The monitoring of vegetation health and detection of vegetation stress is important for agricultural and forestry industries worldwide. As agricultural and forestry production is strongly influenced by ongoing climate change, it is important to understand the current trends as well as to continuously monitor future changes, both in natural vegetation and in managed environments. For example, vegetation in central Europe has recently been experiencing significant vegetation stress due to severe droughts, low soil moisture and pest infestations; also Norway, which has a colder climate than central Europe, has already had problems with vegetation stress caused by severe drought and by insects (birch moth). It is expected that this will become more frequent in the near future. For a systematic effort of dealing with the effect of climate change it is necessary to solve problems comprehensively worldwide, and not only at the national level. This is particularly true for global applicability of approaches based on remote sensing techniques, where the verification of developed methods in a different environment is strongly necessary. Therefore, connecting related researchers and research institutions across Europe and building a wide cooperation network are essential.
Planned activities are based on mutual visits including a workshop and a follow-up meeting. An important part of the visits will be to get to exchange scientific knowledge and research interests. The aim of the workshop will be the introduction of the particular research interest in the field of vegetation health monitoring and enhancement of remote sensing-based vegetation health monitoring knowledge. The follow-up meeting will focus on a discussion about future research collaboration and possible research project applications and funding opportunities. An additional aim of the project is to disseminate knowledge to expert public and the workshop will be open to relevant stakeholders and scientists.
Acknowledgements
The project is financed by the State Environmental Fund of the Czech Republic, as the Programme Operator of the Programme „Environment, Ecosystems and Climate Change“, supported by the Norway Grants 2014-2021.
