A pre-market service to map biomass potentials on a regional level

Abstract

In the framework of the EU FP7 project ENDORSE (Energy Downstream Services – Providing energy components for GMES) a pre-market service is developed to estimate the annual above ground biomass increase for forests in Germany. This development is driven by the requirements of a prime user (Forest Competence Center Eberswalde) and done in close cooperation with experts in the field of forestry. One aim of the service is to develop a cost and time efficient method to deliver yearly estimates of above ground forest biomass increase using satellite measurements and modelling techniques as the BETHY/DLR SVAT model. Another aim is to use mainly satellite observations coming from GMES services and/or GMES space components. Our yearly estimates of above ground forest biomass increase covering the time span from 2000 to 2012 will fill the gaps of the national forest inventories. In Germany the first and second National Forest Inventory (NFI) took place in the years 1987 and 2002 while the third inventory was performed in 2011 and 2012. This large-scale ground mapping of the forest status and forest productivity uses random sampling of forest parameters for the entire territory of the Federal Republic of Germany. The new pre-market service allows monitoring forest growth on a regional level with 1km x 1km spatial resolution with respect to local meteorological conditions