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Concentrations of eight hazardous substances in European seas were generally 'low' or 'moderate' in line with the results of the previous assessment (2015). In some cases, however, the way we have traditionally defined 'moderate' levels meant that EU environmental quality standards (EQS) were exceeded. Any concentrations of hazardous substances exceeding EQS are unacceptable for marine organisms. In general, concentrations in European Seas were 'moderate' for cadmium, mercury, lead, hexachlorobenzene, DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), polychlorinated biphenyls and benzo[a]pyrene. Both 'moderate' and 'high' concentrations of mercury exceeded the EQS and were found in a significant proportion of all seas.  'High' concentrations for hexachlorobenzene and benzo[a]pyrene, exceeding the EQS particularly in the case of the latter, were also found across all seas. Concentrations of lindane (gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane) were 'high' in the Mediterranean sea and generally low elsewhere. Polychlorinated biphenyl levels appear to be decreasing in the North-East Atlantic Ocean. This suggests that policy measures and initiatives to decrease inputs of these substances in the region have had some success. For the remaining seven hazardous substances, it appears that the impact of abatement policies in this region might have stabilised. Abatement policies for all eight hazardous substances have been in effect for the Baltic Sea, but no downward trends could be identified in the current assessment, indicating that the impact of such policies might have stabilised. Because of insufficient data coverage, a comprehensive assessment all eight hazardous substances for the Mediterranean Sea could not be conducted.  Available data for this region indicates that policies to reduce pollution have had an impact 'though. The Black Sea is not included in this assessment due to lack of data.

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Although further improvements are still necessary, the analysis of long time series shows clear and important signs of improvement in the North-East Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea ( 62.5 - 87.5 % of stocks meet at least one of the good environmental status criteria in these regions). Since the early 2000s, better management of fish and shellfish stocks has contributed to a clear decrease in fishing pressure in these two regional seas, with average fishing mortality dropping below the maximum rate of fishing mortality in 2017. This has led to signs of recovery in the reproductive capacity of several fish and shellfish stocks. If these efforts continue, fishing mortality in the region should remain on average near the maximum rate of fishing mortality and reproductive capacity should continue to improve, accomplishing the 2020 objective for healthy fish and shellfish stocks in the North-East Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea. In contrast, the situation remains critical in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Only 2 out of 33 stocks (6 %) in the Mediterranean Sea and 1 out of 7 stocks (14.3 %) in the Black Sea meet at least one of the good environmental status criteria. This is mainly due to the prevalence of overfishing and a significant lack of knowledge of the status of fish and shellfish stocks. Given this scenario, i t is unlikely that the 2020 policy objective will be met in the Mediterranean or Black Sea. Overall, the 2020 objective of having healthy fish and shellfish populations is unlikely to be met in Europe’s seas without further collective action.

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Soil plays a crucial role in nature’s cycles, including the nutrient cycle, which involves how much soil organic matter — i.e. carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus — is taken up and stored in soil. Organic compounds, such as leaves and root tips, are broken down to simpler compounds by organisms living in soil before they can be used by plants. Some soil bacteria convert atmospheric nitrogen into mineral nitrogen, which is essential for plant growth. Fertilisers introduce nitrogen and phosphates to induce plant growth but not all amounts are taken up by plants. The excess can enter rivers and lakes and affect life in these water ecosystems.

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This data viewer provides information about the land cover and land cover change within the Natura 2000 network.

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This dataset refers to the Richness index of Species and Habitats of Conservation Concern indicator. This indicator has been developed to be used as a sub-indicator for contributing to the identification of the High Nature Value (HNV) Forest Areas as it will be integrated with other sub-indicators of horizontal structure, management and naturalness to generate the final composite indicator. It is composed itself of three sub-indicators: “Forest Non-bird species”, “Forest bird species” and “Forest habitats”. All the three sub-indicators build on distribution data from the reporting of habitat and species conservation status under Article 17 of the Habitats Directive and Article 12 of the Birds directive which describe their distribution at 10km grid resolution. The forest species and the forest habitats proposed to be used for the HNV forest area identification were selected based on expert judgement (ETC/BD) and raster files reporting the count of forest species and habitats were created. At this stage, no weight is applied based on Habitat and Species prioritization, conservation status or endemism. The sub-indicators were then normalized for each European forest type and successively combined not assigning any specific weight to a particular sub-indicator. The values for this indicator, present in this dataset, ranges between 0 and 1. The values close to 1 mean high presence of habitats and species related to forest, whereas the lower richness are closer to 0. It covers the forested areas of the EU27 Member States except for Cyprus (data from Croatia will be reported starting from the next update regarding the period 2013-2018).

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Forest management involves various degrees of human intervention to safeguard the forest ecosystem and its functions as well as the exploitation of forest resources. While the objectives of management vary widely and include the protection of resources in protected forests and nature reserves, the primary objective is mostly the production of wood products. Although sustained yield forestry continues to be widely practised, there is an increasing trend towards the management of forests as ecological systems with multiple economic benefits and environmental values, ensuring that benefits meet present as well as future generations’ needs. In order to assess forest management intensity in Europe an indicator based on three data sources has been developed: a) Fast track ecosystem capital accounts (forest growth & harvest – disaggregated to 1km grid), b) Potential forest management (gradient of intensity of intervention with the natural processes in a forest) c) Forest fragmentation (forest ecosystem network connected by forest bridges – GUIDOS Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis). Each input dataset has been assessed separately in a first step in terms of pressures on forest ecosystems which are the result of the specific management, use or respectively state of the forest patch. The overall management related pressure is then derived by crossing the relative pressures by each input and evaluating the constellation of the input representative factors. This updated version of the management related forest pressures is based on the first assessment done in framework of the ETC-SIA report "Land use and land management related pressures on agricultural and forest ecosystems" (ETC-SIA, Task 1.8.4.3 Ecosystem pressures).

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The intensity of land take is calculated as land take in the given period in % of artificial surfaces in the year 2000. For easier comparability land take is summarized within NUTS3 regions.

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Total ecological footprint is represented by the colored areas (as the product of per person footprint and population size); total biocapacity is represented by the areas within red lines. As of 2014, the EU-28 had approximately 500 million citizens, and a biocapacity of 2.2 global hectares per capita.

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Data: 2018

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Accumulated ozone exposure values for forest — over a threshold of 40 parts per billion (AOT40f) — for 2016, as calculated for the fusion maps and as measured at rural background stations.

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Land recycling addresses the reuse of abandoned, vacant or underused urban land for new developments within FUAs (Functional Urban Areas, i.e. urban agglomerations). Land recycling is considered a response to land take within FUAs, i.e. urban development on arable land, permanent crop land or semi-natural areas. It is a key planning instrument for achieving the goal of no net land take by 2050 (EC, 2016).

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The table shows the percentage cover of MPAs and distance to 10% target for each regional and sub regional sea and by distance zone from the coastline modified from the report: Spatial analysis of Marine Protected Area Networks in Europe´s seas. EEA Technical report, no 17/2015

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Soil plays a crucial role in nature’s cycles, including the nutrient cycle, which involves how much soil organic matter — i.e. carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus — is taken up and stored in soil. Organic compounds, such as leaves and root tips, are broken down to simpler compounds by organisms living in soil before they can be used by plants. Some soil bacteria convert atmospheric nitrogen into mineral nitrogen, which is essential for plant growth. Fertilisers introduce nitrogen and phosphates to induce plant growth but not all amounts are taken up by plants. The excess can enter rivers and lakes and affect life in these water ecosystems.

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Concentrations of eight hazardous substances in European seas were generally 'low' or 'moderate' in line with the results of the previous assessment (2015). In some cases, however, the way we have traditionally defined 'moderate' levels meant that EU environmental quality standards (EQS) were exceeded. Any concentrations of hazardous substances exceeding EQS are unacceptable for marine organisms. In general, concentrations in European Seas were 'moderate' for cadmium, mercury, lead, hexachlorobenzene, DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), polychlorinated biphenyls and benzo[a]pyrene. Both 'moderate' and 'high' concentrations of mercury exceeded the EQS and were found in a significant proportion of all seas.  'High' concentrations for hexachlorobenzene and benzo[a]pyrene, exceeding the EQS particularly in the case of the latter, were also found across all seas. Concentrations of lindane (gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane) were 'high' in the Mediterranean sea and generally low elsewhere. Polychlorinated biphenyl levels appear to be decreasing in the North-East Atlantic Ocean. This suggests that policy measures and initiatives to decrease inputs of these substances in the region have had some success. For the remaining seven hazardous substances, it appears that the impact of abatement policies in this region might have stabilised. Abatement policies for all eight hazardous substances have been in effect for the Baltic Sea, but no downward trends could be identified in the current assessment, indicating that the impact of such policies might have stabilised. Because of insufficient data coverage, a comprehensive assessment all eight hazardous substances for the Mediterranean Sea could not be conducted.  Available data for this region indicates that policies to reduce pollution have had an impact 'though. The Black Sea is not included in this assessment due to lack of data.

Read more

Although further improvements are still necessary, the analysis of long time series shows clear and important signs of improvement in the North-East Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea ( 62.5 - 87.5 % of stocks meet at least one of the good environmental status criteria in these regions). Since the early 2000s, better management of fish and shellfish stocks has contributed to a clear decrease in fishing pressure in these two regional seas, with average fishing mortality dropping below the maximum rate of fishing mortality in 2017. This has led to signs of recovery in the reproductive capacity of several fish and shellfish stocks. If these efforts continue, fishing mortality in the region should remain on average near the maximum rate of fishing mortality and reproductive capacity should continue to improve, accomplishing the 2020 objective for healthy fish and shellfish stocks in the North-East Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea. In contrast, the situation remains critical in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Only 2 out of 33 stocks (6 %) in the Mediterranean Sea and 1 out of 7 stocks (14.3 %) in the Black Sea meet at least one of the good environmental status criteria. This is mainly due to the prevalence of overfishing and a significant lack of knowledge of the status of fish and shellfish stocks. Given this scenario, i t is unlikely that the 2020 policy objective will be met in the Mediterranean or Black Sea. Overall, the 2020 objective of having healthy fish and shellfish populations is unlikely to be met in Europe’s seas without further collective action.

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Monitoring schemes show significant long-term (25-year) downward trends in common birds (in particular farmland birds) and grassland butterfly population numbers, with no signs of recovery. Between 1990 and 2016, there was a 9 % decrease in the index of common birds in the 26 EU Member States with bird population monitoring schemes. This decrease is slightly greater (11 %) if figures for Norway and Switzerland are included. The common forest bird index decreased by 3 % (EU) and by 5 % (EU plus Norway and Switzerland) over the same period. The decline in common farmland bird numbers over the same period was much more pronounced, at 32 % (EU) and 35 % (EU plus Norway and Switzerland).  The index of grassland butterflies has declined significantly in the 15 EU countries where butterfly monitoring schemes exist. In 2017, the index was 39 % below its 1990 value.  

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This data viewer provides information about the land cover and land cover change within the Natura 2000 network.

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This interactive data viewer provides an easy and comprehensive access to land cover accounts for Europe (EEA39 and EU28) derived from the CORINE land cover data series. Statistics are derived for every 6 years of the acquisition period, as well as for the entire period (2000-2018). The viewer facilitates the assessment of land cover consumed or created over a specific period and the reason for the observed change (e.g. urban sprawl or arable land loss), which can be analyzed within user defined spatial units such as administrative regions, biogeographical regions or land cover classes.

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The intensity of land take is calculated as land take in the given period in % of artificial surfaces in the year 2000. For easier comparability land take is summarized within NUTS3 regions.

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Land recycling addresses the reuse of abandoned, vacant or underused urban land for new developments within FUAs (Functional Urban Areas, i.e. urban agglomerations). Land recycling is considered a response to land take within FUAs, i.e. urban development on arable land, permanent crop land or semi-natural areas. It is a key planning instrument for achieving the goal of no net land take by 2050 (EC, 2016).

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The map shows an overview of protected sites in Europe. The EU’s Natura 2000 network and the Bern Convention’s Emerald Network are ecological networks of protected areas, set up to ensure the survival of Europe's most valuable species and habitats. Information about protected areas designated at national levels is collected in 39 countries by the European Environment Agency. Click on the map image below to go to the interactive map.

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Data: 2018

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Accumulated ozone exposure values for forest — over a threshold of 40 parts per billion (AOT40f) — for 2016, as calculated for the fusion maps and as measured at rural background stations.

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The map shows the distribution of fragmentation classes across Europe. Classes represent the number of meshes per 1 000 km2. Light colours mean less fragmentation pressure and dark colours mean higher fragmentation pressure of urban and transport infrastructure expansion.

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Total ecological footprint is represented by the colored areas (as the product of per person footprint and population size); total biocapacity is represented by the areas within red lines. As of 2014, the EU-28 had approximately 500 million citizens, and a biocapacity of 2.2 global hectares per capita.

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The table shows the percentage cover of MPAs and distance to 10% target for each regional and sub regional sea and by distance zone from the coastline modified from the report: Spatial analysis of Marine Protected Area Networks in Europe´s seas. EEA Technical report, no 17/2015

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The table shows the areal extent of Europe's seas and selected characteristics of EU marine protected areas (MPAs), namely area coverage, percentage of coverage and total number of sites. Data excludes the Icelandic Sea, Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea

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