Finding the balance between open access to forest data while safeguarding the integrity of National Forest Inventory‐derived information

Abstract

Climate Change is strongly jeopardizing the functioning of forest ecosystems and the services they provide for society. To understand the future trajectories of forest ecosystems, we have to assess the past and current state of our forests, and only with large long-term forest monitoring programs such as ICP Forests (George et al., 2022) and especially the National Forest Inventory (NFI) networks (Bontemps et al., 2022; Yu et al., 2022), this can be achieved. In addition, CO2 flux measurement networks such as the Integrated Carbon Observation System Research Infrastructure (ICOS, Heiskanen et al., 2022) and remote sensing technologies (Senf & Seidl, 2021) have advanced and provide highly complementary information on the response of forests to climate and climate extremes as well as on the health status and the impact of disturbances on forests. It is increasingly acknowledged that only the integration of ground-based inventories such as the NFI networks with remote sensing products provides the direly needed data to nowcast impacts of extreme events, to estimate areas at risk under future climate change and to monitor climate smart forest management practices. In a recent article, Päivinen et al. (2023) point to an important issue arising in such integration efforts. They argue that revealing the exact locations of permanent – regularly visited – inventory plots, which is important for matching ground-based with remotely sensed information, would compromise the randomness and thus representativeness of the design by encouraging changes in how sample plots are managed. We strongly second the need to maintain the scientific quality of the inventory data and to preserve the integrity of the statistical estimates derived from them. We have, however, concerns with some of the statements in the article, which we wish to address here, and which – as we think – should be further discussed within the scientific community. Large parts of our concern might be due to a different interpretation of the wording used. We feel that such differences in interpretation need to be openly addressed. The availability of environmental data is of particular importance also in the communication between science and policy, especially in the context of the current drafting of an EU Framework for Forest Monitoring (European Commission, 2022b). First of all, one could argue that the authors do not give more than anecdotical evidence (‘Experience in the field’) that the management of plots would be changed when landowners or managers know where the monitoring plots are exactly located. We already acknowledge that the possibility that results could become biased can be sufficient to keep the exact geolocation undisclosed. However, it seems important to examine the effects of knowing the exact geo-coordinates on management more systematically and thereafter re-assess nondisclosure policies. More importantly, however, the authors state that ‘In the event of legitimate need, existing procedures allow for data to be shared’ and ‘regulations allow for sharing the location of ground measurements for a justified reason’ and ‘more exact location data are provided for research under special circumstances’. This sounds as if there is an instance that assesses the legitimacy of data use, but it remains completely unclear, who it is to decide. At the European level, for example, and in the light of the upcoming EU Framework for Forest Monitoring, it is also not clear if decisions for data access should be made nationally or trans-nationally. If any restrictions to data access apply, the process for granting access needs to be fully transparent and harmonized among different countries to avoid any selection bias that could have strong repercussions on scientific knowledge gain and theory building. We, however, suggest moving further and we argue that scientific data use (by research institutes and universities) should be defined as legitimate per se and an obligatory linkage between access to the exactly geolocated data and a nondisclosure agreement (see key points to be included in Supporting Information Table S1) as described by the authors should be sufficient to ensure the data and plot integrity. We might speculate that our suggestions are congruent with the intention of the authors, but if so, this should be spelled out explicitly. There are additional alternative solutions that might also be taken into account to achieve a balance between data accessibility and maintaining data integrity even without individual access to coordinates, which were not addressed at all by Päivinen et al. (2023). High-performance computing (HPC) systems such as the EC Joint Research Centre's Big Data Analytics Platform (Soille et al., 2018) could allow operating with the coordinates of permanent plots without having explicit access to the most sensitive information. Another solution would be to routinely upload NFI data into the Earth observation agencies' HPC systems, such as the EU Copernicus program (copernicus.eu) or the joint ESA + NASA multimission algorithm platform (esa-maap.org), where the forest plot information could be used while not disclosing NFI plot coordinates. Furthermore, we consider the statement ‘knowing the exact coordinates of [permanent] sample plots adds little to the […] importance of the data’ highly misleading and in disagreement with the epistemological basis of science. It must not be at the discretion of any particular group of the scientific community to decide under which circumstances and in which context data have a particular value or importance. There are already examples of the mutual benefit of combining remote sensing with ground-based NFI assessments (e.g. Hawryło et al., 2020; Lister et al., 2020). And we just do not know (yet) whether it will make a difference to any scientific breakthrough in the future. This is especially important in the context of the rapidly evolving fields of remote sensing and machine learning, where new opportunities only apparent to highly specialized researchers will surely arise in the near future. We, thus, argue that there is good reason to assume that NFI data would become more valuable if they were routinely incorporated into remote sensing workflows, improving the quality of these valuable products. So, while we share the general opinion that the exact geo-coordinates of forest inventory plots should not be openly published until the impacts on the integrity of NFI-derived information are explored systematically, we call for procedures that make it as easy, unbureaucratic and straightforward (and as safe for data and plot integrity) as possible to obtain these data, that are funded with taxpayers' money, for the use in science. With the advocacy for open science and FAIR data use (European Commission, 2022a) across the world, it seems very odd to prohibit or limit the data used to a certain group of scientists. We explicitly acknowledge the different situation in the Global South and mostly in tropical forests, where unlike in Europe and North America, ground forest measurements are hard to sustain and the people who make them are extremely disadvantaged compared to those who use them (de Lima et al., 2022). In such cases, promotion of fair collaborations, transferring funding to and empowering scientists from less wealthy regions is necessary. Collaboration with NASA or ESA, where contribution to the funding of direct and indirect costs for forest inventory could be part of data availability agreements on their HPC systems, might be a possible way to go. In Europe and North America, however, where forest monitoring is mostly funded and carried out by governmental organizations, such an imbalance of power does not exist. Here, to achieve open science, we need not only strong collaboration and open discussion between data providers on the one hand and data users on the other hand to create a balance between the different needs, but also a common understanding that data sharing for scientific purposes is of central importance. We argue that full data availability for science linked with nondisclosure agreements together with alternative procedures, for example the implementation of HPC systems that do not require individual coordinate disclosure, provide the right balance between openness and maintaining the credibility of scientific data from forest inventories. In our opinion, this is the only way towards open science, good scientific practice, and unbiased results. None declared. AG, MS, AB, VT, RV, GC and NB developed the conceptual framework and wrote the manuscript. Table S1 Key points that should be considered in a nondisclosure agreement to safeguard the integrity of National Forest Inventory-derived information. Please note: Wiley is not responsible for the content or functionality of any Supporting Information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing material) should be directed to the New Phytologist Central Office. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.

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