Work due 01 Jan 2099

SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT The quality of national reporting should be analysed and assessed in respect to the completeness of spatial boundary data and comprehensive documentation of designation dates, IUCN category application, etc. (e.g. currently for about 9 000 of 85 000 European sites the designation year was not reported). Updates should be made available and processed on a regular basis for incorporation into CDDA and WDPA to allow for regular updates of the indicator. Ways need to be found to improve dataflow, and this is being discussed by UNEP‑WCMC and EEA. Methodological support and capacity building might be needed to bring all reporting countries to a comparable level of accuracy in source data delivery. It would be interesting to distinguish between marine and terrestrial areas, and to identify protected areas selected by states to observe international conventions and agreements. The indicator gives a figure with cumulative area of protected areas. It is based on the YEAR field from the CDDA. The definition of YEAR is 'the year the site was first time designated'. Since protected areas are often revised to update the provisions, expand the protected area etc., this practice will overestimate the amount of protected area in past time — i.e. skew the cumulative curve to the left. The magnitude of this should be assessed, and if necessary the method for producing the indicator needs to be adjusted.