The use of ICP Forests Level I BIOSOIL-BIODIVERSITY plots for pan-European estimation of forest variables

This contribution is aimed at presenting the activities carried out in the framework of the UPSPEX ICP group for “Upscaling & Spatially explicit estimation of biophysical variables with remote sensing”. UPSPEX is aimed at testing parametric and non-parametric techniques for predicting forest variables from satellite imagery and ground data acquired in the framework in order to test the possibility of spatially predicting pixel level estimates of forest variables at continental scale level. The project is based on the use of the data collected in the framework of the biodiversity module of the BIOSOIL project in the ICP Forests Level I network. The field data were collected in 3,273 plots between 2007 and 2009. This contribution first presents the analysis for the pre-elaboration of raw data and their comparison with the results presented by the JRC in the official report from 2011 (Durrant et al. 2011). For each plot on the basis of tree level data several allometric equations were tested for calculating the biomass and growing stock volume plot level values. Plot level data are then aggregated on the basis of Horvitz-Thomson estimators for estimating country level estimates which are than compared with official estimates from National Forest Inventories.The results obtained are the basis of the following phases of the project based on the integration with remotely sensed imagery which are currently undergoing.