Remote sensing based comparison of ecosystem functions of managed versus unmanaged forests in Europe

European forests are extremely valuable assets in the fight against climate change as they provide different ecosystem services (ES), including carbon sequestration. However, the delivery of ES largely depends on the vitality of the forests. As such, forests can be managed in a way where forest health and ecosystem service provisioning are optimized. This project aims to investigate and quantify the relation between management of forests and their ecosystem service provisioning. It includes investigating differences between managed and unmanaged forests. This goal will be achieved during several analysis steps. First, a literature study on the effect of forest management on ES provisioning will be conducted to summarize current knowledge about the topic. From this literature study, a quantitative meta-analysis will be performed if enough data are available. In a next step, a network of managed and unmanaged forest patches (called the ‘INFORMA Forest Management Platform’) will be compiled to perform later analysis steps. This dataset will consist of 300 forest patches, at least 120 of which are unmanaged references. A gradient of management intensities will be considered in the dataset. Once the dataset is generated, analysis will focus on the effect of management on ecosystem functioning, biodiversity and ES provisioning. Furthermore, it will investigate differences in stability between the managed and unmanaged forests. To do so, remote sensing techniques will be applied on Sentinel-2 and/or MODIS multispectral data, with a focus on timeseries analysis. The output of the project thus consists of a review on current knowledge of the effect of forest management on ES provisioning, a geospatial database of 300 managed and unmanaged forests in the INFORMA Forest Management Platform, and statistical analysis of the effect of forest management on ecosystem functioning, biodiversity, ecosystem stability and ES provisioning. The project is embedded within the larger INFORMA project and is thus only one pilar in a greater framework. The INFORMA project has as a broader objective to increase and share knowledge on multi-objective sustainable forest management under climate change. This includes the participation of stakeholders, socio-economic factors and communication towards decision-makers.