Climate data for the European forestry sector: From end-user needs to opportunities for climate resilience

The aim of this study is to assess the potential of Earth Observation and climate data for the forestry sector focusing on the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). Although forestry researchers recognize the importance of Earth Observation and climate data, forestry practitioners currently work mainly with land cover information, largely neglecting climate data. Understanding its potential for the forestry sector becomes thus important, as to align the vast offer of climate services in Europe to different forestry users and stakeholders’ necessities. Interviews, surveys, and dedicated workshops were used to collect a series of forestry end-users’ needs and requirements regarding climate data. End-user's requirements were categorized through a SWOT analysis, which allowed to identify perceived internal strengths and weaknesses, external opportunities and threats to the increased use of the C3S. Results indicate that improved climate services for the forestry sector based on C3S data would benefit from enhanced training on the use of climate data, improved provision of services integrating climate with non-climate data, the provision of new variables and indicators, and the integration of machine learning techniques for developing data and information in support of the deployment of climate services. These findings are relevant to close the gap between demand and supply of climate services for the forestry sector and provide a basis for further exploring the value of climate data in serving a wide array of forestry stakeholders. Going forward, increased knowledge on user requirements from both forest practitioners and policy-makers can be beneficial to develop accessible tailored services.