Forest Resource Projection Tools at the European Level

Many countries have developed their own systems for projecting forest resources and wood availability. Although studies using these tools are helpful for developing national policies, they do not provide a consistent assessment for larger regions such as the European Union or Europe as a whole. Individual national-scale studies differ considerably in timing, underlying methodology and scenarios, and reports are not issued for all countries in the region. However, a clear demand for consistent projections at European scale still remains. This chapter describes the resource simulators and forest sector models EFISCEN, EFDM, CBM-CFS3, and GLOBIOM/G4M that can all be applied to individual European countries, as well as to Europe as a whole.