The German National Forest Inventory
The third National Forest Inventory was launched in 2011
About one third of all the land in Germany is covered with forests. What is the age structure and species composition of the forests in Germany? How much raw wood can they sustainably provide? How much carbon is stored in the trees and dead wood? The German National Forest Inventory (NFI) provides comprehensive information on the large scale forest conditions and their development.
Even information on the development? How can a “short term picture” provide information on the development? This is possible because the NFI is carried out at regular intervals. The newly enacted German Forestry Laws require a regular survey period of ten years. The field work for the third NFI was started in 2011, the International Year of Forests.
The German National Forest Inventory is coordinated by scientists of the vTI Institute of Forest Ecology and Forest Inventory and by representatives of the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV). In order to obtain a representative picture, a sample network with a grid of 4 x 4 km (sometimes narrower) was set up across all of Germany. At each point on the grid located in a forest area, a uniform survey process was carried out. Among other things, the tree types, diameter and height of selected sample trees were documented, as was data on the development of stocks and dead wood. The result is an enormous data collection for 400,000 trees from 60,000 sample points.
Already in 2010, vTI staff carried out pilot inventories in several federal states in which the documentation process was tested and the documentation software tested. Since spring 2011, up to 60 inventory groups have been underway. The survey will continue to the end of 2012, in 2013 the data will be checked and completed. The evaluation and analysis of the results is planned for 2014.
The last survey, based on a sub sample conducted in 2008 (Inventory Study 2008) provided a great deal of interesting information. The most important results can be found here.