The MAES Forest Pilot

•FOREST EUROPE: First meeting of the Expert Group on Valuation of and Payments for Forest Ecosystem

Services

•Bratislava, 12-13 September 2017

José I. Barredo

European Commission – Joint Research Centre Bioeconomy Unit (D1)

The European Commission’sscience and knowledge service

Joint Research Centre

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What is MAES?

• Initiative supporting the implementation of the EUBiodiversity Strategy

• The Biodiversity Strategy called on MS to map and assessthe state of ecosystems and their services in their nationalterritory by 2014

• MS must also assess the economic value of such services,and promote the integration of these values into accountingand reporting systems at EU and national level by 2020

• MAES working group

• Was set-up for providing support to MS in reaching Target2 of the Biodiversity Strategy

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• Target 2: By 2020, ecosystems and their services aremaintained and enhanced by establishing green infrastructureand restoring at least 15% of degraded ecosystems

• Action 5: Improve knowledge of ecosystems and their servicesin the EU

• This specific action aims to provide a knowledge base onecosystems and their services in Europe

• The action underpins the achievement of all 6 targets of thestrategy and is also relevant to a number of other EU sectoralpolicies such as agriculture, maritime affairs and fisheries, andcohesion

Target 2 of the Biodiversity Strategy

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Action 5 of the Biodiversity Strategy

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MAES Working group

EU Biodiversity Strategy

Target 2

Action 5

DG ENV

MAES WG

EC-JRC EEAMember States Stakeholders

Agro-ecosystems

MarineForest Freshwater

Nature

Urban

MAES Pilots 2017

Soil

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MAES 1st and 2nd report

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/knowledge/ecosystem_assessment/index_en.htm

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MAES conceptual framework for ecosystem assessments

Forest ecosystem services are thebenefits that people obtain fromforest ecosystems. They are thedirect and indirect contribution offorest to human wellbeing

Driver of change is any natural orhuman-induced factor (includingforest management) that directlyor indirectly causes a change in aforest ecosystem

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MAES – Indicators for ecosystem assessments

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Current activities of the MAES Pilots

• Analytical framework for mapping and assessment ofecosystem condition

• Describe the link between ecosystem condition andecosystem services

• Appropriate indicators on condition

• List European datasets available to quantify the indicators

• Clear proposals for the Member States

• Validate and discuss with Member States (workshop)

• 5th MAES report by end of 2017

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June 27 & 28 2017, Brussels

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Participants:

DG-Environment (D1 and D2)

Joint Research Centre (D1)

European Environment Agency (EEA)

European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity (ETC-BD)

European Topic Centre on Urban, Land and Soil Ecosystems (ETC-ULS)

Member States and Stakeholders (workshop, 27-28 June 2017)

Aim of the Pilot:

To elaborate an assessment framework (conceptual and analytical) onforest ecosystem condition in Europe

The framework will contribute to the overarching goal of the Pilot,which is to identify an array of forest condition indicators andcorresponding datasets

MAES Forest Pilot on condition

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Rationale

• Despite the amount of available information on forestecosystems from ground surveys and remote sensing,assessing forest condition remains challenging

• Although indicators of forest condition are available, theseare in some cases either limited in time, spatial scale or arerelative to few dimensions of forest ecosystems

• In addition, there is lack of consensus regarding a definitionof forest condition or health that can be operationalisedwith available indicators

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(*) Including drought

Forest condition and biodiversity

Climatedrivers

Atmospheric/biochemical drivers

Bioticdrivers

Humandrivers

Unsustainable resource use

Fire

Changes in climatic

parameters *

Invasive alienspecies

Fragmentation

Deposition of air pollutants

Tropospheric ozone

Storms & other extreme

weather events

Diseases and insect pests

Wildlife and grazing

LU/LC change

Excessive nutrient loading

Conceptual frameworkDrivers and pressures of forest ecosystems

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Effects of pressures on ecosystem services

Ecosystem functions are the myriad of subsets of interactions betweenbiophysical structures, biodiversity and ecosystem processes that underpinthe capacity of an ecosystem to provide ecosystem services (MAES, 2013)

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Example representation of pressures affecting the potential of forest ecosystem services

Pressures: Temporal and spatial scale of occurrence

In the diagram, pressures are described to occur sequentially, one after another, however, often they occur simultaneously in time or in time and space

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Analytical framework for forest condition

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Expected impact of pressures on forest ecosystem services

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Forest condition indicators

Pressure indicators

State indicators

Biodiversity indicators

Functional

Structural

Compositional

Forest attributes:

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Indicators of forest ecosystem condition (on-going)

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MAES in BISE

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Thank you

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http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/knowledge/ecosystem_assessment/index_en.htm

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