EUROPE FORESTEuropean Union ProjectsProject duration: Nov 2006 to Nov 2008The objective of the "Pilot study on harmonising National Forest Inventories in Europe" was to test and evaluate different technical approaches to harmonise the NFI variables forest area, forest types and diameter distribution.IntroductionThe ‘Pilot study on harmonising National Forest Inventories in Europe’ is a contract study of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. The two years study was financed by the EC Forest Focus scheme and started in December 2006 and ended in December 2008. The study was coordinated and conducted by the Institute for World Forestry (University of Hamburg) in cooperation with the following three partner: Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Ambientali Forestali (DISTAF), Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals (CREAF) and the European Forest Institute (EFI). The final technicalreport of the study will be available in February/March 2009.Four proposed approaches were tested with real data for selected test sites in three different countries, namely Germany, Spain and Italy. For each of the three countries two test sites were selected, which represent different forest ecosystems but also most typical forests landscapes of the countries.