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Preparation, conduction and evaluation of the German National Forest Inventory as well as processing of the results.
Project
Project code: TI-WO-08-PID512
Contract period: 01.01.1995
- 31.12.2016
Purpose of research: Networks and research co-ordination
Every ten years we measure and count a sample of trees in the forest. Bund and Länder (federal states) require this data for the design of forest policy. The data is also used for strategic investment and location decisions in the timber industry.
The German National Forest Inventory is a statutory duty under the Federal Forest Act § 41a. It should provide an overview of the large-scale forest conditions and forest production potentials. The inventory was already conducted three times: 1987, 2002 and 2012. Since 2010, a repeat is set every ten years. The German National Forest Inventory is a central database over the forest in Germany. The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture commissioned the Thünen-Institute of Forest Ecosystems with the central inventory management. This includes the development of the inventory method, the coordination of data collection by the federal states, the compilation and analysis of data, as well as the processing of the results.
The German National Forest Inventory is a terrestrial large-scale inventory on a sample basis. The sample points are evenly distributed in a systematic grid over the whole of Germany. With the current inventory from 2012 60 Inventory troops have surveyed approximately 420.000 sample trees on 60.000 sample points and collected many other data. For data collection, we have provided a special software available to the troops. The troops have transferred the data over the Internet to a central database. We analysed the data in various ways and the results are stored in a result database, which is publicly available on the Internet to https://bwi.info.
Section overview
Subjects
- Silviculture
- Computer science