On 21st and 22nd of March 2013 a working meeting on the project EUFODOS funded by the 7th FP for Research and Technological Development of European Commission was held. The main goal of the project is to develop specific downstream forest services related to forest damage assessment and mapping of forest structural parameters. The meeting was hosted by ReSAC and it was held in its administrative office.
The project EUFODOS is a collaborative project (with duration 3 years January 2011 – December 2013) coordinated by the JOANEUM RESEARCH INSTITUTE – Austria. ReSAC develops services that will be provided to Executive Forest Agency of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. The services are related to preparation and updating of GIS databases for the forest cover and forest cover changes, forest infrastructure as well as rapid mapping for disaster management. The project consortium includes several European organizations including research centers, institutes and private companies active in R&D and Earth observation: VTT (Finland), GAF (Germany), University of Freiberg (Germany), EURAC (Italy), RapidEye (Germany), ReSAC (Bulgaria), EAA (Austria).
On 21st of March for the end user organizations in the forest sector from Bulgaria, Austria, Germany, Poland and Italy field trip was organized to biosphere reserve “Bistrishko Branishte”, Vitosha Mountain. During the field work the expert from Executive Forest Agency and the Directorate of Vitosha Nature Park introduced foreign experts with the activities carried out in the region in fighting forest fire and infestation of bark beetles in the park.
The meeting continued in the Game Administration “Vitosha – Studena” – where the participants exchanged experience in the management of forest area and forest disaster management. On the meeting, together with the above mentioned organisations representatives from Game Administration “Vitosha – Studena” and Southwest state enterprise of Ministry of Agriculture and Food took part.
At the same time the project consortium held technical meeting with a discussion of administrative issues.
On the 22nd of March the meeting continued with participation of consortium partners and end users of the project. Each of the project partners presented the state of forest management services in which they participate. In the frame of the project the RUSH Mode and NON-RUSH Mode services are ready. The RUSH Mode provides a quick product in a few days after a natural disaster and gives information about forest damages, while the second type of services generates products with more detailed assessment of the damages types.
The next EUFODOS meeting will be held on October 2013, Copenhagen in the office of the European Environment Agency. On this meeting, the portfolio of services that the consortium is ready to execute when certain natural disaster occurs in forest area on the territory of European Union will be presented.