TransForMon - Transnational monitoring of forests in Bohemian/Saxon Switzerland

The forests in the Bohemian/Saxon Switzerland National Park (NP) are climate-sensitive ecosystems, threatened by drought/heat stress, bark beetle infestation and fires. The endangered forest ecosystems in the Czech Republic and Germany know no borders. However, monitoring and forest protection are not sufficiently linked across borders. The data and its evaluation methods are not standardized. There is no networked information system (IS) on forests that provides comprehensive information on forest condition and development for institutions, the public and park visitors.

Objective

Cross-border cooperation between NP authorities, universities and the public will be intensified in order to synergize the monitoring and protection of NPs. The professional linking of the project partners promotes the development of modern methods for forest monitoring. An IS will be set up as a freely accessible web portal in Czech, German and English, in which data on the history and present of the forests and current news will be presented.

In addition, the forest development of the NPs will be analyzed. Long-term changes in forest ecosystems (since the 1950s) are evaluated using satellite data and aerial photographs. In selected transboundary model areas, recent developments are analyzed in high spatio-temporal resolution with drone and field data.