Offering the appetite for the monitoring of European forests a diversified diet

Abstract

Key message: Forest monitoring in Europe is turning matter of renewed political concern, and a possible role for ICP Forests health monitoring has been suggested to meet this goal (Ann For Sci 78:94, 2021). Multipurpose national forest inventory (NFI) surveys yet offer a sampling effort by two orders of magnitude greater than ICP level 1, have accomplished substantial methodological and harmonization progresses in the recent years, and therefore form a decisive contributor to future European forest monitoring incentives. Possible paths for the future development of a pan-European, comprehensive and more accurate monitoring are designed that stress a crucial need to build on the assets of the existing forest monitoring programs and favor their cooperation, in order to limit the co-existence of distinct forest monitoring processes.