"It is the overall aim of EUFODOS to develop specific Forest Downstream Services (FDS) that are urgently required by regional European users in an economically viable manner and utilise the GMES Land Forest Core products as a basis for the development of these services. The specific FDS which will be examined and developed to a pre-operational level are related to assessment of forest damage and mapping forest functional parameters. As the GMES Land Core products are not yet operational the FDS will thus also provide a “pre-operational validation of the GMES services and products.”The FDS programme is based on 3 foundations: technical/methodological developments which will be based on an approach that combines Earth Observation (EO) and in-situ data as well as the GMES Forest Core products; the formation of a functional Service Network (SN) which includes effective representation/involvement of the user community, the service providers and the research community; and the assessment of the economic feasibility of developing the service cases such that they are sustainable. Thus these foundations form the following programme objectives:1. Development of a FDS Service Network comprised of service providers, users and the research community for effective involvement of all stakeholders and service delivery.2. The investigation and implementation of methodologies for forest degradation assessment and forest functions parameter mapping for the provision of pre-operational systems.3. The users commitments to participate in the validation of the Core products, as well as the utility assessment of the downstream services within their own work practices.4. The assessment of the economic cases for these different regional downstream services to ensure sustainability.All the objectives will be fulfilled within the lifespan of the EUFODOS programme."