MySustainableForest

This project has received funding from the European Union's innovation and research program Horizon 2020 under grant agreement No. 776045.

Forests, a key component of the EU economy (42% of the EU surface area) and source of multiple social benefits, must be managed in accordance with the sustainability principles outlined in the EU Forest Strategy. However, forest managers lack precise or updated data to do so. Traditional forest inventories provide detailed ecological and forestry information, but they come at a high cost and are normally provided every 10 years. This frequency far below what is needed to plan commercial or recreational activities based on these data. The rate of change in forests requires tools that are capable of annual tracking of the forest surface area, the characteristics of the available wood, and the different ecosystem services.

Pre-commercial platforms and forest use

The purpose of the MySustainableForest project is to develop a pre-commercial service and platform for the entities involved in the management and use of forests, one that is compatible with standard, open interfaces that integrate Earth Observation data with the decision-making processes of all stakeholders in daily operations. The project will be carried out based on the GMV prototype service, eoForest, and will use the knowledge and experience in forest modeling obtained with the partners’ LiDAR tool. Project participants include major public and private organizations in this area: RAIZ (R&D branch of The Navigator Company), the Croatian Institute of Forest Research, Mendel University in Brno, the Forest Association of Navarre and Lithuania, the Syndicat des Sylviculteurs du Sud-Ouest, the European Forest Institute, and two innovative SMEs (MADERA+ and Föra).

Its added value will be tested in 6 different bioclimate zones in Portugal, Spain, France, Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Lithuania, applying different management protocols for different forest uses. The economic viability of the service will be evaluated and the associated business model will be validated. The result of the project is expected to enable end users to optimize their operations by 10%, while increasing the workforces at participating SMEs by 20% and growing GMV’s market share in the sector by 10%.