FORWARDS project launches two grant calls for forest monitoring sites in Europe; pilots to assess climate change impacts through remote sensing and real-time ecosystem data collection

The FORWARDS project, funded under Horizon Europe, has launched two new calls for grants.

G-03-2025: Pilots of long-term climate impact forest monitoring sites: Linking stand-level information and remote sensing
This Call aims to link long-term forest monitoring sites with remote sensing across Europe. Current long-term forest monitoring networks provide important information on the impact of climate change on forests. Still, most monitoring networks are not particularly focused on assessing climate change impacts. With this call, the aim is thus to increase the potential of existing forest monitoring sites – especially but not inclusively ICP Forests, ICOS or LTER sites (i.e., sites which already provide a basic set of monitoring data) – to link the ground-based information with remote sensing to better assess the impact of climate and climatic extremes on trees and forests. Projects should apply hyperspectral (preferentially aircraft-based) remote sensing approaches and provide the relevant ground-truthing.

G-04-2025: Pilots of long-term climate impact forest monitoring sites: Providing temporally resolved ecosystem-level information on the effects of climatic drivers on forest structure and function in near real-time

This call aims to set up pilots for long-term climate impact forest monitoring sites across Europe. Current long-term forest monitoring networks provide important information on the impact of climate change on forests. Still, most monitoring networks are not particularly focused on assessing climate change impacts. With this call, the aim is thus to increase the potential of existing forest monitoring sites – especially but not inclusively ICP Forests, ICOS or LTER sites (i.e., sites which already provide a basic set of monitoring data) – to assess the impact of climate and climatic extremes on trees and forests. Projects should apply nowcasting approaches (such as measurements of tree water deficit with point dendrometers in response to drought) and link existing long-term assessments with the new measurements.