Average annual precipitation as measured at meteorological stations located in the mediterranean countries of the European Union. La Peyne catchment, southern France. The DeMon team is currently developing a method to assess the degree of degradation of a landscape by means of the actual biomass. It is argued that the difference between the potential above ground biomass and the actual biomass present can be used as an degradation indicator. As a first approximation, it is assumed that the limited water availability and human disturbance are the main factors for a biomass deficit.
Actual biomass is estimated from spaceborne and airborne digital images.
For the spring and summer of 1997 field campaigns are planned to collect groundtruth. Of the La Peyne catchment. Example of an open Mediterranean Oak forest. La Peyne catchment, southern France. In the DeMon-2 phase the model will be refined and applied to the La Peyne test site.