importance to sustainably manage and maintain Europe’s forests. For this reason Dr. Lorenz stresses the importance of the continued financing under LIFE+: “Once the investment in the system design and instalment has been made, the continuous operation of the system is a must”.
Contact:
Dr. Martin Lorenz
martin.lorenz@vti.bund.de, Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institute (vTI) -- tel: +49-40-73962-140
http://www.futmon.org -- http://www.icp-forests.org -- http://www.vti.bund.de
Background: Harmonized forest monitoring started 25 years ago under the joint auspices of EU and the ICP Forests operating under UNECE. Within FutMon new surveys were developed and implemented on 300 intensive monitoring plots. The large scale plots were linked to existing national forest inventories in most of the Member States in order to reduce costs and facilitate a broader use of the data. Around 200 experts were involved from different national research institutes. The data of the project are centrally stored at the Institute for World Forestry in Hamburg, Germany and are included in the European Forest Data Centre at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. They are available upon request for scientific use.