| Forest Foliar Coordinating Centre - FFCC (www.ffcc.at) |
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The concern about an increased observation of unknown forest damage in Europe lead in the 1980's to the establishment of two European programmes on the protection of forests against atmospheric pollution and other stress factor:
- The International Cooperative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests (ICP Forests)
- the European Union Scheme on the Protection of Forests against Atmospheric Pollution.
In the framework of these two programmes a large-scale transnational monitoring network (level I) was established. On this grid, annual crown condition surveys have been carried out since 1986/87.
In addition to these observations a survey of the forest soil condition and a survey of the chemical content of needles and leaves were carried out.
In order to support the European Commission and the ICP-Forests in the coordination of this Pan-European survey the Forest Foliar Coordinating Centre (FFCC) was set up at the Austrian Federal Office and Research Centre for Forests (Vienna) in 1994.
The major activities of FFCC are the storage, quality control, evaluation and presentation of the received foliar data. Now it is possible to select this foliage results from 17 countries (level I grid) directly via internet (Database Online).
At the 8th Expert Panel Meeting in Prague/Czech Republic (28 to 29 April 2003)
the Expert Panel agreed that the interlaboratory tests will be organized and evaluated by FFCC.
The FFCC gives further support by arranging annual interlaboratory tests.
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Alfred Fürst Seckendorff-Gudent Weg 8, A-1131 Vienna - Austria Tel: +43-1-878 38 - 1114 Fax:+43-1-878 38 - 1250 Email: alfred.fuerst@bfw.gv.at Webpage Foliar Expert Panel (only for members) |
