GIS-based automatic classification of BIOSOIL project forest sample plots into the European Forest Types

This contribution is aimed at presenting ongoing research activities carried out under the umbrella framework of the UPSPEX ICP Forest group for “Upscaling & Spatially explicit estimation of biophysical variables with remote sensing”, aimed at devising a GIS-based forest classification algorithm to assign forest sample plots in Europe to the European Forest Types (EFTs). The EFTs classification is intended to stratify the highly heterogeneous area covered by forest in Europe into a discrete number, 14 Categories and 78 types, of smaller and more homogeneous ecologically units, in order to facilitate the analysis, interpretation and harmonized reporting of forest data at Pan-European level.