EEA HR-VPP2: European Tree Cover Disturbance Information
RUNNING TIME:
09/2024
—
03/2026
Total project duration:
1,5 Jahre
Credit: JOANNEUM RESEARCH/J. Deutscher
The project
In September 2024, the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service’s Pan European Component launched the ramp-up phase of the High-Resolution Vegetation Phenology and Productivity (HR-VPP2) service at the European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen. HR-VPP2 will continue the provision of vegetation phenology and production data and will expand the service by developing a new vegetation disturbance tree cover data set for the pan-European land area. Originally released in 2021, the CLMS HR-VPP product suite will be continued and expanded via this new contract lead by VITO-Remote Sensing. HR-VPP2 will offer improved tools and metrics, for tracking vegetation dynamics across the EEA38 countries and the UK.
Our activities in the project
The HR-VPP consortium brings together leading experts in Vegetation Phenology, Productivity, and Tree Cover Disturbance, Operations and User Involvement. The remote sensing team at Joanneum Research leads the developments on a new forest and tree cover disturbance monitoring product.
- Vegetation Disturbance Tree Cover (VDTC) is a novel product introduced to the HR-VPP2 service and is a response to the recently proposed EU regulation on a monitoring framework for resilient forests, therefore explicitly requesting a new standardised data collection by the Commission on tree cover disturbances at pan-European scale. Developments focus on short-term and long-term disturbances, disturbance date assessment and duration, and vegetation recovery. Biotic and abiotic forest disturbances are important drivers of ecosystem dynamics. A separate research task therefore investigates the potential of EO-based disturbance type/agent classification at European scale. The new HRL VDTC products will consist of several information layers on tree cover disturbances at 10 x 10 m spatial resolution based on an analysis of the full Sentinel-2 time series starting from 2017
Research groups
Downloads
Customers
EEA (European Environment Agency)
Project partners
VITO – Flemish Institute for Technological Research
Lund University
Space4Environment
Project details
A New Era in Pan-European Vegetation Monitoring and Analysis
The HR-VPP product suite offers the most up-to-date information, as well as improved tools and metrics, for tracking vegetation dynamics across the EEA38 countries and the UK:
- High Resolution Vegetation Phenology and Productivity - HR-VPP:
HR-VPP2 aims to further enhance the suite of products available to estimate vegetation phenology across large areas, leveraging satellite observations to track seasonal changes in green biomass and photosynthetic activity. Building on the success of HR-VPP1, the precursor service, vegetation phenology was estimated for the -pan-European land area from Sentinel-2 (S-2) observations at 10 x 10 m spatial resolution. HR-VPP2 will further evolve the HR-VPP product suite to provide vital parameters and data that explain the dynamics of vegetation growth and productivity across the pan-European landscape.
- Medium Resolution Vegetation Phenology and Productivity - MR-VPP:
The future of the pan-European Medium Resolution Vegetation Phenology and Productivity (MR-VPP) is guaranteed within the HR-VPP2 contract. The MR-VPP dataset will be extended in the future by using data from Sentinel-3 at 333 m resolution. The entire MR-VPP dataset from 2000 will be recalibrated and harmonized between MODIS and Sentinel-3 inputs. These data provide extensive time series that enable studies on trends and co-variations with climate drivers, although they operate at lower spatial resolution than HR-VPP. The two datasets are thus complementary, and address needs of different user communities from local or national to regional and continental study interests.
- Vegetation Disturbance Tree Cover - VDTC:
Vegetation Disturbance Tree Cover (VDTC) is a novel product introduced to the HR-VPP2 service and is a response to the recently proposed EU regulation on a monitoring framework for resilient forests therefore explicitly requesting a new standardised data collection by the Commission on tree cover disturbances at pan-European scale. Biotic and abiotic forest disturbances, such as bark beetle damages, windthrow, forest fires and regular wood harvesting, are important drivers of ecosystem dynamics. The new HRL VDTC products will provide several information layers on tree cover disturbances at 10 x 10 m spatial resolution based on an analysis of the full Sentinel-2 time series starting from 2017. Panned information layers include short- and long-term disturbance areas, disturbance event dates and duration, vegetation recovery information, vitality trends and test on disturbance agent classification
In parallel, the review and validation process of HR-VPP2 product developments under Lot 2 is being led by ACRI-ST, with support from the University of Southampton and the University of Sevilla.
