Conclusions The results of this study show that the Global Forest Change map is a valid database that can be used to observe forest dynamics in Europe. Observations made during the accuracy assessment procedure and comparisons with the work of indicate that better results can be achieved on a national and European scale. Still, the Global Forest Change map provides valuable and accessible information about the European forest sectorsinvolved in the European wood supply. These data were employed to describe the forest cover change in 36 European countries and to estimate the soil erosion potential in the forestland of the EU-28 region. New insights into the distribution of the forest disturbance in Europe and the resulting soil loss potential were obtained.The presented maps provide spatially explicit indicators to assess the human-induced impacts of land cover changes and soil losses on the European soil-related forest ecosystems. These insights are relevant (i) to support policy making and land management decisions to ensure a sustainable forest management strategy and (ii)to provide a solid basis for further spatiotemporal investigations of the forestry practices’ impacts on the European forest ecosystems The application of soil erosion models such as USLE shows that it is a suitable tool to assess accelerated soil erosion in forest environments. Moreover, this model can also be applied using scenarios that integrate pre-forest-harvesting and post-forest-harvesting soil conservation techniques. Consequently, future research should (i)focus on improving the spatiotemporal information about the forest cover change in Europe and (ii) work on the comparison between harvested forest areas where clear-cut activities take into account soil conservation practices and areas where these conservation techniques are neglected. Once the impacts of forest conservation techniques are quantified by field observations they can be parameterized and integrated in the modelling operations.