Europe’s fragmented biodiversity data landscape under the microscope

How effectively does European biodiversity data inform EU policies? A recent analysis supported by the EU-funded EuropaBON project found the biodiversity data landscape to be uneven and unable to easily answer relevant policy questions.

Titled Europa Biodiversity Observation Network: User and Policy Needs Assessment, the full analysis and report identify the problems that the different European countries and relevant EU agencies face with regard to biodiversity monitoring. In the EU’s highly fragmented data landscape, the varied methods used to collect and analyse biodiversity data make the comparison of information from different European countries practically impossible. “In addition, many countries have difficulty even meeting the minimum biodiversity monitoring required by the European Commission,” notes analysis co-senior author Prof. Henrique Pereira of EuropaBON project coordinator Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, in a news release posted on the ‘EurekAlert!’ website.

“The reasons for this are manifold: too little funding, insufficient technical capacities, a lack of support from long-term political goals, inaccessibility of data from the agricultural, energy, and fisheries sectors, but also a certain skepticism about changing existing methods,” observes assessment co-first author Juliette Martin of EuropaBON partner International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria. Monitoring schemes tend to focus on species and protected areas, while less attention is paid to habitats and ecosystems, and genetic diversity is monitored even more rarely.For the purposes of the report, the researchers consulted with over 350 experts in policy, science and environmental protection. In addition to gaining insight into current monitoring methods and their related challenges, they also aimed to identify solutions to overcome these challenges. “The responses paint a comprehensive picture of the current situation in many European countries and now serve as the basis for the design of a new, multi-national biodiversity monitoring network in Europe,” states IIASA researcher and co-senior author Ian McCallum in the same news release.

Solutions include focusing on better overall coordination, cooperation and synchronisation of monitoring efforts, increased data gathering, enhanced data standardisation and sharing, and greater use of models and new technologies. “These solutions can however only be realised with dedicated funding and capacity building, in coordination with all stakeholders in partnership,” the authors state in the full report.

Consistent, high-quality biodiversity data is needed to ensure integrated policies across different sectors and to meet the goals of the EU’s biodiversity strategy for 2030. The analysis lists the 15 essential biodiversity variables and essential ecosystem service variables that stakeholders considered the most relevant to policy needs. The variables included: bird, mammal and marine fish species abundances; plant, freshwater fish, mammal and invasive species distributions; habitat distribution; land use change; pollinator community abundance; and water quality regulation. Other key variables were belowground carbon content, fish harvest, the economic value of pollination and seed dispersals, and harmful algal blooms. However, most of the highly ranked variables are either inadequately monitored or not monitored at all.

The report’s findings will support the EuropaBON (Europa Biodiversity Observation Network: integrating data streams to support policy) partners in their efforts to select essential biodiversity and ecosystem service variables, identify monitoring gaps in current methods and co-design workflows with different stakeholders. The project ends in November 2023.

For more information, please see:

EuropaBON project website