European environmental reporting and policy analysis

Transcription

1 EIONET NRC SOIL Ispra, ITALY December 2012 Data requirements for NFP/Eionet Meeting 29 February 2012 European environmental reporting and policy analysis Geertrui Louwagie Ecosystems assessment group Natural systems and vulnerability programme

2 EEA networks and governance 32 Member and 7 cooperating countries EIONET 39 MS > 800 organisations

3 emvironmental data centres Air Climate Change Land use Biodiversity Water Soil Forests Waste Integerated prod. Natural resources... Eionet/SEIS conceptual framework EEA Data and Information products Data and information services Reportnet, ICT, Inspire, GMES,... Environment Ministries/Agencies, Eionet, Group of 4, National Statistical Offices, UNEP, UNECE, Regional activities,... 3

4 Overview Environmental reporting and policy analysis: SOER 2010 o Approach o Thematic assessment on soil examples o State, trends, outlook/projections gaps and prospects Evolving context o Soil as a resource in an inclusive green economy o Soil as an integrated component of ecosystems Conclusions and recommendations

5 State of the environment report 2010 (SOER 2010) Global level European level National level Sub-national level State of environment assessments Soil Water Assessments assessments Biodiversity assessments Thematic assessments

6 State of environment report 2010 (SOER 2010) Thematic assessments: describe state of and trends in and prospects for key environmental issues review related socioeconomic driving forces contribute to an evaluation of policy objectives

7 Drivers - State & Trends Impacts - Outlook Responses Specific for assessment context Measurable o Time series: frequency of monitoring/reporting o Robust trends: signal versus noise Available/accessible in a cost-effective way Relevant to policy Timely/time-bound o Time horizon of policy cycle o Time lag of ecosystem response DPSIR (driving force pressure state impact response)

8 Thematic assessment on soil Cf. Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection [COM(2006)231] o Decline in organic matter o Erosion o Compaction o Sealing o Salinisation o (Acidification) o Decline in biodiversity o (Desertification) o Floods and landslides o Local and diffuse contamination

9 Example: soil organic matter State o based on modelling o validation with support from EIONET NRC Soil data collection 2009/10

10 Example: soil organic matter and climate change Trends: based on change in land cover signal versus noise? Outlook: complex pathways

11 Example: sealing/imperviousness - prospects State & Trends: CORINE (vector): 25 ha minimum mapping unit (5 ha change detection) High-resolution layer (raster): 20 m image resolution; sealing and density Outlook?

12 State, trends, outlook Gaps and prospects Organic matter (decline) State Trends Outlook Scope countries - +: pathways Validation; coverage Erosion (risk) - Validation; coverage Compaction (susceptibility) - +: drivers Sealing +: drivers Validation; coverage Verification & enhancement Salinisation Validation Biodiversity (decline) Landslides Local contamination - Fragmented - Not harmonised - Harmonised? Data +: drivers Updates? +: drivers Harmonisation Harmonisation

13 Soil as a resource in an inclusive green economy

14 Soil as an integrated component of ecosystems Land-related resource efficiency o Europe 2020 Strategy Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe [COM(2011) 571] Soil for ecosystem and ecosystem service assessment o EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 [COM(2011) 244]: Target 2 Maintain and restore ecosystems and their services, Action 5 Improve knowledge of ecosystems and their services in the EU o Millennium Assessment (follow-up): sub-global assessment Input for ecosystem capital accounting (water, carbon, land, biodiv.) o EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020 (Target 2-Action 5); Beyond GDP o UNSD System of Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA) accounting standards SOER 2015 (cf. 7 th EAP)

15 Example: ecosystem assessment matrix Food, fodder, fibre & fuel prod. Filtr./transf. Flood control Carbon & biodiv. pool Archive cultural and natural heritage Soil and land: integrated elements of ecosystems

16 Example: framework for land accounting (1km x 1km raster using 100m x 100m data)

17 Example: land-related resource efficiency

18 Application: land-related resource efficiency Results Agricultural soil affected by Sprawl of economic sites and infrastructures (%) Good soil Average soil Atlantic region NUTS-3 level Changes Poor soil Grassland

19 EEA data requirements Completeness (thematic and geographic coverage) Spatial resolution towards 1 x 1 km assessments based on 0.1 x 0.1 km reference grids Quality assessment and control (harmonisation, accuracy, timeliness) State and impacts of environmental change Robust trends, but not necessarily absolute values Focus on functionalities and adequate spatial representation (e.g. interpolation), not only classification

20 Summarising EU policies drive a multitude of needs for soil-related data Soil issues and therefore also soil data needs are widely spread across environmental domains and economic sectors Key to see soil and land as integrated parts of ecosystems and an inclusive green economy Soil data often lacking to allow regular reporting on environmental change (observations replaced by modelling) Changes in soil data often not significant enough to detect robust changes over short time spans (signal versus noise) An open soil data policy and harmonisation of soil data desirable Member countries can benefit from active role in harmonisation

21 Questions Thank you!