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Project sites
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Test areas for full carbon budgets
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The test areas, which are representative for the major European forest ecosystem
regions are located in the Boreal, the Temperate, the Mediterranean,
and the Alpine forest regions:
- Finland: Southern Coast of Finland, South-Eastern Finland, and Northern Carelia
- Germany: Saxonian Foothills, Taunus
- Austria: Upper Styria
- Spain: Catalonia
In all test areas, intensive studies on forests have been carried out and, thus,
provide a sound basis for scientific work and the evaluation of the developed methods.
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The Boreal forest region: Finland
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Three test areas from Finland will be used, 1) Southern Coast of Finland
2)South-Eastern Finland 3) Northern Carelia.
The reason for using 3 test sites is the different availability of microwave data
and of latest field measurements. All test areas represent managed boreal forests,
Southern Coast of Finland and South-Eastern Finland belong to the Southern Boreal
and the Northern Carelia test area belongs to the Middle-Boreal forests.
The forests are dominated by Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), Norway spruce
(Picea abies (L.) Karst.), and birch (Betula spp.) with some aspen
(Populus tremula L.) and alder (Alnus spp.). The spruce proportion is higher in
the Southern Coast of Finland than in the South-Eastern Finland and Northern
Carelia sites. The terrain is flat, except the Northern Carelia site.
All areas have been covered several times with field plots of the Finnish NFI.
The newest inventory in the Southern Coast of Finland and South-Eastern Finland
sites are from the year 1998 and in the Northern Carelia site from the year 2000.
The field plot density is one plot per each 277 ha in the Southern Coast of Finland
and South-Eastern Finland sites and one plot per each 288 ha in the Northern
Carelia site. A dense grid of field plots is available from some sub-areas of
the Northern Carelia site. The field plot density in those areas is one plot
per each 20 ha. All sites have been analysed twice with multi-source
inventory, i.e. with Landsat TM images and digital map data, in addition to
field measurements. Thus a full coverage with thematic maps is available.
The Southern Coast of Finland and South-Eastern Finland sites have been
covered with E-SAR measurements during the summer 2000 by DLR.
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The Temperate forest region: Germany
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For the temperate region, two test areas were selected for the project.
The Taunus test area is located north of Frankfurt. Extensive radar imagery
(provided by the Astrium Consortium) is available for the test site.
Coniferous tree species are dominating the forests in the test area.
For the test area in the Saxonian Foothills extensive field measurements
in addition to forest management data (incl. data in GIS format) are available.
The forests in the test area are characterised by high proportion of
broad-leaved species and a patchy spatial distribution of the forested areas.
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The Alpine forest region: Austria
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The Alpine test area Upper Styria extends from the "Sengsengebirge" in the north,
to the "Gurktaler Alpen" in the south and is dominated by the high mountain
character. The highest peak, the "Hoher Dachstein", reaches 2,995 m.
The areal extent of the test site is 60 km in east-west- and 90 km in
north-south direction. The potential natural forest community of the mountain
range are the high-montane mixed species forest (spruce-fir-beech and spruce-larch)
and the subalpine spruce forest. Most of the forests have been transformed into
spruce forests with a small share of beech. The alpine range is covered by
heathlands with characteristic dwarf shrubs (Vaccinium sp., Rhododendron) and
with alpine pine (Pinus mugo). At sites with very shallow soils a patchy cover
of early successional species is found. Extensive information on forests and
soils as well as ancillary data is available for the project.
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The Mediterranean forest region: Spain
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The Mediterranean test area Catalonia is in NE Spain (31,930 km2), comprising
the provinces of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona, is bounded on the
north by the Pyrenees Mountains on the west by the region of Aragon, and on
the east by the Mediterranean Sea. The climate is mainly mediterranean with
mild winters, warm and dry summers. The Pyrenees mountains, reaching elevations
of over 3,000 m, and some other topographical feature, such as the transversal
and pre-littoral ranges, create clear topographical climatic gradients where
Mediterranean-type biomes gradually change to temperate, boreal-like (subalpine)
and tundra like (alpine) types, corresponding to the euro-siberian and
boreoalpine phytogeographic regions. From the coast to the central planes,
the increase in continentality and the decrease in rainfall create another
major gradient from a winter -warm humid climate to a winter-cold semiarid
Mediterranean one (where annual rainfall is as low as 300-400 mm and shrubs
subdesertic types of vegetation become dominant). In Catalonia, holm oak,
Aleppo pine forests dominate extensive areas of the forest territory.
Structure and dynamics of these forests are determined mainly by water
availability and temporal changes in canopy cover after disturbances.
Forested land covers about 10,500 km2 or 33% of the Catalonia area.
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Test areas for “Kyoto” carbon budget
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Afforestation / reforestation project in Hungary as a test-site for monitoring
of stock changes in project-based reforestation in JI
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In Hungary, afforestation and reforestation has a long history in the 20th century.
In the last few decades, some 600 thousand hectares were reforested, increasing
the forested land from 11% to 17%. A large proportion of the new forests can be
found in the Eastern flat part of the country, called the Great Hungarian
Plain (GHP). After a drop in the rates of afforestations in the 90's, mainly
because of lack of resources, a new wave of afforestation is expected.
This is due to the current economic and political process of Hungary
becoming a member of the EU in a few years time. The areal distribution of the
afforestation coincides with the pattern of croplands. These lands are
fragmented, and the size of contiguous blocks varies between several hectares
to several tens of hectares. Contiguous blocks of several ha
afforestation are rare. On the other hand, the same or similar species may
have been used in many afforestations in entire regions, making it possible
to establish test blocks of several hundred ha of the same species where the
individual blocks are not far from each other.
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Afforestation and reforestation at regional level in Ireland
(monitoring for national reporting under KP Article 3.3)
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Woodlands were once a dominant feature of the Irish landscape. However, centuries
of exploitation created the situation where, at the turn of the twentieth
century, only 1% of the land area was forested. Since the 1950’s there has
been a major national commitment to restore forest cover and there are now
some 600,000 hectares of forest, which is equivalent to 9% of the land area
(Forest Service 2000). Species composition is 80% coniferous. Competition
with agriculture has meant that afforestation has largely been limited to
land considered marginal and sub-marginal for agriculture.
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Deforestation at regional level
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One of the test sites in Box 1 will be selected for monitoring deforestation
activities as defined under Kyoto Protocol Article 3.3. The selection of test site
will be done such that the area undergoing deforestation sufficient for the
purposes of this project. Key challenges are detecting forest losses,
distinguishing between normal forest harvest and deforestation, and assessing
the carbon stocks of forests prior to deforestation.
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