The web database on biodiversity monitoring initiatives at the European level
Creators: name: Morán-Ordóñez, Alejandra
name: Martí-Pino, David
name: Villero, Dani
name: Brotons, Lluís
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021

description: GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE DATABASE AND ITS ELEMENTS

We have set up a web-based (https://monitoring.europabon.org/) platform to collect/record the current biodiversity data workflows across Europe. This database will help us understand how biodiversity data collected in monitoring schemes across Europe flows through different institutions and programs and gets processed to produce Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and Ecosystem Services Indicators (ESS) other EU policy-relevant indicators. From here on, we use the term ‘integration initiatives‘ to refer to each one of these full biodiversity data workflows. As a reminder here, the priority is to collect integration initiatives at the European level, but integration initiatives at other scales (e.g. National) can also be accommodated, particularly if there is a potential to produce a policy-relevant EBV or indicator or at least the potential to be integrated into other European-level integration initiatives. Some examples of European level biodiversity data workflows are the reporting of the Habitats and the Water Frameworks Directives, the Wild Bird Indicators produced in the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme or the European grassland butterfly indicator produced in the European Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. The set of integration initiatives collected in this database will constitute the information flow network of the EUROPABON project. 

There are three main elements in each integration initiative:



IntegrationNodes: institutions/projects/platforms integrating/processing biodiversity data to generate EBVs, ESS or any other indicators with potential relevance to environmental policy, particularly at the European level. One single integration initiative can be composed of many nodes operating at different scales (e.g. subnational, national, European-level) in a coordinated manner. One single institution can act as an integration node of different integration initiatives.

BiodiversityData: biodiversity monitoring initiatives responsible for the collection of biodiversity information (data from field observations). The focus of WP3.1 is not to map all monitoring initiatives in Europe, but to ensure that those monitoring initiatives providing data for current biodiversity workflows are well represented in the database.

Datastreams (arrows): these represent data flows and connect IntegrationNodes across different scales. These contain two types of information: information related to the data flowing between nodes (dataset) and whether this has been integrated (“products”: EBVs, ESS, indicators) or not (raw and aggregated data) (data process). If the data has been integrated/processed, it also contains information about the integration method. A data stream that doesn´t connect with another integration node represents a final Product (EBVs, ESS, Indicator) that can eventually be uptaken by policy or not (this is represented in Figure 1 with diamonds of different colours).