Integrating information on river networks, catchments and major forest types: towards the characterisation and analysis of European landscapes

Recent developments in European environmental policies ask for European-wide and harmonised information on the state of our environment as well as on pressures and impacts thereon. The fulfilment of this requirement demands for a holistic analysis of the landscape and the interactions between its various components, including the development of suitable data for the whole area of interest. Forests and water bodies are important entities in this context. In this paper we, therefore, report on the development of European-wide databases for forests, river networks and catchments. Examples of how such data can be combined for analysing specific landscape characteristics such as the percentage of rivers running through forested areas or the distribution of forest categories according to relief characteristics are given for the whole of Italy as well as for three selected catchments.