Indicator Assessment
30 Oct 2020
Monitoring vegetation response to water deficit due to droughts is necessary to be able to introduce effective measures to increase the resilience of ecosystems in line with the EU’s nature restoration plan — a key element of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030. Between 2000 and 2016, Europe was affected by severe droughts, causing average yearly vegetation productivity losses covering around 121 000 km 2 . This was particularly notable in 2003, when drought affected most parts of Europe, covering an estimated 330 000 km 2 of forests, non-irrigated arable land and pastures. Drought impact was also relatively severe in 2005 and 2012.
Data Visualization
27 Oct 2020
Agriculture has multiple impacts on the environment, climate and human health. Unsustainable farming
practices lead to pollution of soil, water, air and food and over-exploitation of natural resources.
Pollution changes a medium such as air, water or soil in a way that can make it harmful to people or
nature. Different types of pollutants include chemicals, dust, noise and radiation. EEA Signals 2020
looks at pollution through different lenses related to the Agency’s work and EU legislation.
Accumulated ozone exposure values for vegetation and crops — over a threshold of 40 parts per billion (AOT40c) — for 2018, as calculated for the fusion maps and as measured at rural background stations.
Dashboard (Tableau)
13 Aug 2020
Monitoring soil moisture shortages is a precondition for managing drought adaptation and resilience of ecosystems, such as foreseen by the EU Nature restoration plan of the EU Biodiversity strategy 2030. This dashboard analyses 20 years (2000-2019) soil moisture content in the EEA39 region. Soil moisture deficits, trends in soil moisture values and the area under pressure are presented by countries and land cover.
Indicator Assessment
19 Jun 2020
Long-term monitoring schemes show significant downward trends in common farmland birds and in grassland butterfly population numbers, with no signs of recovery.
Between 1990 and 2017, there was an 8 % decline in the index of 168 common bird species in the 25 EU Member States with bird population monitoring schemes and the United Kingdom (UK). The common forest bird index showed no decrease over the same period. The decreases were slightly greater if figures for Norway and Switzerland are included: 11 % for all common birds and 2 % for forest birds.
The decline in common farmland bird numbers between 1990 and 2017 was much more pronounced, at 33 % (EU Member States and UK) and 35 % (if Norway and Switzerland are included).
The index of grassland butterflies has declined strongly in the 15 EU countries where butterfly monitoring schemes exist. In 2017, the index was 39 % below its 1990 value.
The map shows the loss and gain of arable land and permanent crops aggregated in a 10 km grid.
The following CLC classes were used:
211 Non-irrigated arable land,
212 Permanently irrigated land,
213 Rice fields,
221 Vineyards,
222 Fruit trees and berry plantations,
223 Olive groves,
241 Annual crops associated with permanent crops.
The raster datasets describe land cover flows between 2000-2018, 2000-2006, 2006-2012 and 2012-2018 for the EEA39 region. Land Cover Flows summarize and interpret the 44x43=1892 possible one-to-one changes between the 44 CORINE land cover classes. The changes are grouped to so called flows of land cover and are classified according to major land use processes. The nomenclature of flows is organized on 3 hierarchical levels. See lineage on the nomenclature.
The classification of land cover flows results from the feasibility studies and subsequent revisions after discussion with experts in agri-environment and forestry. Basically, the classification of land cover flows distinguishes change between broad land cover classes and changes internal to these classes. Analysis of land cover flows supplies a rapid vision of land use change processes taking place and they shed light on the drivers of various land use change processes such as e.g. urbanization.
The chart shows the vegetation productivity changes (%) over areas with land use change in the period 2000-2018. The values are broken down by major land use change drivers.
The chart shows the effect of frost frequency variations on vegetation productivity, expressed in standard deviation units of vegetation productivity.
Document Actions
Share with others