This section shows the option to compute accounts that record the total area of each ecosystem, classified by type within a specified area (ecosystem accounting area). Ecosystem extent accounts are measured over time in ecosystem accounting areas (e.g., nation, province, river basin, protected area, etc.) by ecosystem type, thus illustrating the changes in extent from one ecosystem type to another over the accounting period.
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Forest Extent Accounts
At this stage of the project, extent accounts are focused on Forest Ecosystems, due to the ecosystems' relevance in terms of ecological conditions and the availability of information from remote sensing data.
European Forest Extent accounts
In this analysis, being forests the main objective of this study, we categories European forests in 44 forest classes, which are implemented as the geographic intersection between biogeographic regions and forest classes derived from Corine landcover dataset.
Forest types
European forests have been initially categorized based on their landcover forest class, as per the Corine dataset, which distinguishes 4 types of forest:
- Broad-leave forest (311) - https://land.copernicus.eu/content/corine-land-cover-nomenclature-guidelines/html/index-clc-311.html
- Coniferous forest (312) - https://land.copernicus.eu/content/corine-land-cover-nomenclature-guidelines/html/index-clc-312.html
- Mixed forest (313) - https://land.copernicus.eu/content/corine-land-cover-nomenclature-guidelines/html/index-clc-313.html
- Transitional woodland & shrub (324) - https://land.copernicus.eu/content/corine-land-cover-nomenclature-guidelines/html/index-clc-324.html
Landcover Forest classes
Legend of the maps
Bioregion zones
Such categories of forest were also combined with the information on the European bioregion zones, used to define 11 bioregions over:
- Alpine,
- Arctic,
- Atlantic,
- Black Sea,
- Boreal,
- Continental,
- Macaronesian,
- Mediterranean,
- Pannonian,
- Steppic regions
- Alpine (Scandinavia)
The Scandinavian Alpine zone was differentiated from the rest of the Alpine bioregion for its characteristics and covers the forest in the Scandinavian mountains on the border between Norway and Sweden.
Bioregion zones
Legend of the maps
The combination of landcover forests and bioregions results in 44 forest types, following the definition of Maes, J., Bruzón, A.G., Barredo, J.I. et al. Accounting for forest conditions in Europe based on an international statistical standard. Nat Commun 14, 3723 (2023).- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39434-0
The following datasets were used to obtain this information:
- Forest landcovers from Corine year 2000 (vector/ https://land.copernicus.eu/en/products/corine-land-cover/clc-2000), and
- Corine accounting adjusted year 2000 (raster/ https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/datahub/datahubitem-view/a55d9224-a326-4cb1-9b9c-3a324520341a?activeAccordion=1069872%2C1069948);
- European bioregion zones (https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/data/def7ac06-7d3f-4da5-880c-a76a73953cfc).
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European Forests Extent Accounts are not summarized in tables, but they extent is identified to develop Forests Condition accounts and to categories the results of all the other accounts. |