eea flag

Search results

1013 results
Sort by:

Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES)

Europe’s ecosystems, on which we depend for food, timber, clean air, clean water, climate regulation and recreation, suffer from unrelenting pressures caused by intensive land or sea use, climate change, pollution, overexploitation and invasive alien species. Ensuring that ecosystems achieve or maintain a healthy state or a good condition is thus a key requirement to secure the sustainability of human activities and human well-being .
Read More…

Agroecosystems

Agroecosystems, are defined as communities of plants and animals interacting with their physical and chemical environments that have been modified by people to produce food, fibre, fuel and other products for human consumption and processing (Maes, 2018).
Read More…

Urban Ecosystems

Urban ecosystems are cities and the surrounding, socio-ecological systems where most people live (Maes, et. al. 2016). They are very peculiar ecosystem types: they are almost completely artificial but they include, in different proportions, all other ecosystem types (forests, lakes and rivers and agricultural areas can all be part of urban fringe) and they are strongly influenced by human activities.
Read More…

Wetlands

Wetlands, as defined by the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar, 197166), include a wide variety of inland habitats and other marine areas no deeper than six meters at low tide.
Read More…

Rivers and Lakes

Rivers ecosystems are characterised by running water (lotic habitats) while lakes ecosystems by standing waters (lentic habitats). The interfaces between water bodies and their catchment, including riparian zones, floodplains, and lakeshores are also an important part of the freshwater ecosystem.
Read More…

Marine

Europe’s seas and oceans host the largest range of ecosystems in the entire European Union. They are hotspots of global biodiversity and provide our citizens with a steady flow of essential goods (e.g. food) and services (e.g. climate regulation).
Read More…

Forest

Forests are the largest terrestrial ecosystem in the EU-28 covering around 16,131 million ha (FOREST EUROPE 2015b), corresponding to 38% of the EU-28’s land area, hosting a dominant part of Europe’s terrestrial biodiversity, and contributing significantly to climate change mitigation.
Read More…

Heathlands, shrubs and sparsely vegetated lands

Heathlands and shrubs are dominated by small woody plants often in combination with herbs, and sometimes with a large contingent of mosses, liverworts and lichens. They are distributed across all the biogeographic regions of Europe from Mediterranean to boreal regions and lowlands to high altitudes.
Read More…

Ecosystem accounting

Protecting ecosystems and biodiversity are key policy targets in the EU’s biodiversity strategy for 2030 and the European Green Deal. EU and national policy makers require information on the extent and condition of ecosystems to improve their management. This page presents the EEA’s work on ecosystem accounting, developed within the European Commission project on accounting for ecosystems and their services EU INCA .
Read More…

Ecosystems and their services

Ecosystems are living systems that cover the entire surface of the earth (land and water). The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, UN, 1992) defines ecosystems as: "a dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment interacting as a functional unit".
Read More…

Protected Areas 2023

Nature conservation activities play the key role in halting the loss of biodiversity and reducing pressure on ecosystems. One fundamental conservation measure targeting species and habitats as well as broader ecosystem functions and services is the designation of protected areas.
Read More…

Countries

This page contains a series of country profiles with data on protected areas, protected species and habitats, ecosystems. It contrasts data on coverage and overlaps between networks of protected areas under national law as well as Natura 2000, shows details on the extent and size of protection as well as the protection system and conservation status of taxa and habitats.
Read More…

Methodological report

Current methodological report outlines the work carried out for developing ecosystem accounts in Statistics Estonia in 2020 and in the first half of 2021. Current work was built on obtained experiences of the experimental work carried out in Estonia in 2019 and work done elsewhere as well as methodological guidance provided by UN SEEA E(E)A1. Methodological development was assisted by the experts of Statistics Netherlands.
Read More…

Europe's Biodiversity

This section digs into the European Biodiversity, by providing an overview on its ecosystems, habitats, species and their official European and international classifications. This section also provides summaries and key information about the status of Europe's nature, ongoing pressures, measures for biodiversity protection and restoration. In most of the cases, the sources are data and information reported by Member States under legislative reporting obligations and the outcomes of the experts’ assessments.
Read More…

Habitats

The term “habitat” has several meanings. In ecology it means either the area and resources used by a particular species (the habitat of a species) or an assemblage of animals and plants together with their abiotic environment. A habitat or a group of related habitats can be considered an ecosystem.
Read More…

Forests

At least 79 200 square kilometres of forest habitats protected under Annex I of the Habitats Directive need to be restored
Read More…

Marine habitats

At least 34 800 square kilometres of marine habitats protected under Annex I of the Habitats Directive need to be restored
Read More…

Protected areas

This Digital Report provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of protected areas in Europe and aims to assist policy makers and the wider public in understanding protected areas in Europe.
Read More…

Connectivity

Due to its high landscape fragmentation, European protected areas are in special need for targeted transboundary connectivity. Compared to other regions of the world, European protected areas already show particularly high connectivity, however, more action is necessary to achieve a free flowing nature network for Europe.
Read More…

Coverage & representativity

European protected areas increased in the last decades, covering over 1.84 million km² of land and sea. With an area of just over 1 million km², the central driver behind this achievement is the Natura 2000 network. On national level, countries exhibit quite distinct approaches in protected area designations and priority setting.
Read More…

Explore Natura 2000

Discover Europe’s nature with its stunning diversity of wild plants, animals and landscapes, many of which are found nowhere else in the world.
Read More…

Future

The protection of European nature has advanced substantially in the past years. Ongoing shortcomings involve the protection of offshore waters and some ecosystem types as well as the implementation of effective management plans and its monitoring. Thus, ambitious action is needed to achieve the targets to 2030 set by the EU and the CBD
Read More…

Introduction

All around the world, human activities pose a severe threat to the remaining natural heritage. Therefore, it is essential to protect intact ecosystems and landscapes, including their diversity of species and habitats.
Read More…

Management

Adequate site management and targeted measures are key factors for successful conservation. Current analyses show, however, that while protection is increasingly secured on paper, the progress on improving the management and assessing the effectiveness of measures has been rather low.
Read More…

Protected Species & Habitats

Many European habitats and species as well as all birds naturally occurring in Europe are covered by the EU Birds and Habitats Directives. As one its the central objectives, the Natura 2000 network aims to protect comprise these 233 habitats, 1 389 non-bird species and the over 460 wild birds.
Read More…

Size

While the number of terrestrial protected areas in Europe is very high (over 130 000), their average size is quite low in comparison to other regions of the world. This largely reflects the high degree of fragmentation arising from agriculture, transport and urban development in Europe.
Read More…

Species

Europe has a rich diversity of wild plant and animal species many of which are unique to this continent and exist nowhere else in the world
Read More…

Threats & pressures

Human activities are reshaping biological communities and affecting ecosystem functioning across the Earth. Climate change, land use change and habitat fragmentation, overexploitation, pollution and invasive alien species have been recognized as the most important and widespread direct anthropogenic causes of biodiversity change (IPBES, 2019).
Read More…

Climate change

Climate change impacts biodiversity through complex interactions among species and between species and their habitats .
Read More…

Invasive species

About 10,000 alien species have been registered in Europe. Some of these species were introduced on purpose and remain economically important. However, a proportion of the alien species established cause significant damage to native biodiversity and can be classified as invasive alien species according to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Read More…

Land use change

Human land use , and its influence on land cover , is a major driver of the distribution and functioning of ecosystems , and thus in the delivery of ecosystem services.
Read More…

Overexploitation

The unsustainable use of natural resources and overexploitation, which occurs when harvesting exceeds reproduction of wild plant and animal species, continues to be a major threat to biodiversity.
Read More…

Pollution

All forms of pollution pose a serious threat to biodiversity, but in particular nutrient loading , primarily of nitrogen and phosphorus, which is a major and increasing cause of biodiversity loss and ecosystem dysfunction.
Read More…

Green infrastructure

The concept of green infrastructure (GI) falls under the umbrella of nature-based solutions and can play a key role in addressing the climate and nature crisis while bringing other benefits to people
Read More…

Policy

This section provides an overview of the European and global policy frameworks aiming to safeguard and support  biodiversity, highlighting their linkages and key targets.
Read More…

Resources

This section provides a collection of key data, indicators and tools that are used as basis for assessing the status of biodiversity in Europe, and as main source for the BISE content preparation.
Read More…

Biodiversity data catalogues

This page presents selected data catalogues and infrastructures offering reference data related to biodiversity in Europe, as developed and managed by BISE key partners, other relevant organisations and projects. The list will constantly increase and be kept up to date.
Read More…

Case Study Hub

In the Case Study Hub you can explore a selection of case studies that have successfully improved the status of a protected species or habitat due to targeted measures.
Read More…