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Next-generation information to support a sustainable course for European forests

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 30 September 2019

Abstract

A novel European Union forest policy based on the best and most up-to-date information available is urgently needed. Without such change, forests will not provide the resources we need and will suffer heavily under climate change. Forest inventories and many information sources exist in all countries but are not properly used in European Union policymaking. We introduce a next-generation information tool that portrays a synchronized top-down European forest management strategies map, spatially weighing the multifunctionality of European forests.

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Fig. 1: European (European Economic Area countries) forest management strategies map showing a possible route of strategizing forest management.

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Data availability

For source data and all driver tables, see the supplementary information file. The data that support the findings of this study as well as the resulting map are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This research was part of the PEGASUS project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 (grant agreement no. 633814) and VERIFY (no. 776810). Co-financing was received from the System Earth Management Programme (KB-24-003-006) and the KB Circular Economy of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Food Quality from the Netherlands. We thank N. Heidema and B. Lerink for the final version of the map. An initial assessment of the most recent damage by bark beetles in Europe was made by L. König (WUR) using the most recent data in regional and national statistics.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Marta Pérez-Soba

    Present address: EU Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wageningen Environmental Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Peter Verweij, Michiel Van Eupen, Marta Pérez-Soba & Kees Hendriks

  2. Wageningen University, Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Gert-Jan Nabuurs

  3. University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Institute of Forest, Environmental and Natural Resource Policy, Vienna, Austria

    Helga Pülzl

  4. European Forest Institute, Forest Policy Research Network, Vienna, Austria

    Helga Pülzl

Authors
  1. Gert-Jan Nabuurs
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  2. Peter Verweij
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  3. Michiel Van Eupen
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  4. Marta Pérez-Soba
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  5. Helga Pülzl
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  6. Kees Hendriks
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Contributions

G.-J.N. conceived the study and wrote most of the paper. P.V. carried out the BBN experiment and conceived most of the core of the BBN methods and wrote large parts of the supplementary information. M.V.E. gathered the GIS layers and wrote part of the supplementary information. M.P.-S. wrote parts of the main text. H.P. wrote parts of the main text. K.H. conceived parts of the study, carried out the BBN experiments and wrote parts of the main text.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gert-Jan Nabuurs.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary methods, Figs. 1–4, refs. 1–18 and Tables 1–9.

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Nabuurs, GJ., Verweij, P., Van Eupen, M. et al. Next-generation information to support a sustainable course for European forests. Nat Sustain 2, 815–818 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0374-3

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