Ongoing projects
● Boostfor – Bootstrap Optimization and Optimal Sampling for Temporal FORest monitoring
ARTEMIS3 · 1 years · 2026–2026
PI: Cédric Vega
LIF staff: Olivier Bouriaud, CO-PI;Alexander Massey, Participant
The goal of this research is to develop and optimize sampling strategies and estimations based on Trinh Duong's thesis, focusing on accuracy, flexibility, and responsiveness. The first objective is to refine post-stratification using a bootstrap method. The second objective is to design adaptive sampling methods for repeated surveys, enabling annual forest condition assessments and transforming NFIs into more responsive monitoring systems
● CartNatFeu – National map assessing the sensitivity of mainland France to the projected risk of forest and vegetation fires.
MTE DGPE GGPR · 4 years · 2026–2029
PI: François Pimont, INRAE
LIF staff: Cédric Vega
Development of national maps analysing the sensitivity of mainland France to the projected risk of forest and vegetation fires, including the map of forest entities, the map of forest areas classified as fire-prone, and an operational wildfire danger map.
Short-term staff / trainees: Emilie Vautier
● MONITOR – Agile Forest Ecological Monitoring System
PEPR Forestt · 6 years · 2024–2030
PI: Jérôme Chave, CNRS; Camille Piponiot, CIRAD
LIF staff: Cédric Vega, Participant
Advances in forest monitoring have made it possible to document changes in global forest cover and the carbon balance, and to improve risk assessment. However, forest inventories face major challenges, and there is a need to provide detailed, accurate, regular, and real-time information on forest condition and management, with open access. MONITOR will deliver new methods and tools, as well as validation protocols, paving the way for the implementation of a high-resolution, multi-source, national forest monitoring system for France, including its overseas territories. The methodology is based on satellite and ground-based data and will be directly applicable to other regions. We will provide data analyses that enhance knowledge on the detection, quantification, and attribution of forest responses to global change.
Short-term staff / trainees: Luigui Ramirez Parra, Phd
● X-RISKS – Analysis and Management of Multiple Risks for Forest Socio-Ecosystems
PEPR Forestt · 6 years · 2024–2030
PI: Marielle Brunette, INRAE; Eric Rigolot, INRAE
LIF staff: Alexander Massey, Participant
The X-RISKS project is based on the observation that forest-related risks are often considered in isolation, independently of one another. Existing studies, for instance, focus on the economic risk following the occurrence of a storm (a drop in timber prices), the environmental risk associated with a wildfire (carbon release, loss of biodiversity), or the impact of geopolitical risks on the supply of the forest-based sector (supply contraction, price increases, substitution effects). However, in a context of global change, this assumption of independence between risks is no longer relevant. Risks are becoming interconnected, correlated, cascading, and mutually dependent, both temporally and spatially. Addressing the issue of multiple risks therefore becomes a matter of critical importance and calls for a paradigm shift, new tools, and innovative approaches to better inform strategies and guide action.
● RÉGÉ-ADAPT – Forest Regeneration and Renewal for the Adaptation of Forest Socio-Ecological Systems to Climate Change
PEPR Forestt · 6 years · 2024–2030
PI: Georges Kunstler, INRAE; Bruno Locatelli, CIRAD
LIF staff: Lionel Hertzog, Scientific contact for Géodata Paris and Task co-leader
Climate change is affecting the capacity of forests to provide nature’s contributions to people (NCP), such as timber production or watershed regulation, as well as to support biodiversity. The future adaptation and resilience of forest socio-ecological systems will depend on forest renewal and regeneration—that is, the natural or artificial re-establishment of trees following natural disturbances or harvests. Regeneration trajectories will depend not only on ecological processes but also on management choices, which should reflect societal preferences and values as well as governance contexts. We need a better understanding of how regeneration trajectories will unfold under ongoing climate change, how we can manage them to promote forest adaptation while preserving biodiversity, soils, and NCP, and how regeneration can be governed. This focal project aims to fill these knowledge gaps
Short-term staff / trainees: Théophile Moreal de Brévans, Phd
● FORET_50m – Forest Carbon Mapping over France and Europe at 50 m Resolution.
TOSCA - CNES · 3 years · 2024–2026
PI: Jean-Pierre Wigneron, INRAE
LIF staff: Cédric Vega, Participant; Nikola Besic, Participant
The objective of the project is to produce aboveground biomass maps at a 50-m spatial resolution—the highest operational resolution currently achievable—initially over France and subsequently at the European scale. This reference dataset will also be essential, particularly for validation purposes, to support the development of tree-level approaches, such as those envisaged within the framework of the OFS (One Forest Summit, 2023).
● ALAMOD – Towards carbon dynamics models of ecosystems validated using a widely recognized benchmarking tool
PEPR FairCarBon · 6 years · 2023–2029
PI: Antonio Bispo, INRAE; Thiphaine Chevallier,UMR Ecosol; Philippe Peylin, LSCE; Bertrand Guenet, CNRS
LIF staff: Cédric Vega, Scientific contact for Géodata Paris; Nikola Besic, Participant
The objectives of the ALAMOD project are to: 1) Inventory and complete datasets produced by sites/networks that track carbon (C) stock dynamics in soils and biomass, operated by the French research community; 2) Develop innovative methods based on IR spectroscopy and satellite imagery to supplement these datasets; 3) Build a data repository and portal to make these datasets available and interoperable; 4) Compare ecosystem carbon dynamics models developed by the French community using these datasets; 5) Improve existing models or develop new ones to accurately simulate carbon stock dynamics at different spatial scales and across various vegetation types.
Short-term staff / trainees: Amaël Le-Squin, Ing
Website: https://www.pepr-faircarbon.fr/projets/projets-cibles/alamod
Past projects
● SylvoSanSat – Forest Health Monitoring Using Satellite Imagery
TOSCA - CNES · 3 years · 2023–2025
PI: Jean-Baptiste Férêt, INRAE
LIF staff: Nikola Besic, scientific contact for Géodata Paris; Cédric Vega, participant
This project aims to develop a method to detect forest health issues using optical remote sensing. The approach relies on anomaly detection in image time series and will initially target bark beetle infestations in spruce forests.
● MAESTRO – Dynamic sampling and inference for smart forest monitoring
Labex ARBRE, IGN · 4 years · 2022–2025
PI: Olivier Bouriaud,Géodata Paris IGN
Evaluate sampling and estimation frameworks for National Forest Inventories through simulation and digital twins
Short-term staff / trainees: Trinh Duong, Phd
● MORNING – Monitoring the resilience of growth in mixed woody species under climate change
RMT Aforce · 1.5 years · 2023–2025
PI: Lionel Hertzog,Géodata Paris IGN
LIF staff: Jean-Daniel Bontemps,Participant
There is a need to improve knowledge on the resilience of mixed stands. The objective is to provide an overview of the resilience of mixed forests in France in the face of climate change. To ensure representativeness and systematic coverage, data from the National Forest Inventory (NFI) are used. The target variable derived from the NFI is forest productivity, which is then used to compare different resilience indicators.
● 3DForEcoTech – Three-dimensional Forest Ecosystem Monitoring and Better Understanding by Terrestrial-based Technologies (CA20118).
EU COST ACTION · 4 years · 2021–2025
PI: Martin Mokrös, University College of London UK; Yunsheng Wang, Finnish Geospatial Research Institute Finaland
LIF staff: Cédric Vega, MC Member
3DForEcoTech project aims to establish a strong network of scientists and stakeholders (i.e. practitioners) and sensor manufacturers to synchronise the knowledge, to develop general protocols and algorithms for forest ecosystem state survey and forest functioning, and to make these novel technologies available to a broad audience. Specifically, 3DForEcoTech will develop protocols for data acquisition, processing, fusion for forest inventory and ecological applications, and will establish open-data and open-source algorithm databases.
Website: https://3dforecotech.eu/
● SLIM – Space Lidar for Improved Multisource Forest Inventory
TOSCA - CNES · 5 years · 2020–2024
PI: Sylvie Durrieu, INRAE
LIF staff: Cédric Vega, co-PI; Nikola Besic, Participant
The central and innovative idea of this project is to exploit terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data from IGN, acquired on a subsample of inventory plots, together with the DART radiative transfer model (developed by CESBIO), to build a dataset combining field measurements and simulated GEDI LiDAR measurements. This dataset will then be used to impute forest attributes across the full set of GEDI signals. The ability to generate realistic forest scenes from TLS data as inputs to DART for LiDAR signal simulation has already been demonstrated within the TOSCA STEM-LEAF and LEAF-EXPEVAL projects. The resulting virtual plots will contribute to densifying the inventory sampling, either by improving predictions at the national scale or by enabling predictions with acceptable uncertainty levels for small-area domains. Sentinel-2 data will then be integrated as auxiliary variables within a more classical multi-source inventory framework. This project aims to deliver an operational method deployable at the national level. It directly contributes (1) to upstream projects supporting the development of the LEAF mission, by proposing operational approaches for exploiting data from a high-energy, large-footprint spaceborne LiDAR, and (2) to the valorization of data from the Copernicus programme.
Short-term staff / trainees: Anouk Schleich, Phd
● INFORM – Multisource forest inventory : a generic and flexible tool for forest resource estimation and mapping at fine scale
Impact LUE DEEPSURF · 3 years · 2020–2023
PI: Cédric Vega, Géodata Paris IGN
This projet aims of the project was to develop multi-source forest inventory maps with uncertainty assessment and to test different estimation framework to estimate forest attributes impacted by disturbances
Short-term staff / trainees: Ankit Sagar, Phd
● MOPROF-CC – Modeling French Forest Production in the Context of Climate Change
ADEME GRAINE · 4 years · 2019–2023
PI: Eric Dufrêne,UMR ESE
LIF staff: Jean-Daniel Bontemps, co-PI
The MOPROF project develops forest simulation tools to assess how climate change and management strategies affect French forests at both stand and regional scales. It improves and couples two models (CASTANEA and MARGOT) to integrate climate forcing and management scenarios. Results highlight large uncertainties but suggest a gradual decline in forest productivity over the next century, strongly influenced by management choices.
Short-term staff / trainees: Marion Jourdan, Postdoctoral Fellow
● GRECOFOR-CC – Growth of European coniferous forests in a warmer climatic regime
Labex Arbre · 4 years · 2017–2022
PI: Jean-Daniel Bontemps,Géodata Paris IGN
The objectives are 1) to identify recent trends and anomalies in the growth of the main European conifer species, occurring in oceanic, continental, or mountainous contexts and representative of contrasting climatic niches; 2) to examine their relationships with climatic factors in order to infer their possible long-term behavior.
Short-term staff / trainees: Clémentine Ols, Postdoctoral Fellow
● ResForClim – CC impact monitoring
Impact LUE DEEPSURF · 4 years · 2017–2022
PI: Jean-Daniel Bontemps,Géodata Paris IGN
The project made it possible to produce growth anomaly maps for several regional forest systems in metropolitan France, specifically even-aged monospecific forest stands.
Short-term staff / trainees: Clémentine Ols, Postdoctoral Fellow
● ModForTrans – A new generation of forest MODels to predict FORest resources in a TRANSitional context
IGN · 3 years · 2019–2021
PI: Jean-Daniel Bontemps,Géodata Paris IGN
Short-term staff / trainees: Timothée Audinot
● XyloDensMap – Assessing the wood density of European tree species for biomass stock and increment estimation in the French forests.
Ministère de l’Agriculture et de l’Alimentation · 2018–2020
PI: Jean-Michel Leban,INRAE
LIF staff: Jean-Daniel Bontemps, co-PI
The XyloDensMap project makes it possible to measure wood density for all trees inventoried by the National Forest Inventory (IFN)—regardless of pedoclimatic conditions, species, age, or forest management practices—thus providing data with high national and regional representativeness for modeling wood density variations.
Short-term staff / trainees: Baptiste Kerfriden, Phd
● DIABOLO – Distributed, Integrated and Harmonised Forest Information for Bioeconomy Outlooks
EU H2020 · 6 years · 2014–2019
PI: Tuula Packalen, LUKE Finland
LIF staff: Jean-Christophe Hervé,WP leader; Cédric Vega,WP2 leader
DIABOLO aims at producing better knowledge of forest resources and their ability to sustainably supply forest ecosystem goods and services as required by a broad range of relevant stakeholders. This knowledge will create new opportunities for an innovative, sustainable and inclusive bio-economy in Europe.
Short-term staff / trainees: Maryem Fadili,Ing; Jan Hackenberg, Postdoctoral Fellow
Website: http://diabolo-project.eu/
● IFM-GT – Multi-Source Forest Inventory: Towards the Development of Forest Information Systems to Optimize Forest Management Strategies at the Territorial Level.
ADEME REACCTIF3 · 4 years · 2016–2019
PI: Cédric Vega, Géodata Paris IGN
The objective of the project was to intitiate the development of muti-source forest inventories approaches in France
Short-term staff / trainees: Dinesh Babu Irulappa-Pillai-Vijayakumar, Postdoctoral Fellow
● CHM-era – Photogrammetric Canopy Height Models to Enhance forest Resource Assessments.
Labex ARBRE · 2 years · 2017–2019
PI: Anne Joly,ONF
LIF staff: Cédric Vega, Co-PI and WP leader
The main objective is to assess the potential of photogrammetry to estimate and map forest variables over large areas, while preparing the implementation of optimized and standardized processing workflows to model the three-dimensional structure of the forest canopy.
Short-term staff / trainees: Thibaut Souter, Postdoctoral Fellow
● EXPERT-SFM – Long-term expansion of the French forests : causal processes and tools to support Sustainable Forest Management.
ADEME, Région Lorraine, Labex Arbre · 3 years · 2015–2018
PI: Jean-Daniel Bontemps,Géodata Paris IGN
This project, initiated in 2015, aims to describe and understand the factors driving long-term forest expansion that affected the standing timber volume of French forests during the 20th century, following the forest transition. The project is based on historical data from the National Forest Inventory (IFN), historical forest statistics, and macro-scale forest dynamics models.
Short-term staff / trainees: Anaïs Denardou-Tisserand, Phd
● Usewood – Improving Data and Information on the Potential Supply of Wood Resources: A European Approach from Multisource National Forest Inventories (FP1001).
EU COST ACTION · 4 years · 2010–2014
PI: Klemens Schadauer, BFW Austria; Susana Barreiro, Univ of Listboa Portugal
LIF staff: Jean-Daniel Bontemps, MC Member
The UseWood action is part of the COST (Cooperative Research Scheme) initiative aimed at improving information on wood resources. It focuses on enhancing data availability through harmonization of forest inventory data across European countries. The action was initiated to better utilize inventory data, remote sensing methods, and technical-economic models to improve understanding of wood resources.
Website: Action FP1001 - COST