Publications

The intended audience of this European Environment Agency (EEA) publication is the professional environmental evaluation community, that is, evaluators of European environment and climate policies, the EEA's networks and interested evaluation professionals, including those that are active in the European Environmental Evaluators Network (EEEN). The publication aims to facilitate a dialogue on policy evaluation, by clearly setting out the EEA's views on some of the challenges that evaluators encounter in the areas of environment and climate policy.

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A scoping study on the links between public communication, environment policy implementation and behavioural science. In its Multiannual Work Programme 2014-2018, the EEA highlights the need for a transition towards a more sustainable society, fully aligned with the European Union’s 7th Environment Action Programme. This study explores - and aims to develop - the role of public communication to improve the implementation of environmental legislation and to contribute to this debate by bringing communications, environment and behaviour closer. It draws from other EEA work, in particular on consumption and policy evaluation where relevant.

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The 2011 Roadmap to a resource efficient Europe states, in its milestone of actions to address land as a resource, that 'By 2020, EU policies take into account their direct and indirect impact on land use in the EU and globally. This report presents a methodology for the assessment of European Union (EU) policies in terms of their land-related implications in Europe and provides an initial testing of the methodology across key EU policies and two in-depth case studies, which focus on Cohesion Policy spending on transport in Poland and Spain.

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Analysis of national responses under Article 21 of the EU ETS Directive in 2015

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This report focuses on the role of floodplains in flood protection, water management, nature protection or agriculture and the impact of hydromorphological alterations on the ecosystem services that floodplains provide. The aim is to support the implementation of the EU Floods Directive (EU, 2007), in particular with regard to environmental impacts and how these can be linked to climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. It looks at synergies between water management, nature conservation and economic developments both in the field and on policy level.

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This report presents a revised overview of the EEA's EU 2010 biodiversity baseline report. The revision is necessary because the typology of ecosystems used in the 2010 report has since been altered by a working group of biodiversity experts. The revised report provides the relevant facts and figures on the state and trends of the different biodiversity and ecosystem components recalculated to align with the new typology of ecosystems.

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As adaptation policy progresses in Europe, it is increasingly important, that people have access to relevant and high quality information. A broad range of users consider web-based adaptation platforms an effective means of collecting and sharing experiences and knowledge to interested stakeholders including policymakers, practioners and the general public. The report provides an overview on the state of play of most adaptation platform in Europe including 14 national adaptation platforms. It offers information on the scope, history, targeted users, the selection and presentation of knowledge, the links to other topics, scales and platforms as well as the monitoring and evaluation of the platforms. It also analyses existing and potential links of the platforms to climate services and Disaster risk reduction (DRR) platforms.

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Analysis of national responses under Article 21 of the EU ETS Directive in 2014

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Building a Shared Environmental Information System with the Eastern Partnership countries.

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Building a Shared Environmental Information System with the Eastern Neighbourhood: The analysis presented in this synthesis report has streamlined the information requirements of six countries and their capacities to put solutions in place to meet these requirements.

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The synthesis report informs future European environmental policy in general and its implementation between 2015 and 2020 in particular. It includes a reflection on the European environment in a global context, as well as chapters summarising the state of, trends in, and prospects for the environment in Europe.

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The INSPIRE Directive, which came into force in 2007 and is expected to be fully implemented by 2020, aims to establish a European Spatial Data Infrastructure in order to support policy making by providing more and better spatial data. The following report analyses the state of implementation of the Directive at the mid-point of its implementation. The conclusions of the report suggest that INSPIRE implementation is on track, however, certain actions - especially coordination and data sharing – would benefit from strategic adjustment.

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This report presents final data for both vehicle types, updating preliminary data published earlier in 2014.

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The EEA has collected EU Member States' data on passenger car registrations, in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 443/2009. All Member States reported information on Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and the mass of cars, together with other vehicle characteristics. This data was used to evaluate the performance in 2013 of the new vehicle fleet, and its progress toward meeting the CO2 emissions target of 130 grams of CO2 per kilometre (gCO2/km) by 2015. The current dataset is provisional, and will now be sent for verification to all car manufacturers responsible for cars registered in the EU in 2013.

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Data reported by companies on the production, import and export of fluorinated greenhouse gases in the European Union

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The main objective of this study is to provide practical knowledge on the current status of the implementation of key principles of Article 9 of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), and in particular on the cost‑recovery principle.

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The 'green economy' has emerged as a priority in policy debate in recent years. But what does the concept mean in practice and how can decision-makers measure progress towards this strategic goal? This report provides some answers, presenting a detailed overview of the key objectives and targets in EU environmental policy and legislation for the period 2010…2050. It focuses on selected environmental and resource policy areas, specifically: energy; greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and ozone-depleting substances; air quality and air pollution; transport sector emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants; waste; water; sustainable consumption and production (SCP); chemicals; biodiversity and land use.

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This document is the annual European Union (EU) emission inventory report under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) (UNECE, 1979). The report and its accompanying data are provided as an official submission to the Executive Secretary of UNECE by the European Commission on behalf of the EU as a party. The report is compiled by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in cooperation with the EU Member States.

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Almost three quarters of Europeans live in cities. The air quality in our cities is therefore of significant importance to the health of Europeans. Considerable progress has been made in the past twenty years in improving urban air quality, but issues remain. A number of different air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and ozone remain above regulated levels, posing a threat to human health. This report describes a European pilot project to help identify and address the reasons underlying this 'gap' in implementation of air quality policy in 12 European cities, and thereby draw lessons of wider relevance.

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These are the first EU-level water accounts that display water balances at monthly and sub-basin levels. EEA developed these accounts in the hope that the many data gaps and methodological imperfections will be ironed out in the future.

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