Present:

Activities of the Meeting
1. Opening Welcome by Seppo Kellomaki and Alexandros Arabatzis
2. Presentation Review of the last 18 months The meeting was chaired by Seppo Kellomaki, who gave an overview of each task as it was presented, task deliverables, and those presenting the sub-tasks.
DAY 1

3. Comments and discussions of work with Dr Arabatzis
Overview Dr Arabatzis opened the meeting by indicating its two main purposes. The first was to enable him to help us in any way he could in terms of administration of the project and particularly in terms of re-timetabling any items which proved more troublesome than expected. He assured us that he is available for contact at any time throughout the project to help in an administrative capacity. He also emphasised the benefit of the project, which was the integration of the models to go some way towards providing a global view of the problem rather than being focussed on certain aspects. He particularly cited the input that could be provided for primary and secondary production, and market requirements to predict characteristics such as the quality of products with respect to silvicultural strategies.
Task Comments The comments which were made will be posted to the mailing list for discussion.
ACTION: Marianne to post summary of comments to the mailing list.
Six Monthly Reports Dr Arabatzis requested that only a very short summary ,of progress (a couple of pages at the most) should be sent to him from the coordinator in lieu of the six month reports. This was to limit the time input required by him to assimilate progress on the project and to reduce the time spent by participants in preparing reports. The annual reporting will of course be retained in its present form, but it was suggested that time spent producing the six month reports might be more profitably spent developing web pages to publicise the project results to a wider audience.
ACTION: At six monthly intervals, all participants should produce some presentation material for either (or both) of the public and private pages of the web site. These pages would, in most cases, reside in the institutes which produced them where they could be easily maintained in a distributed fashion, but linked to the MLURI web pages.
ACTION: Ari to make available via the ftp site a DOS programme for conversion of rtf format to htm. (This has been done: MS­DOS program called rtftohtm.exe. It is now available in the ftp­site in Joensuu outgoing/rtftohtm.zip. Just unzip the file and it is ready to run.)

Immediate directional concerns It was stressed that the silvicultural aspects of the STORMS project are its most important assets Those aspects are missing from other work concerning forest damage. It was noted that the STORMS project fell within other spheres of interest and therefore may not survive past the current period in its present form. Other programmes exist which deal with forest and environment issues (notably Env. Climate which deals with natural hazard and FIR Programme which is concerned with silvicultural methods). Therefore it was stressed that future work should focus on direct input to forest managers to produce something that they can use. It was mentioned at this point that FC are currently concentrating much of their effort on this particular issue. What is required are variables which are easy to measure and access, with an emphasis on real-time communications (for example through the web). Foresters required tools which were not too complex to use. Accuracy and error were particularly difficult to deal with in complex models, but some addressing of this problem was required. A definite forest management strategy was required to enhance the project.
Dr Arabatzis enquired whether a conference to present the results of the project had been considered, and participants intimated some of the plans relating to the End of Project Conference in Joensuu currently being discussed.
It was also suggested that if funding was required for participants to attend conferences outside Europe in order to publicise the project findings, then authorisation would be required from Dr Arabatzis to use current funding in this way. However he assured us that this authorisation would be forthcoming.
Maria suggested that further publicity might be obtained through an exhibition at EXPO'98 which is due to be held in Lisbon. CNIG has already booked space, and it would be possible to occupy some of this for the STORMS project. Inclusion of a page concerning Matrix Issues such as model and data interactions (Exchange between Umea and Joensuu to be used as a first example).
Future directional concerns Dr Arabatzis suggested that the STORMS group had a good chance of funding under the 5th Framework providing a good proposal was submitted including, particularly, aspects of economics and production in relation to the use of integrated models by Forest Managers, emphasising silvicultural strategies and real time communications. It was agreed that this subject should be addressed during the Umea meeting.
Maria proposed that we should consider forming a network for the exchange of personnel, particularly students. It was agreed that this was another important item for consideration and discussion in Umea and in advance of Umea.
ACTION: Erik to circulate doctoral thesis on precision pixel forestry between participants. ACTION: Marianne to develop an "Issues" page relating to model-data interractions.
4. Arrangements for the Umea Meeting
Dates The dates agreed in Inveraray, 22nd to 27th October still seem to be the most suitable.
Timetable The following format was suggested by Erik for the meeting and agreed by those present:

Meeting venue The meeting will be held in Umea University
ACTION: Erik to send out message confirming arrangements for Umea ACTION: All participants to let Erik know what computing facilities will be required for the meeting. ACTION: Marianne to make up an agenda for Task 6 discussions to be agreed by all participants at the end of August. Prior to this Marianne will request responses from groups in advance as input to the Task 6 planning. ACTION: Seppo to send a formal invitation to Dr Arabatzis to attend the meeting, including details of the meeting agenda (Dr Arabatzis expressed particular interest in attending the meeting for the Task 6 discussions, and it was felt that his input would be very useful in this context). ACTION: Erik to reserve accommodation in Umea well in advance (bookings may be difficult given that the Festival will attract visitors requiring accomodation)
5. Important Administrational Dates for Participants

ACTION: Marianne to produce calender of dates on the web (including leave absences of participants)
6. Close