ForestNavigator – Navigating European forests and forest bioeconomy sustainably to EU climate neutrality

The ForestNavigator (Navigating European forests and forest bioeconomy sustainably to EU climate neutrality) Project will develop and facilitate access to state-of-the-art near-real time harmonized data flows, create a new generation of integrated modeling frameworks, as well as a new decision-making platform promoting transparent dialogue between decision makers and scientists throughout the EU.

EU forests play a central role in the region’s climate mitigation policy portfolio as they cover 44% of the region’s land area and absorb nearly 10% of total EU greenhouse gas emissions each year. This contribution is expected to further increase in the future. However, in the last decade, the rate of carbon removals from European forests has been declining, due to an increase in demand for wood, natural disturbances, and a growing share of forests reaching maturity.

As part of the European Green Deal, the EU has set a binding target of achieving climate neutrality by 2050, and of reducing its emissions by 55% by 2030. Furthermore, forests have many other relevant functions apart from carbon sequestration, including biodiversity conservation, provision of wood, regulation of water, protection against erosion, as well as cultural and social benefits. As a result, there is an increasing need for improved assessments of the EU forest contribution to climate neutrality that consider the impacts of climate change and natural disturbances on forests in a consistent way. In addition, such assessments need to also consider biodiversity conservation in their research questions as a means for improving forest adaptation and resilience, as well as synergies and trade-offs from the provision of wood products to the bioeconomy.

To address these needs, the ForestNavigator Project will develop a Europe-wide biophysical forest model calibrated to detailed regional forest models, specialized natural disturbance models, and the latest generation of earth system models. This new biophysical modeling tool will feed into a ‘Policy Modeling Toolbox’ including a new generation EU forest-bioeconomy integrated model (including consistent land use, biodiversity, economy, and climate modeling) and aligned with national forest policy models.

The Toolbox will help to address the challenges posed by climate change impacts on forest ecosystems, and allow users to derive mitigation strategies towards climate neutrality without compromising biodiversity and human prosperity. In addition, the use of the same source data and model functionalities will facilitate aligning EU and national policy assessments and thus accelerate the convergence towards consistent multi-scale policies.