Indicator: Disturbed or Damaged Forest Area

For this indicator, the Integrative Forest Management (IFM) goal is “Enhancing forest resilience”. Related Forest Ecosystem Services (FES) are resilience, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration.

Explanation of importance for the IFM assessment
Monitoring forest disturbance and damage is essential for IFM because it enables timely and effective responses to emerging threats. IFM can mitigate disturbance and damage through integrated damage-management practices, including promoting diverse forest structures and site-adapted, mixed tree-species compositions. This diversity enhances ecosystem resilience, making forests less susceptible to abiotic and biotic threats. Regular monitoring helps forest managers detect early signs of disturbance or damage, assess severity, and implement appropriate interventions promptly (Patacca et al., 2023). This proactive approach safeguards forest health and productivity, as well as biodiversity and other ecosystem services.

Characteristics (type and purpose of the indicator):
•    This indicator is a “pressure indicator”.
•    It can help anticipate higher levels of disturbance or damage as climate change intensifies.
•    It reports on forest ecosystem health.
•    It communicates forest pressures through observed disturbance or damage.
•    It supports decision-making on damage mitigation and resilience-building measures.

Trade-offs
•    Accepted natural disturbance (tree mortality) ≠ damage (monetary or socio-cultural impacts of disturbance on human values)
•    Damaged forest area ≠ timber production
•    Damaged forest area ≠ ecosystem services provision
•    Clear up damaged areas and reforest with site-adapted species as fast as possible ≠ wait for natural regeneration

Regionalisation
•    Damage caused by storms, wind, and snow mainly affects the North, South-East, and Central-East European regions.
•    Large forest fires mostly affect the Mediterranean region.
•    Forest area damaged by wildlife was highest in North Europe and lowest in South-East Europe.
•    Extensive forest dieback has been caused by bark beetle outbreaks in Central Europe.

Local measurement unit
The local measurement unit is the area (ha) and share of forest area disturbed/damaged (%) by:
•    insects and diseases
•    extreme weather events
•    fire
•    other biotic agents such as wildlife and grazing

National measurement unit
The national measurement unit is the area (ha) and share of forest area (%) damaged by:
•    insects and diseases
•    extreme weather events
•    fire
•    other biotic agent

National-level data sources
•    National Forest Inventories (NFI) 
•    Copernicus C3S Burnt Area dataset 
•    DFDE, Database on Forest Disturbances  
•    EFFIS, European Forest Fire Information System 
•    Forest Europe 
•    ICP Forests (for defoliation) 
•    INForest Database 
•    Landsat satellites  

Indicator references are Global Core Set 6 and Forest Europe 2.4. 

Target or threshold and desired direction
•    EU target: Reduce deforestation and forest degradation (Deforestation Regulation, EP and Council, 2023).
•    Proposed threshold: >10% of forest area affected = damaged forest area with potential economic and habitat loss (Köhl et al., 2024; Robertson et al., 2024).
•    Direction: Decrease damaged forest area through IFM to avoid economic and habitat loss.