The European Forest Accounts (EFA) comprise important key figures regarding the economic viability of forestry. They are reported to Eurostat by the Member States of the European Union and the European Free Trade Association on an annual, yet voluntary basis. In 2016, the EFA replaced the hitherto valid “Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting for Forests” (IEEAF) as a new standard table framework. Due to the lack of an official guideline, and consequently differences in data availability, accounting practices and calculation methods in the participating states as well as an impediment of data harmonization and comparability is expected.
The change from IEEAF- to EFA-tables entailed the need to revise and update the calculation methods of forest accounting in Germany. Within this update we aimed at creating consistency between German statistical reporting systems, establishing a comprehensible, up-todate system of calculating the EFA, but also to contribute to the international comparability of EFA-data by disclosing German methods and data bases. In the paper at hand we introduce the German methods and data bases used for calculating the EFA. We focus on the compilation of the physical and monetary tables of forest area and timber stock, as data from other EFA-tables is mostly taken directly from other statistics. We gathered examples for methods and data bases from several different sources, chose and described the best possibilities for Germany in regard to data availability and discussed the suitability of alternative data sources and methods.
We believe that we achieved to establish a comprehensible system and that a good balance was found between providing best quality data and economic efficiency of calculating the tables. As an outlook, in order to improve international comparability of EFA-data, a standardization and disclosure of definitions, data sources and methods across all states is strongly suggested.
