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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 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.
The bar-chart shows the yearly land take (in km2/yr) per major land covers; the pie charts show land take in % of the land cover in 2000
The chart shows the area of land take and net land take for all Corine Land Cover observation periods between 2000-2018 for the EU28 and EEA39 regions. Values are expressed as km2/yr land take.
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.
This indicator shows trends in the abundance of common birds and butterflies across their European ranges over time . It is a composite of many species trend indices. A value of 100 is set for each species in the start year. If a species is added to the composite index after the start year, it is scaled to the index value of the year it was added to the indicator.
Article 12 of the Birds Directive requires Member States to report about the progress made with the implementation of the Directive. A report is sent to the European Commission every 6 years following an agreed format. These scoreboards provide information on timeliness of data delivery by Member States for the reporting 2013-2018.
These data sets show the European forest area in 2012 and in 2015 at 100m spatial resolution, covering EEA39 countries. They are based on Copernicus HRL forest products at 20m spatial resolution and comply with the FAO forest definition (i.e. minimum mapping unit of 0.5 ha, minimum coverage of 10% and excluding land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use). After the selection of those pixels identified as forest by the HRL forest products and also compliant with FAO criteria, the forest area dataset at 100m was computed as a Boolean product (i.e. forest / non-forest). The value 1 (forest area) correspond to the pixels where forest is the major coverage; otherwise the pixel value is 0 (non-forest area).
The delineation of European mountain areas was carried out by using digital elevation models, considering different criteria combination of thresholds of altitude, climate, and topography variables (IP2008 8.2.7 Regional and territorial development of mountain areas, ETC/LUSI - EEA). This dataset was created in 2008, covers the full European continent and is a reference layer for the EEA Report No 6/2010 on Europe's ecological backbone: recognising the true value of our mountain.
Ecosystem type map: Marine part - Sea zones
Since 1949, 1,039 NIS have been introduced in European seas. The main pathways for marine NIS introduction are shipping (49.1 %) and introductions via marine and inland corridors (33 %: Suez Canal, inland canals). These are followed by unintentional movement of live organisms as contaminants (11 %) and escapees from aquaria, aquaculture and mariculture (5.1 %). Intentional releases in nature account for just 1.7 %. Among NIS transferred by vessels, most species appear to have been transferred through ballast waters (346 species), while the introduction of 287 species is attributed to boat hull fouling. Shipping is the major pathway vector for NIS introductions in all regional seas, its contribution is ranging from 45 % in the Eastern Mediterranean to approximately 82 % in the Black Sea. Corridors are main pathway in the Eastern Mediterranean (>46 % via the Suez Canal) and in the Baltic Sea (14.5 % of all NIS via inland canals). Transport contaminants (directly related to oyster aquaculture) is hold responsible for more than 30 % of NIS introductions in the NE Atlantic (Celtic, Iberian, Icelandic, North Sea). Trends in new NIS introductions exhibit a decreasing rate in the 2006-2017 period, but new species introductions are still present in all regional seas. Decreasing trend indicates that polices are effective if they are fully implemented, since in some countries the number of new marine introduced species via human activity have been reduced to zero.
The total ecological footprint of the EU-28 countries increased rapidly during the 1960s and 1970s, and has remained relatively constant since the 1980s. However, total biocapacity — the capacity of ecosystems to produce useful biological materials and absorb waste materials generated by humans, using current management schemes and extraction technologies — has changed very little since 1961. The picture is similar for the EEA-39 countries and the wider pan-European region. The constantly increasing ecological footprint coupled with decreasing biocapacity has resulted in an ever larger deficit which may have negative consequences for the environment both within and outside Europe.
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.
The map shows the loss and gain of arable land and permanent crops aggregated in a 10 km grid.
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For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/biodiversity/dm or scan the QR code.
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