Authors: Gesche Schifferdecker and Jo Van Brusselen
Over the past years, the Forest Carbon Monitoring project (FCM) has been pioneering remote sensing-based, user-centric approaches for monitoring forests. By combining satellite imagery with reference data and scientific rigor, the project has been shaping a new era of forest carbon monitoring that is not just innovative, but practical and scalable.
Recently, FCM reached an important milestone: our monitoring services are nearly fully implemented, and all demonstration products have been delivered to key user organisations. But science doesn’t stop at delivery – it thrives on collaboration. To refine and strengthen the system, we approached our core users to evaluate the tools and share their insights on the use case demonstration output products. With a questionnaire, followed by interviews, we asked representatives of the organisations to evaluate the perceived added value of FCM’s products and prospects for operational uptake, institution-specific recommendations and some overall conclusions.
Strengths:
Resolution matters: FCM users appreciated the project’s ability to deliver data with a spatial resolution of 10-30 meters and a temporal resolution of annual to bi-annual updates. This balance means the products can detect meaningful changes in forests while remaining manageable in scope and cost.
FCM tools as a cost-effective alternative: While airborne laser scanning (LiDAR) remains the gold standard for accuracy, it is expensive and less frequent. FCM products were seen as a cost-effective bridge – filling the gap between ground inventories and costly airborne campaigns, while still offering actionable insights.
Areas for development:
Thematic detail: Half of the users requested the products to increase their thematic resolution. For others, the existing detail was already sufficient thanks to complementary data sources.
Clear accuracy communication: Accuracy was judged as being adequate for REDD+ and regional level monitoring, although it was stressed that airborne laser scanning is still delivering superior results. Some users mentioned the need for clear communication about data accuracy for example when it comes to transparency in error margins and scale-specific metrics.
Future prospects for operational uptake: The feedback from our user organisations was encouraging. Some users considered integration into routine workflows as “likely”, especially in places where resources are limited but the need for reliable monitoring is urgent. Anticipated uses include early-warning and hotspot detection, carbon-market reporting, insurance/fire-risk products, and cost-efficient forest inventories.
To unlock the full power of FCM products and potentially integrate our tools into their national and/or regional forest Inventory, our users suggested:
- Ensuring long-term platform access and data continuity
- Supporting regional model transfer and adaptability
- Providing accuracy assessments at aggregate scales (e.g., NUTS-3 level)
- Enabling systematic fusion with national reference data
- Expanding towards global, multi-temporal biomass and land-cover products
These aren’t just technical tweaks – they are steps toward making forest carbon monitoring robust, transparent, and universally accessible.
Finally, the user feedback we received was reflected more generally in the context of the FCM User Workshop held at the Living Planet Symposium in Vienna in June 2025. The feedback received from the users further underlines the three powerful messages from the panel discussion in Vienna:
- It is important to address the uncertainty in biomass growth: Especially for slow-growing species, accurate field data and consistent monitoring are vital.
- We need to build a community of practice: An inclusive network for data integration and knowledge-sharing can connect Earth Observation providers, scientists, policymakers, and practitioners.
- Commitment to collaboration and trust is essential: Persistent trust barriers and data fragmentation are key obstacles to achieving robust multi-scale carbon monitoring. This also requires full integration of data and workflows across national forest inventories. We need sincere, long-term collaboration to ensure transparency and reduce uncertainties.
A path forward:
The message from users and stakeholders is clear: the FCM project is on the right track. Our products are already proving valuable for spatially explicit forest monitoring, carbon-market reporting, and disturbance screening. But the future will demand even more – integration, transparency, and global collaboration. Because at the end of the day, our work is about ensuring that our forests – and the carbon they hold – remain strong allies in the fight against climate change.