Climate change, intensive forest management, and other environmental stressors (e.g. air pollution) are creating increasing pressure on Europe’s forest ecosystems’ ability to simultaneously provide multiple ecosystem functions—i.e. multifunctionality—including the biodiversity they harbour and the many ecosystem services (ES) they provide. The relationship between forest resilience to climate change, forest management, protection and restoration, and diverse forest ES are only partially understood, due to the limited availability of data at desired spatial and temporal scales, and the incoherent and scattered information across diverse sources. The lack of harmonised monitoring of these relationships and interactions across Europe hinders the consolidation of comprehensive knowledge that is needed for successful planning, implementation and evaluation of evidence-based policies, as well as mitigation and adaptation measures at the European and national levels.
MoniFun’s ultimate goal is to co-create a blueprint for a system for monitoring the state and multifunctionality of Europe’s forests, which consolidates currently fragmented information (qualitative and quantitative) into a comprehensive, interoperable information system that integrates existing platforms, and is applicable to the needs of diverse stakeholders, policies, certification schemes and society. The European Forest Multifunctionality Monitoring System (EFFMS) will be developed during the project. EFMMS will be co-created by experts incorporating stakeholder (end users, policymakers) feedback and will focus on four thematic areas: (i) forest resources in Europe; (ii) forests and climate change; (iii) forests and biodiversity; and (iv) forests and society. Its aim is to feed the existing Forest Information System for Europe (FISE).
EFI leads a task in WP2 in which expert indicator definitions and methods for monitoring forest multifunctionality will be developed. EFI's task focuses on wood flows and the related climate and socioeconomic impacts. More specific, methodological guidance will be developed for improving the tracking of wood flows and—as a result—the understanding and monitoring of the effects of wood use in climate change mitigation and on socioeconomic aspects. The wood flows will be used to estimate carbon storage in wood products, considering their end uses. In addition, methods for impact indicators will be developed, tested, and connected with the wood flows, to capture socioeconomic impacts associated with wood products and use in the EU bioeconomy (e.g. employment, added-value generation). Besides, EFI will contribute on the indicator definition on socioeconomic demands for ecosystem services which is also in WP2. Furthermore, EFI will help in identifying user and policy needs for monitoring forest multifunctionality (WP1), and EFI will also launch and manage grants to third parties.
Project Partners in the consortium:
1. Luonnonvarakeskus (LUKE), Finland
2. Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Spain
3. Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l'Analisi dell 'Economia Agraria (CREA), Italy
4. Ústav Pro Hospodářskou Úpravu Lesů Brandýs Nad Labem (UHUL FMI), Czech Republic
5. Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e.V. (FNR), Germany
6. Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut, Bundesforschungsinstitut für ländliche Räume, Wald und Fischerei (Thünen), Germany
7. European Forest Institute (EFI)
8. NIBIO - Norsk Institutt for Biookonomi (NIBIO), Norway
9. Stichting Wageningen Research (WR), The Netherlands
10. Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet (SLU) Sweden
11. Bundesforschungs- und Ausbildungszentrum für Wald, Naturgefahren und Landschaft (BFW), Austria
12. European Environmental Agency (EEA), EU
13. Eidgenossische Forschungsanstalt für Wald, Schnee und Landwirtschaft (WSL), Switzerland
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