Fourth National Forest Inventory

The National Forest Inventory records a large amount of data on tree species, tree diameter, tree height, deadwood, land use, etc., and thus provides information on the state of the forests in Germany. Some important findings: the forest area and also the diversity in the forest has increased slightly in the last ten years. But due to climate change-related damage to the forest, it now releases more carbon than it absorbs. This means that the loss of plant volume due to climate change-related disturbances is greater than the increase in living plant volume. These and other results can now be found on the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture's own portal. In addition, the results of the National Forest Inventory will be presented in a webcast on 3 December.

The fourth National Forest Inventory started on 1 April 2021 and ran until the beginning of 2023. The data was then evaluated by scientists from the Thünen Institute. In the inventory, around 100 inventory teams from the federal states measured more than 520,000 trees at approximately 80,000 sample points. The National Forest Inventory is repeated every ten years and has already been carried out in 1987, 2002 and 2012.

About the National Forest Inventory:

https://www.bundeswaldinventur.de/