A Forest Management Map of European Forests

Forest management to a large extent determines the possible services that the forest can provide. Different objectives in forest management determine the rotation length and valuation of different stages in forest succession. We present a method of mapping potential forest management at 1-km resolution to inform policy, land use modeling, and forest resource projections. The presented method calculates the suitability of a location to different forest management alternatives based on biotic, abiotic, socioeconomic, and political factors. A sensitivity analysis of the resulting map to the data sources used was performed. This showed that the results are very sensitive to some data sources. The potential use of the map and the sensitivity to the availability of data sources are discussed. An extension to the method, including regional scaling, is suggested. Data availability is the main restriction on refinement of the proposed methodology.