LITMIR.BIZ

      Figure 3 Spatial distribution of samples to be collected for soil biodiversity analysis per each visited LUCAS point.

      Initial results should be available during 2020. All information will be hosted by the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC). This will include options for the online generation of maps as well as the entire methodology. Other parties (e.g. national organisations, NGOs) who wish to make the database grow through their own contribution may adopt the same protocol (Orgiazzi et al., 2018).

6Monitoring under the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC

      The Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC is aimed at maintaining or restoring ‘at favourable conservation status, natural habitats and species of wild fauna and flora of Community interest', which are listed in the Annexes of the Directive. Such requirements involve (i) defining ‘conservation status’; (ii) knowing where the habitat/species is found and (iii) what its conservation status is.

      Conservation status is defined as ‘the overall assessment of the status of a habitat type or a species at the scale of a Member State’s biogeographical or marine region’ (DG Environment, 2017) and more precisely Article 1 of the Directive links the term to the extent of the area in which the habitat/species is found, the surface of the habitat area, its structure and functions (in case of habitat), the size of the population, its age structure, mortality and reproduction (of species) (EC, 2009).

      Article 17 of the Habitats Directive (CEC, 1992) requires the Commission to draw up, every six years, a composite report based on the national reports delivered by the Member States of the European Union, including ‘in particular information concerning the conservation measures referred to in Article 6(1) as well as evaluation of the impact of those measures on the conservation status of the natural habitat types of Annex I and the species in Annex II and the main results of the surveillance referred to in Article 11’. The report should be available for the other EU institutions and the public in general.

      Three of these reports are available (the fourth to be released in 2020), two of which focus on the conservation status of the habitat types and species included in the Annexes to the Directive for the periods 2001–2006 and 2007–2012. The assessment of conservation status takes as a reference the concept of favourable conservation status, defined as ‘a situation where a habitat type or species is prospering (in both quality and extent/population) and with good prospects to continue to do so in the future’, which is the overall objective of the Directive.

      The conservation status of a species in the Habitats Directive (Article 1(i)) will be taken as ‘favourable’ when:

      • population dynamics data on the species concerned indicate that it is maintaining itself on a long-term basis as a viable component of its natural habitats,

      • the natural range of the species is neither being reduced nor is likely to be reduced for the foreseeable future, and

      • there is, and will probably continue to be, a sufficiently large habitat to maintain its populations on a long-term basis.

      The conservation status of a habitat in the Habitats Directive (Article 1(e)) will be taken as ‘favourable’ when:

      • its natural range and areas it covers within that range are stable or increasing,

      • the specific structure and functions which are necessary for its long-term maintenance exist and are likely to continue to exist for the foreseeable future, and

      • the conservation status of its typical species is favourable as defined in (i).

      Four parameters have been identified for evaluating the conservation status, which, combined, provide the overall assessment. The parameters are:

      • species: range, population, habitat for the species, future prospects, and

      • habitat types: range, area, structure and functions, future prospects.

      These four parameters are combined to assess conservation status for individual species and habitats using the following four categories: ‘favourable’ (FV), ‘unfavourable-inadequate’ (U1), ‘unfavourable-bad’ (U2) and ‘unknown’ (XX). Trends are equally assessed on the basis of a combination of the individual trends of the four parameters listed above, classified as: increasing, decreasing, stable and unknown.

      Of particular interest for this chapter is the fact that in addition to the respective conservation status, trends and presence per biogeographical and MS provided in tabular format, distribution maps for species and habitats should be provided as geospatial information with a 10 km cell resolution. This allows using the geospatial layers for EU-wide assessments of the status of agroecosystems (Masante et al., 2015). Interestingly, pressures and/or threats are recorded as well, including a ranking of its impact on the conservation status of species for each pressure/threat (Table 3).

Table 3 Pressure categories in the list of pressures and threats (from the explanatory notes and guidelines for the period 2013–2018, http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/help/habitats_art17)