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Review of the ecosystem condition account

Focus on biodiversity and landscape structure

Markus Erhardmarkus.erhard@eea.europa.eu

Workshop Developing an EU Ecosystem Accounting SystemFocus on ecosystem asset and ecosystem service accounts’

Copenhagen 1-2 Oct 2015

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EEA approaches for landscape structure and biodiversityPlanetary boundary: ‘biosphere integrity’

Work on landscape structure and biodiversity at the EEA aims at the development of specific indicators:

Biodiversity• Indices of EU species (Article 17 / Art 12 reporting) 

• Bird population trends

Landscape structure / biosphere integrity• NLEP (Net Landscape Ecosystem Potential)

• Fragmentation

Ecosystem extent and condition• Ecosystem extent and flows

• Ecosystem condition and flows

SEEA Biodiversity accounts – three tier approach

UNSD 2014

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Biodiversity: EU species (Art. 17 reporting) 

DescriptionThe 1992 EU Habitats Directive requests Member States to undertake surveillance of habitats and species of Community interest (Article 11), i.e. those listed in its Annexes I, II, IV and V. Article 17 requires that Member States prepare reports to be sent to the European Commission every six years on the implementation of the Directive following an agreed format.

From the first period of Art 17 reporting, we have tested using 2 variables:• Prevailing trends• Prevailing prospects

These indicators are built by distributing the species in their favourite habitat using CORINE.

We have now a second reporting period so an account could be tested, with opening and closing situation. The last period of reporting is 2007-2012.

Baseline Art 12 (Birds Directive) available needs to be further explored

Geo-referencing and data quality is limited and spatial down-scaling increases uncertainty in the current approach (fuzzy logic)

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Biodiversity: EU species (Art. 17 reporting) 

Source: State of nature report, EEA 2015

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Bird population dataEuropean Bird Census Council (EBCC)

• Common bird species are important in terms of links with ecosystems and their services

• Bird data are numerous in terms of spatial and temporal coverage (most EU countries, annual updates)

• They are well studied and a good indicator of changing ecological conditions

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NLEP – Net Landscape Ecosystem Potential

Description

NLEP is a way to measure and assess ecosystem integrity at European scale on the basis of land cover changes. The signal of land cover changes is enhanced by the probability of presence of areas representing high species/habitats diversity and by the weighting of presence of areas with high density of transportation networks.

NLEP = f (GBLI, NATURILIS, MEFF) where

• GBLI : Green Background Landscape Index

• NATURILIS : Index for protected areas

• MEFF : Index for fragmentation by main roads and railways

GBLI and Naturilis can be calculated for many years

Requires operational fragmentation indicator (work in progress 2016)

Methodological review needed

Corine land cover map (CLC is derived from satellite images)

Green Landscape Index (derived from CLC)

Nature Value (Naturilis, derived from Natura2000 designated areas)

Fragmentation (Effective Mesh Size (MEFF) derived from TeleAtlas Roads and CLC)

Landscape Ecological Potential (LEP) 2000, by 1km² grid cell

LEP 2000 by NUTS 2/3

Landscape Ecological Potential

and

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NLEP in the context of SECA

Table of Net Landscape Ecosystem Potentiel

Ecosystem Accounting Unit Types

UR LA AM GR FO NA ND MC_GR MC_CR MC_NC

Urb

an/

deve

lope

d ar

eas

Larg

e sc

ale

agric

ultu

re

Agr

icul

ture

mos

aics

Gra

ssla

nd

Fore

st c

over

Oth

er n

atur

al la

nd

cove

r

No

dom

inan

t lan

d co

ver

Seag

rass

Cora

l ree

fs

Oth

er

II. Accessible ecosystem infrastructure potentialLC1 Opening stock of land cover in km2

LEP01 Green background landscape index (GBLI) (average by km2)

LEP02 Landscape high nature conservation value index (average by km2)

LEP03 Landscape fragmentation index (average by km2)

LEP05 Other LEP index (average by km2)LEP_avg Average LEP composite index by km2

NLEP1 Net Landscape Ecosystem Potential = LC1 x LEP_avgLC2 Closing stock of land cover in km2

LEP01 Green background landscape index (GBLI) (average by km2)

LEP02 Landscape high nature conservation value index (average by km2)

LEP03 Landscape fragmentation index (average by km2)

LEP05 Other LEP index (average by km2)LEP_avg Average Landscape Ecosystem Potential composite index by km2

NLEP2 Net Landscape Ecosystem Potential = LC2 x LEP_avg

Tota

l inl

and

& c

oast

al

ecos

yste

ms

Socio-Ecological Landscape Units (SELU) / Dominant Land Cover Type (DLCT)

Marine ecosystem Coastal Units (MCU)

Fragmentation

Landscape fragm entation per 1 km2 grid ( 2009)

Number of meshes per 1 000 km2 (s )

< 0.10

0.10–0.25

0.25–0.50

0.50–1.00

1.00–5.00

eff

5.00–10.00

10.00–25.00

25.00–50.00

50.00–100.00

> 100.00

Mountain ridges

Outside data coverage

Note: Landscape fragmentation was calculated using fragmentation geometry FG-B2.

Source: EEA/FOEN, 2011. Source: EEA/FOEN 2011

Source: ETC/SIA 2014

Ecosystem extentEuropean Ecosystem Map: EUNIS Habitat – Land cover – Reference Data

http://projects.eionet.europa.eu/eea-ecosystem-assessments/library/draft-ecosystem-map-europe

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Change in ecosystem extent

Source: JRC, 2015

Ecosystem condition

Example for assessment of agro ecosystem condition (cropland and grassland)

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Conclusions and next stepsBiodiversity:

• Art17 reporting operational but issues with European coverage and data quality

• Bird population data to be explored (EEA - JRC)

Landscape Integrity

• nLEP partly operational (Copernicus land services, N2000) but concept to be revised

• Fragementation indicator revision 2016

Ecosystem extent

• Operational (Copernicus land services) but ecosystem maps to be improved

Ecosystem condition ( planetary boundary ‘biogeochemical flows‘)• Experimental work in progress