Estimation of Forest Resources

For a long time the Swedish forest resources have been important for the Swedish welfare. It was recognized at an early stage that knowledge of the forests is an essential prerequisite for their utilization. This knowledge is obtained through forest inventories. For the whole of Sweden as well for Norway and Finland, National Forest Inventories have been performed since the early 1920s. These inventories are of great interest for the development of statistical models and methods. Spatial models were fundamental in the work by Matern to solve problems related to these inventories. Today it is quite clear that forest is more than a resource for timber production and the increased importance of environmental issues has to be reflected in the monitoring systems. Environmental pressures on ecosystems and biodiversity, the continuous loss of suitable habitats for different species and the threat of irreversible damages jeopardize the ambitions of a sustainable development. Remote sensing of satellite images offers great potential to assess wall-to-wall changes in the health of ecosystems, identify risks of further degradation and opportunities for restoration. The demand for a wall-to-wall system for monitoring spatial and temporal variation and the follow-up environmental trends, quality objectives and policy measures calls for a new conceptual framework