In 2020-2021, the extended biomass unit of the Grand Est region carried out a full-scale trial of the AF Filières method on the regional forest-wood sector. The initiative arose from a question raised before the scientific committee of the French national biomass resources observatory (ONRB): what happens inside the "black box" of data reconciliation? To answer it, the regional stakeholders redid the entire process themselves — from the design of the sector structure to the professional validation of the results — with the support of Inria.
The diagram represents wood flows from the forest to end uses in the Grand Est region, averaged over the 2014-2018 period: harvesting, sawmilling, the panel and pulp industries, wood energy, and exchanges with other territories. The underlying model covers around 80 products and 24 sectors; every flow carries a confidence interval. The reconciled data workbook can be downloaded from the diagram.
The study follows the AF Filières method: definition of a sector structure validated by the working group, collection of the available data — national forest inventory (IGN), industry surveys, customs and transport statistics, the industrial wood / wood energy observatory of FIBOIS Grand Est —, reconciliation of the whole under mass-balance constraints, and finally an interactive Sankey representation. The results were presented to sector stakeholders in a dedicated webinar, and their feedback was incorporated into the final report.
A partnership between the DRAAF Grand Est, FIBOIS Grand Est, IGN and Inria, later joined by INRAE, carried out without dedicated funding, within an institutional collaborative framework.