National Forest Maps
The project group works continuously to develop remote sensing methods for the creation of national raster databases containing estimated forest variables. These activities include map products such as the Swedish Open National Forest Attribute Maps and the SLU Forest Map.
Part of the remote sensing activities involves developing methods to support the department’s ongoing environmental monitoring. This includes the continual development of techniques for producing national raster databases containing estimated variables such as timber volume, species composition, and biomass.
In close collaboration with SLU’s National Forest Inventory (NFI), remote sensing–based methods are being developed to improve the precision of the data provided by the NFI, for example with regard to timber volume and harvests. One objective is to enable the reporting of results for areas smaller than counties.
Project
National Forest Attribute Maps (Skogliga grunddata):
National maps provide forest estimates of volume, basal area–weighted mean height, basal area, basal area–weighted mean diameter, and biomass. The maps are produced through the joint processing of Lantmäteriet’s airborne laser scanning data and field surveys from SLU’s National Forest Inventory. The Swedish Open National Forest Attribute Maps are a collaborative initiative between SLU and the Swedish Forest Agency, based on laser scanning data from Lantmäteriet.
Through the joint processing of field inventories from SLU’s National Forest Inventory and satellite imagery, a range of map products has been produced to describe Sweden’s forests. These include wall-to-wall raster maps of tree species across the country. In the SLU Forest Map 2015, elevation models derived from Lantmäteriet’s stereomatched aerial images are also incorporated.