EuropaBON‘s mission is to overcome existing data gaps and workflow bottlenecks by designing an EU-wide framework for monitoring biodiversity and ecosystem services. EuropaBON aims to engage users at the regional, national and European level to identify the data needs of policies and targets aligned with the new European Green Deal, such as the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, Habitats Directive, Birds Directive, Water Framework Directive, Climate Strategy and Ecosystem Restoration goals, the Bioeconomy Strategy, and national and EU wide initiatives on natural capital accounting.

EuropaBON is a fully funded EU Horizon 2020 project with the aim to deliver a cost-effective design for monitoring biodiversity and ecosystem services change across the EU until the end of 2023. The project is led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena- Leipzig, at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). The coordination unit at MLU (WP1) is responsible for the scientific, financial and administrative Coordination of the project. The project coordinator is also responsible for the contacts between the European Commission and the project Consortium. The Consortium Coordination team (CC), which includes the project coordinator and all WP- and task leaders, acts as executive committee of the project, on behalf of the Consortium Assembly (CA) that includes all project partners. The Advisory Board (AB), consisting of representatives of the EEA, GBIF, Biodiversity4All, the European Biodiversity Partnership (EBP), Microsoft, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Geo Engine – a private geo-data processing company, as well as two independent scientists with strong connections to the ESP (R. Chaplin-Kramer) and to Pan-European Bird Monitoring Schemes driven by NGO’s (RSPB – R. Gregory), provide policy and scientific advice, and help connect EuropaBON to the relevant international initiatives.

EuropaBON is coordinated by the project coordinator Henrique Pereira, the scientific coordinator Andres Marmol-Guijarro, the senior scientist Miguel Fernandez, the administrative coordinator Karolin Dietrich/Annett Masur, programmer and web-designer Christian Langer at MLU, as well as Camino Liquete from the Joint Research Council. The coordination team also includes Sigrid Köhne and Claudia Weinhold-Kiefhaber, who provide administrative and financial support from MLU’s EU-office.

About Europa BON
Co-Leads

Henrique Pereira
iDiv
Andres Marmol-Guijarro
iDiv
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Key objectives
  1. Adapt the generic Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and Essential Ecosystem Services Variables (EESVs) and their characteristics (spatial, temporal and biological entity, scope and resolution) to address the specific user needs.
  2. Survey existing monitoring initiatives, including long-term ecosystem monitoring and monitoring that responds to regulations (directives and strategies), remote sensing and citizen science, and assess how they can contribute to producing comprehensive biodiversity information under the EBVs and EESVs frameworks.
  3. Identify gaps in the current monitoring of European biodiversity, including thematic, taxonomic, geographic and temporal gaps, and how novel technologies and modelling approaches can assist in filling those gaps.
  4. Analyze the pathway from data collection to knowledge production in order to identify good practices, bottlenecks and limitations on the mobilization and harmonization of monitoring data to publicly accessible infrastructures and on their policy uptake.
  5. Co-design workflows needed for a more integrated biodiversity observation network that can close gaps and reduce bottlenecks, in dialogue with data producers and users to support EU policies and targets. For the first time, workflows will be proposed for a wide range of EBVs at the European scale including the biodiversity monitoring protocols, modelling tools available, and analytical steps required.
  6. Assess cost-effectiveness of existing monitoring schemes and of the new monitoring design (including benefits related to ecosystem services, as well as co-benefits on education, Common Agricultural Policy goals, and business opportunities) with EBVs and EESVs workflows implemented at different levels of ambition.
  7. Demonstrate in a set of policy-oriented showcases how such EBVs and EESVs workflows allow the integration of different data streams and thus provide timely and relevant data across the EU member states and regions, including indicators to assess policy targets and ecosystem condition, current trends, short-term biodiversity and ecosystem services forecasts for the public, and support the development of long-term scenarios in IPBES and other initiatives.
  8. Mobilize a coalition of key players in national and EU level bodies to establish the ToR for a permanent Biodiversity Monitoring and Coordinating Centre that will implement and oversee a European Biodiversity Observation Network