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Ensure forest-data integrity for climate change studies

Nature Climate Change volume 13, pages 495–496 (2023)Cite this article

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Forest inventory observations are critical for monitoring the contribution of terrestrial ecosystems to the global carbon cycle and a changing climate1. Like all scientific data, ensuring open access to forest data generally serves to secure the integrity of the data and facilitate climate mitigation efforts. In some cases, however, revealing information relating to the data can undermine that very integrity.

The data used to produce national forest inventories (NFIs) provide one such example. NFIs provide information for the long-term monitoring of global forests integral to research on their responses to climate change2, as well as mitigation potential. In Europe, measurements of forest carbon sinks and other resources such as biodiversity are derived from more than half a million field sample plots. These plots form the backbone of NFIs and allow for time-series data on the forests of Europe with high quality assurance3. NFIs use both temporary field plots (measured only once) and permanent plots (marked hidden in the field to allow repeated measurements at exactly the same location). Temporary plots are cost efficient in measuring the state of the forest attributes, but permanent plots are especially useful in assessing interannual changes in forests, making them indispensable in a climate change context.

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Fig. 1: Measuring tree diameter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tapio Ltd, Helsinki, Finland

    Risto Päivinen

  2. Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Ås, Norway

    Rasmus Astrup & Johannes Breidenbach

  3. Woodwell Climate Research Center, Falmouth, MA, USA

    Richard A. Birdsey

  4. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, Sweden

    Jonas Fridman

  5. Natural Resources Institute Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Annika Kangas & Kari T. Korhonen

  6. University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Pekka E. Kauppi

  7. University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Michael Köhl

  8. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Vivian Kvist Johannsen

  9. Institut national de l’information géographique et forestière, Nogent sur Vernisson, France

    François Morneau

  10. Thünen-Institute of Forest Ecosystems, Eberswalde, Germany

    Thomas Riedel

  11. The Research and Training Centre for Forests, Natural Hazards and Landscape, Vienna, Austria

    Klemens Schadauer

  12. The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA

    Iddo K. Wernick

Authors
  1. Risto Päivinen
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  2. Rasmus Astrup
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  3. Richard A. Birdsey
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  4. Johannes Breidenbach
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  5. Jonas Fridman
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  6. Annika Kangas
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  7. Pekka E. Kauppi
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  8. Michael Köhl
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  9. Kari T. Korhonen
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  10. Vivian Kvist Johannsen
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  11. François Morneau
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  12. Thomas Riedel
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  13. Klemens Schadauer
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  14. Iddo K. Wernick
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Contributions

R.P., K.T.K., A.K., P.E.K. and I.K.W. conceived the idea and wrote part of the article. R.A., J.B., R.A.B., J.F., M.K., V.K.J., F.M., T.R. and K.S. wrote part of the article. All authors reviewed, revised and approved the final version.

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Correspondence to Risto Päivinen.

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Päivinen, R., Astrup, R., Birdsey, R.A. et al. Ensure forest-data integrity for climate change studies. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 495–496 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01683-8

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