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Forester in Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Photo: Angelika Warmuth / dpa
Germany's forest is in bad shape, experts have known that for a long time.
The trees are dwindling faster and faster, drought and bark beetles are causing problems for the green spaces.
The amount of damaged wood has recently increased dramatically.
However, some data on the overall condition of the forest are already old, which is why a complex project is currently underway in Germany - the national forest inventory.
It is taking place for the fourth time, most recently in 2012. Around 100 surveying teams are out and about all over the country and systematically survey the condition of Germany's forests.
In doing so, they create a gigantic treasure trove of data that is equally interesting for science, politics and business.
“It's about the state of our forest today and how it has changed in recent years.
And that is uniform across the whole of Germany, regardless of property types or different forms of management, ”says forester Thomas Riedel from the leading Thünen Institute for Forest Ecosystems in Eberswalde, Brandenburg.
For the inventory, experts analyze around 80,000 points throughout Germany, in the immediate vicinity of which the exact number of trees - their type, size, height, age - and the amount of dead wood are recorded.
Coordinates top secret
"An iron is dug in on site, the point is measured using satellite technology," explains Wolfgang Stöger, who is responsible for the forest inventory in Bavaria.
In this way, the troops use a metal detector to find exactly those points where their predecessors stood decades ago.
“The coordinates are top secret.
Each point represents 400 hectares of forest.
If a forest owner made this particularly beautiful, it would no longer be representative. "
Every tree can be compared with the values from the past - the oldest comparison data comes from 1986. The findings from the inventory points are extrapolated to all of Germany.
The teams have to work precisely so that there are no errors that could have a drastic effect on the extrapolation.
In practice this means, for example, that the measuring tape must always run around the trunk at the same height when measuring the circumference of the trees.
It is measured at 1.30 meters.
Because of the immense effort, the national forest inventory is planned to run for two years, at a cost of around 25 million euros.
The evaluation of the results will take until mid-2024.
They are published in a generally accessible manner.
This enables entrepreneurs, for example, to estimate how the wood market is developing or whether it is worth building a sawmill in a certain region.
Scientists around the world are working with the data.
"All the international reporting obligations that we as a Federal Republic have, for example in the context of the EU reports, the Kyoto Protocol or the Framework Convention on Climate Change, are important," says Riedel.
DNA samples in the fight against climate change
Because major storms with subsequent beetle damage have occurred since the last inventory around ten years ago, the experts expect some regional changes.
"Especially in the federal states where a lot of spruce and pine has died," emphasizes Riedel.
"Saxony, Thuringia, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, it looks very dramatic."
Perhaps these regions will benefit from further knowledge gained from the national forest inventory in a few years' time.
The troops also take DNA samples from the trees.
The genetic information is intended to help in the future primarily to plant those stocks that can best cope with climate change.
joe / dpa
