FORWARDS is pleased to announce the successful launch of five new third-party projects, which were awarded grants to study the characterisation of European forest disturbances. The five projects are as follows:

• Carbon Loss and Recovery Assessment in European Forest Disturbances (CAEFD), coordinated by RDM Progetti in Italy. This project aims to contribute to an exhaustive, open-access pan-European forest disturbance reference dataset based on ground data, with a focus on Northern Europe. The project will combine this dataset with remote sensing data in order to quantify carbon loss and recovery from disturbances, as well as to develop new tools and frameworks that use satellite-based remote sensing to quantify changes in forest carbon dynamics. Despite focusing on Northern Europe, CAEFD will expand the range of forest types and disturbances to ensure representation across Europe as a whole.

• Central Europe Reference Database for Forest Disturbance Monitoring (CE-ReDiFor), coordinated by the Forest Research Institute in Poland aims to build a comprehensive, open-access reference dataset on forest disturbances in Poland. This will be achieved by establishing a network of forest disturbance sample plots distributed evenly across different forest regions and disturbance types. These plots will cover various forest types (deciduous, coniferous, and mixed) on both mineral and hydric soils, as well as different age classes. The project will also develop a high-resolution remote sensing database from a national resource. The result will be an integrated geospatial database combining field and remote sensing data.

• Hybrid Aircraft Earth Observation for Forest Resilience Monitoring (HALO-FARM), coordinated by Hybrid-Airplane Technologies GmbH in Germany, aims to employ a systematic H-Aero deployment for forest disturbance monitoring for the first time, and to create a novel multi-scale carbon modelling framework. This will be achieved through operational innovation, the demonstration of real-time monitoring capability, a cost-benefit analysis for scaling up to 10,000+ hectares, and automated disturbance detection algorithms.

• Disturbance Monitoring in Southern European Forests (Image4Dist), coordinated by the Spanish National Research Council aims to develop a methodology for mapping forest disturbance using Landsat and Sentinel time series, and to evaluate carbon losses, forest cover recovery and disturbance drivers across Southern Europe by leveraging Earth observation data and advanced modelling techniques. The project addresses the variability of forested landscapes in Southern Europe, covering Portugal, Spain, Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, and Cyprus.

• Tracking Resilience and Early Assessment of Disturbances (TREAD), also coordinated by the Spanish National Research Council, aims to provide an automated early-warning system for forest vulnerability using functional traits and thermal remote sensing. The project will establish a continuous monitoring database for forest decline and develop quantitative forest health metrics. These will be upscaled from high-resolution data to satellite observations and validated and applied for early disturbance detection.

FORWARDS is pleased to see these five exciting projects starting their work and looks forward to seeing how they progress.

Currently, FORWARDS has two further grant calls open under the theme of pilots of long-term climate impact forest monitoring sites. The deadline for application for these grants is 21 September 2025. Please visit https://forwards-project.eu/third-party-grants/ for further details.

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