A European forest biodiversity status indicator

Bruno Petriccione - Corpo Forestale dello Stato, Ufficio Territoriale per la Biodiversità, L’Aquila, Italy

The European Environment Agency has released the Report “Development and harmonization of a Forest Status Indicator (FSI)”, entirely developed by the Corpo Forestale dello Stato – Italian Forest Service (CONECOFOR Service), on the basis of a grant from the Agency in the framework of the Pan-European Process for the Implementation of Biodiversity Indicators SEBI2010, aimed at implementing the International Convention on Biological Diversity in Europe.

The objective of the report is to implement a new European forest biodiversity status indicator (FSI) obtained through the elaboration and synthesis of current metadata and methodologies at European level. In particular, the work involved detailed collection of the metadata and harmonized methods available in European Networks. The following step was based on SEBI2010 (EG6) sub-indicators, developed progressively at the time of this study (naturalness, deadwood, tree condition, structure, vegetation) and their use as parameters of forest biodiversity in FSI. The last phase of the elaboration is a synthesis and interpretation of FSI parameters, expressed through “radar” graphs. Finally, simulations for a graphic representation of FSI were designed for two metadata collections: one for Italy and one for Slovakia, Spain and Germany.

FSI is based on qualitative attributes of the forest ecosystem, essential to evaluate the quantitative results of other biodiversity indicators, e.g., giving the correct significance to the observed trends in forest types cover. Nowadays, FSI is ready to be included and combined into the SEBI2010 headline macro-indicator “Trend in extent and composition of selected ecosystems”