Work on improving the quality and Sabine Roscher & Michelle Watson | Expert Group Reporting | 22.10.2018 | Brussels Work on improving the quality and coherence of nature directives data-flows

Introduction For explanation on the background see “High quality data for nature policy - Improving the quality and coherence of data collected under the nature directives” Eleven dashboards have been created, which present the results of the data quality checks (interactive graphs) Details on the methodologies applied are described in the dashboards

Updated Dashboards (1/2) 1. (1) Comparison of the sum of habitat area in SDF and the area of Natura 2000 sites (2) Consistency betw. “relative surface” (A, B, C) and habitat area in the SDFs (3) Comparison habitat area (Art.17) with national land area and MAES ecosystems 2.  3.

Updated Dashboards (2/2) (4) Comparison on the habitat areas in Art17 & Natura 2000 Natura 2000 end2017 database compared with a) Article 17 habitat coverage & b) Article 17/Natura 2000 section habitat coverage (5) Comparison of the number and area of SCI/SAC & SPA reported under Art.12&17 and Natura2000 (comparison of Natura 2000 end2012) (6) Check SDF species population size 4. 5. 6.

Conformance of species population data with SDF

SDF erroneous population units used Please correct and use only pop. units from the code list !!!

New dashboards - Population size N2000 <=> Art.17 con (1/2) Comparison population size in Natura2000 (end 2017) and reported under Art.17 (period 2007-2012) Only about 17% of the records can be compared This is due to: Use of different population units High mobile species: same populations are ‘moving’ around sites (also between MS) thus summing up population size leads to double counting Differences in species codes used in N2000 and Art17 checklists. Population not reported in Art.17 due to checklist status (OCC, MAR, SR)

New Dashboards – Population size N2000 <=> Art.17 (2/2) Filter by N2000 pop.size > 2x Art.17 pop.size (terrestrial plant species, result is record of a MS/region for a species)

New Dashboards – Bird pop. size N2000 <=> Art.12 (1/3) In order to compare population size for Bird species the season used in the Art12 reporting has to be taken into account Therefore the following mapping was applied * ‘Permanent’ records under ‘Breeding’ where counting unit = bfemales, cmales, p Subspecies/flyways were aggregated to species level (e.g. A001-A => A001) Counting units were corrected where obvious (e.g. indiv. changed to official code i)

New Dashboards – Bird pop. size N2000 <=> Art.12 (2/3) Only 16% of the bird records can be compared This can be due to Differences in species codes used in N2000 and Art12 checklists. Population not reported in Art.12 due to checklist status (OCC, MAR, SR)

New Dashboards – Population size N2000 <=> Art.12 (3/3)

New Dashboards – Further population size analysis Natura 2000 end2017 compared with Art. 17 Natura 2000 coverage (Annex B, Section 3) Art. 12 SPA coverage (Annex 2, Section 8)

New Dashboards – Manag. plans Art. 17 & N2000 "While it is acknowledged that management plans are not a requirement under the Directive, this information is of special interest in order to understand the instruments Member States use to manage their network and also to find more specific information if need be." (Commission Decision 2011/484/EU) Comparison of Art. 17 versus data on MP in Natura 2000 end2012 & end2017 4 countries > 70% sites with plan in Natura 2000 end2017 (DK, SE, EE & CZ) EU 27 3 MS don’t have information on management plan in Natura 2000 end2017 database EU average is: 31.1% with MP, 7.1% MP in preparation, 60.8% no MP in Natura 2000 end2017 database

Data quality factsheets Factsheet per MS summarising the results of data quality checks First page points out why high quality data is essential for nature policy Followed by two pages with statistics extracted from dashboards Factsheets to support further discussion betw. EC and MS on data quality issue