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Climate change mitigation and nature restoration are two sides of the same coin when it comes to achieving two main objectives of the European Green Deal; climate neutrality and increasing the EU’s natural capital. Well-functioning habitats can take up and store large amounts of carbon, reducing atmospheric CO2 levels and greenhouse gas emissions from land use practices. To use nature’s full potential, we need to know (1) the carbon storage and sequestration potential of European habitats in their present condition and how much carbon can be used to meet EU emissions policy targets; and (2) the measures available to increase carbon storage in habitats, and the synergies and trade-offs between these measures and ecosystem function. This briefing addresses these questions.
The EUNIS habitat classification is a comprehensive pan-European system for habitat identification. The classification is hierarchical and covers all types of habitats from natural to artificial, from terrestrial to freshwater and marine. The habitat types are identified by specific codes, names and descriptions and come with cross-walks to other habitat typologies.
Land take and the associated soil sealing causes less resilient ecosystems through landscape fragmentation and habitats destruction, soil sealing, decreased carbon sequestration and impaired flood protection. These processes are one of the major drivers of land degradation. Restoring wetlands, peatlands, coastal ecosystems, forests, grasslands and agricultural soils are essential for avoiding biodiversity decline and for climate change adaptation. This dashboard presents an overview of land take processes in protected areas of Functional Urban Areas in EEA and EU member states for the years 2012-2018.
Land take and the associated soil sealing causes less resilient ecosystems through landscape fragmentation and habitats destruction, soil sealing, decreased carbon sequestration and impaired flood protection. These processes are one of the major drivers of land degradation. Restoring wetlands, peatlands, coastal ecosystems, forests, grasslands and agricultural soils are essential for avoiding biodiversity decline and for climate change adaptation. This dashboard presents an overview of land take processes in floodplains of Functional Urban Areas in EEA and EU member states for the years 2012-2018.
Land take and the associated soil sealing causes less resilient ecosystems through landscape fragmentation and habitats destruction, soil sealing, decreased carbon sequestration and impaired flood protection. These processes are one of the major drivers of land degradation. Restoring wetlands, peatlands, coastal ecosystems, forests, grasslands and agricultural soils are essential for avoiding biodiversity decline and for climate change adaptation. This dashboard presents an overview of land take processes in Functional Urban Areas in EEA and EU member states for the years 2012-2018. The amount of land take was derived from the Urban Atlas datasets of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service.
Green infrastructure in urban areas consist of vegetated green surfaces, such as parks, trees and small forests, grasslands, but also private gardens or cemeteries. These all contribute to supporting biodiversity, pollinators, carbon sequestration, flood protection and protection against excess heats events. This dashboard facilitates the understanding of the amount of urban green in Functional Urban Areas of the EU and EEA member states.
Climate change assessment of the Fire Weather Index (FWI) aggregated component, computed daily from 1980 to 2100 for five models (see Table 4 of de Rigo et al., 2017 https://doi.org/10.2760/13180 ). The daily FWI is computed for each scenario realisation based on a corresponding model. The entire time series has been estimated (from the end of the control period, the scenario RCP8.5 has been used) and the 90 % quantile of each time period has been computed. The median of the five model ensemble is shown for each period.
Today, the European Commission together with the European Environment Agency (EEA), are publishing a data tool — MapMyTree — for all organisations to join the pledge of planting three billion additional trees by 2030, register and map their planted trees to count the EU target. As part of the European Green Deal, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 commits to planting at least 3 billion additional trees in the EU by 2030, in full respect of ecological principles. This would increase the EU forest area and resilience, enhance biodiversity, and help with climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Pesticides can end up in rivers, lakes and groundwaters, with potential to harm aquatic ecosystems and water quality. The European Environment Agency’s (EEA) new indicator, which aims to track Europe’s progress in reducing pesticides in waters, shows that excessive levels of pesticides have been recorded in a considerable share of European freshwaters.
Landscape fragmentation is the physical disintegration of continuous ecosystems into smaller units, which is most often caused by urban or transport network expansion. Breaking structural connections between habitats results in decreased resilience of habitats and a decrease in their ability to provide various ecosystem services and support biodiversity. This dashboard enables the exploration of landscape fragmentation in 2018 in Europe.
Vegetation productivity indicates the spatial distribution and change of the vegetation cover - a key characteristic of ecosystem condition. Climatic variations are important drivers of vegetation productivity, but land use changes are even stronger. Productivity in Europe increases most due to agricultural land management and converting other lands to agriculture, whereas largest decrease is caused by sprawling urban areas. The dashboard below enables the exploration of these processes during 2000-2018.
Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) represent 22.9 % of the EU territory, but host 75 % of its population. In order to fulfil global and European policy objectives, like “no net land take by 2050”, it is advisable to establish guidance values for land use efficiency for most common settlement types, in particular for urban fringes and small towns in rural areas. Such guidance values need to consider a good balance between efficient land use and sufficient green space to allow a good quality of life. This dashboard presents land use efficiency values for FUAs, calculated as land uptake per capita corresponding to the SDG indicator 11.3.1.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/biodiversity/dm or scan the QR code.
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