ForestFlux

2.12.2021

Forstwirtschaftliche Vereinigung Schwarzwald eG (FVS eG) is a forestry association that is located in the Black Forest region in Southern Germany. In terms of area and marketing volume, FVS is one of the largest forestry associations in Germany. FVS has a cooperative structure and acts on behalf of more than 50 members who are local forestry associations as well as municipal and private forestry operations. FVS aims to optimize forestry management and marketing for its members. FVS supports local and profitable value chains and provides up-to-date information about wood markets, forest management and forest politics to its members.

Access to high quality information can help foresters to adapt to climate change. Forest owners need to know the condition of their resources and the risks and the potential benefits they can generate from changing their forest management approach. FVS evaluated a wide range of For-est Flux products, among them earth observation (EO) based forest inventory and change mapping, as well as biomass and carbon inventories, which were used to calculate organizational carbon balance.

Carbon flux information gives FVS the data they need to provide their members with individualized evaluations of carbon stocks, in light of the upcoming changes to forest policy that are currently under discussion. In principle, this data could be used for carbon certification. The organizational carbon balance data could also be used to guide decisions for making communal districts carbon neutral. Forest Flux services provided data that isn’t available by other means and were a good starting point for understanding policy changes. Under the current policy environment, there is limited value, but FVS sees a high potential in these products once a legal framework is established.

Example of input data for organizational carbon balance computation. This data, combined with other FF-products and operational data allows an enterprise to calculate carbon stocks and flows.

Some areas of the black forests have been devastated by bark beetle infestations on spruce trees – an issue which is only going to be exacerbated by climate change in the following years. Forest Flux products helped to map the extent of caused damage between August 2020 and August 2021. These maps also provided valuable input to implement countermeasures where they were most urgent.