The ecological footprint of Europe is a proxy measure of the amount of biologically productive land and water areas that Europe requires to produce all the biological resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates, using prevailing technology and management strategies. These areas could be located anywhere in the world. This can be compared with the biocapacity of the planet or the biocapacity available within a given region. Both biocapacity and the ecological footprint are measured in global hectares (gha).
This dashboard provides numbers of Annex II species being nationally hunted
This dashboard provides basic statistics on data quality and completeness of the Member states’ reports
This dashboard provides information on the need, purpose and location of conservation measures
This dashboard provides information on the coverage of bird species by Natura 2000 sites and on population trends inside the Natura 2000 network
This dashboard provides information on the relative importance of the main pressures and threats
This dashboard provides information at the national level on the implementation and the effectiveness of international species plans and of management plans for huntable bird species.
This dashboard provides information at the national level on winter population trends of bird species.
This dashboard provides information at the national level on breeding population and distribution trends of bird species. It also includes the master list of bird species reported by Member States.
This dashboard provides information on the number of bird species reported by each Member state.
This dashboard provides information at the national level on the numbers and surface area of Natura 2000 sites and associated legal measures in place.
Article 12 National Summaries dashboards include basic statistics and an overview of the main results from Member States’ Article 12 reports. They are based on information reported by Member States in their national reports for the period 2013-2018.
The chart shows significant trends of vegetation productivity, expressed in % change. The % change values were derived from the fitted linear trend line.
Vegetation productivity indicates the spatial distribution and change of the vegetation cover - a key characteristic of ecosystem condition.
Vegetation productivity in Europe on average has a regional pattern of increase and decline. Increase was observed most in South Eastern Europe, over croplands and wetlands in the Steppic region and grasslands and sparsely vegetated lands and in the Black Sea and Anatolian regions. Decline happened most over croplands and grasslands in the Atlantic region as well as over wetlands in the Alpine region.
Climate has important influence on vegetation productivity in Europe. Strongest is the influence of precipitation increase, especially in the South Eastern regions. Decreasing number of frost days increased productivity in the Pannonian region but decreased productivity in the Atlantic region.
Climatic variations are important drivers of vegetation productivity, but land use changes are even stronger. Productivity was most increased by agricultural land management and converting other lands to agriculture, whereas largest decrease was caused by sprawling urban areas.
Floodplains are part of Europe’s natural capital, covering 7 % of the continent's area and up to 30 % of its terrestrial Natura 2000 site area. Studies have shown that 70-90 % of floodplains have been environmentally degraded. The objective of this work is to showcase that natural floodplains support achieving multiple EU policy objectives. More specifically to show that natural and restored floodplains provide an alternative to structural measures for providing flood protection, and at the same time support achieving higher quality ecosystem service like improved water quality, improved conditions for biodiversity conservation and improved recreational value.
The preservation and restoration of Europe’s largely degraded floodplains, must be better prioritised according to a European Environment Agency (EEA) report published today. The report says floodplains have a key role to play in improving biodiversity, water, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
This viewer provides statistics on spatial extent and land use distribution of floodplain areas of Europe. Here, floodplains are defined as the flood prone area, i.e. the area that would be flooded during a 100-year flood, if there were no flood protection in place. Most flood prone areas are, however, protected against flooding. The statistics are presented in a series of dashboards providing an overview of floodplain characteristics, by country, by river basin districts, and in Natura 2000 sites. The statistics include the extent of floodplains, their ecosystem distribution based on MAES classification and the Copernicus Riparian Zone Products, as well as land cover flows between 2000 and 2018.
The indicator addresses trends in land surface productivity derived from remote sensing observed time series of vegetation indices. The vegetation index used in the indicator is the Plant Phenology Index (PPI, Jin and Eklundh, 2014). PPI is based on the MODIS Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance product (MODIS MCD43 NBAR. The product provides reflectance data for the MODIS “land” bands (1 - 7) adjusted using a bi-directional reflectance distribution function. This function models values as if they were collected from a nadir-view to remove so called cross-track illumination effects. The Plant Phenology Index (PPI) is a new vegetation index optimized for efficient monitoring of vegetation phenology. It is derived from radiative transfer solution using reflectance in visible-red (RED) and near-infrared (NIR) spectral domains. PPI is defined to have a linear relationship to the canopy green leaf area index (LAI) and its temporal pattern is strongly similar to the temporal pattern of gross primary productivity (GPP) estimated by flux towers at ground reference stations. PPI is less affected by presence of snow compared to commonly used vegetation indices such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) or Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI).
The product is distributed with 500 m pixel size (MODIS Sinusoidal Grid) with 8-days compositing period.
References:
Jönsson P., Eklundh L., 2004. TIMESAT—a program for analyzing time-series of satellite sensor data. Computers & Geosciences 30 (2004) 833–845.
Eklundh L., Jönsson P., 2015. TIMESAT: A Software Package for Time-Series Processing and Assessment of Vegetation Dynamics. In: Kuenzer C., Dech S., Wagner W. (eds) Remote Sensing Time Series. Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing, vol 22. Springer, Cham
Jin, H., Eklundh, L. 2014. A physically based vegetation index for improved monitoring of plant phenology, Remote Sensing of Environment, 152, 512 – 525.
Karkauskaite, P., Tagesson, T., Fensholt, R., 2017. Evaluation of the Plant Phenology Index (PPI), NDVI and EVI for Start-of-Season Trend Analysis of the Northern Hemisphere Boreal Zone, Remote Sensing, 9 (485), 21 pp.
Jin, H.X.; Jönsson, A.M.; Bolmgren, K.; Langvall, O.; Eklundh, L., 2017. Disentangling remotely-sensed plant phenology and snow seasonality at northern Europe using MODIS and the plant phenology index. Remote Sensing of Environment 2017,198, 203-212.
Abdi, A. M., N. Boke-Olén, H. Jin, L. Eklundh, T. Tagesson, V. Lehsten and J. Ardö (2019). First assessment of the plant phenology index (PPI) for estimating gross primary productivity in African semi-arid ecosystems. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 78: 249-260.
Jin, H., A. M. Jönsson, C. Olsson, J. Lindström, P. Jönsson and L. Eklundh (2019). New satellite-based estimates show significant trends in spring phenology and complex sensitivities to temperature and precipitation at northern European latitudes. International Journal of Biometeorology 63(6): 763-775.
Designation types describe and classify the legal instruments or other effective means used to achieve the long-term conservation of nature in protected or other conserved areas. European countries designate protected areas under sub-national, national and EU legislation as well as under international conventions and agreements.
The designation types are classified according to three categories (A, B and C) that are linked to the definitions of protected areas and other conserved areas under “other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECMs).
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