A century of national forest inventories – informing past, present and future decisions

Abstract

In 2019, 100 years had elapsed since the first National Forest Inventory (NFI) was established in Norway. Motivated by a fear of over-exploitation of timber resources, NFIs today enable informed policy making by providing data vital to decision support at international, national, regional, and local scales. This Collection of articles celebrates the 100th anniversary of NFIs with a description of past, present, and future research aiming at improving the monitoring of forest and other terrestrial ecosystems.