GIS for Natura2000 – Managing Europe’s Nature Conservation Sites
Stephen Peedell1, Alessandro Annoni1, Susan Christensen1, Angelo Salsi2
European Commission
1Joint Research Centre, Space Applications Institute
2Directorate General Environment
Background
Natura2000 is the cornerstone of EU Nature Conservation Policy, involving the creation of a
network of sites designated at European level in order to protect rare and endangered species
and natural habitats. The creation of this network requires the integration of existing
designated sites with proposals from Member States in order to define a Community List of
sites, which should be finalised by 2004. Natura2000 is managed by Directorate General
Environment of the European Commission. The Agricultural and Regional Information
Systems Unit of the Space Applications Institute of the Joint Research Centre, under a
specific work package of the project “GI&GIS”, is tasked with providing support to DGEnvironment in order to create a Geographic Information System for Natura2000. Phase I of
the project, dealing with database issues, is now well underway and in parallel, Phase II,
focussing on development of applications, has recently begun. GIS for Natura2000 is
scheduled for completion at the end of 2001.
Natura2000
The European Union is home to 150 species of mammal, 520 species of bird, 180 species of
reptile and amphibian, 150 species of fish, 10,000 plant species and at least 100,000 species
of invertebrate. Half of the mammal species and one third of reptile, fish and bird species are
endangered. 3000 plant species are endangered and 27 threatened with extinction. A primary
factor in the reduction in species diversity is the loss or fragmentation of their natural habitats.
EU Nature Conservation Legislation is based on two Directives – the “Birds Directive”1 and
the “Habitats Directive”2. Article 4 of the Birds Directive (1979) requires Member States to
take special measures to conserve the habitat of certain listed threatened species through the
designation of Special Protection Areas (SPA’s). 1600 SPA’s are currently designated,
covering in excess of 100000km2. The subsequent Habitats Directive (1992) has the
fundamental purpose of establishing a network of protected areas to conserve the distribution
and abundance of threatened species and habitats, designated as Special Areas of
Conservation (SAC’s). SAC’s are created at the end of a selection procedure whereby each
Member State submits a list of proposed Sites of Community Importance (pSCI’s). This list is
evaluated in order to identify finalised lists of SCI’s, each of which must in turn be designated
as a SAC by the Member State within 6 years of its inclusion in the Community List.
Together, the SPA’s and SAC’s will form the Natura2000 Network, which is expected to
cover 12% of the EU Territory and consist of between 12000 and 15000 sites.
pSCI lists are submitted to Directorate General Environment as electronic files, based on a
standard data entry form. A database application is provided to the Member States, which
allows the entry of information in a controlled manner. The principal categories of
information that must be supplied for each site are:
General: Site location, dimensions, ownership, name, characteristics, vulnerability and
biogeographic zone
Fauna Species (Birds / Fishes / Amphibians & Reptiles / Mammals / Invertebrates): Species
present, population (Resident or Breeding/Staging/Wintering), conservation status, degree of
isolation, overall value of the site to that species.
Flora Species: Species present, population, conservation status, degree of isolation, overall
value of the site to that species
Habitats: Habitat type, percentage cover, representativity, area of habitat as percentage of
national total, conservation status, global assessment of the value of the site.
A Spatial Database for Natura2000
In contrast to the rigorous definition of information requirements for alphanumeric data,
supported by detailed specifications and a comprehensive data entry application, the
requirements for provision of geographic information are less exhaustive. As a minimum, all
sites must be drawn on maps of the same detail and quality as the official published
topographic maps and meeting all the standards of the competent topographical institute, at a
scale of 1:100,000. Thus DG Environment has a significant archive of printed topographic
maps with Natura2000 sites delineated on them. Whereas the benefits of digital data provision
are mentioned, this is not a mandatory requirement. In fact, in providing site data, most
Member States did in fact provide digital site data. However, these data are not homogeneous,
with significant differences in terms of digitising procedures, reference data, scale, format,
spatial reference system, geographic projection and nomenclature. These differences are
usually reflected on a national basis (where regional differences are normally solved).
Thus, Natura2000 has two basic data collections – the map archive and the alphanumeric
database. A priority activity is to integrate these 2 discrete systems into a single spatial
database.
The Natura2000 alphanumeric database contains several elements of explicit spatial
information (site centroid, area), as well as implicit spatial information (relationship to NUTS
administrative regions, altitude, relationship to CORINE biotopes, relationship to other
Natura2000 sites etc). Often, when the digital site boundaries (polygons) are analysed,
anomalies are detected between these spatial data and the alphanumeric database. For
example, a site whose recorded centroid falls outside of the site polygon, or whose recorded
area differs significantly from the geometric area of the polygon. We performed an initial
analysis of the types of anomalies that could be detected, which led to the specification and
development of an application to automatically process the sites on a country-by-country
basis. This software, called “GISVAL”, has been developed in ArcView, and uses the digital
site boundaries provided by Member States, the Natura2000 database and reference data
(primarily from Eurostat-GISCO) in order to produce a database of the results of the
validation checks. Any anomalies between the validation database and the Natura2000
database can then be used as the basis for reporting back to the Member States in order to
resolve them. In designing a spatial database for Natura2000, it should be noted that digital
data have no legal status, and therefore in order to use these data we will have to determine
that the digital boundary does in fact correspond to that on the paper map provided by the
Member State. Once this has been achieved, future paper map products can be generated
electronically.
The paper map archive contains a vast amount of topographic information, which is useful to
DG-Environment in understanding the geographical context of a given site. Unfortunately, the
results of the validation process will be simply the site polygons, without any additional
reference information. Scanning of the paper maps has been discounted due to a combination
of factors including cost, copyright and management issues. Harmonising digital raster sheets
of all the major mapping agencies in Europe would be a major task. Basic topographic
reference data, preferably in attributed vector form, will therefore have to be acquired at
1:100,000 scale for Europe, and a number of interesting initiatives are already underway in
this respect. In some cases these, and other useful datasets, are available at national level in
digital form, but would be difficult to obtain (due to a missing European GI data policy) and
to harmonise to European level. Priority datasets are standard topographic and man-made
features (transport, settlement, hydrography), Digital Elevation Models and a gazetteer.
More detailed thematic data such as habitat inventories are more problematic since standard
approaches are not necessarily followed. Thus the legend for a forest habitat survey in one
Member State may be different from another, according to differences in methodologies and
semantics.
The creation of a spatial database for Natura2000 represents Phase I of the project. A contract
has recently been awarded to perform the necessary cataloguing and validation tasks, based
on the tools and techniques already developed. As part of a phased programme, sites will now
be validated and entered into the database.
GIS for Natura2000
Phase II of the project has now been initiated, focussing on applications. From the above
review of spatial data related to Natura2000, Geographic Information Systems are an obvious
technology for management, analysis and visualisation of Natura2000 information. We have
concentrated so far on the server side of such technology, in order to integrate geometric and
alphanumeric information fully within a single spatial database. Initial reviews of user
requirements within DG-Environment indicate a high priority to develop simple GIS
applications, which allow rapid identification of sites and the presentation of their
geographical context, and the thematic information (habitats, species etc) contained in the
database. This light, browsing type of application can be developed using intranet
technologies. More sophisticated applications for modelling and monitoring of sites are
limited by scarcity of data at European level and the priority given to administrative
applications at the present time. Many of these thematic applications have in fact already been
developed by individual Member States, and thus we have conducted a thorough survey of
activities at Member State level, in order to identify current best practice and to avoid reinventing the wheel. We are keen to encourage collaborative work within the context of
Natura2000, and throughout the application development phase we will attempt to work with
administrations at regional or national level wherever appropriate.
Applications developed during 2000 will be prototypes, allowing the investigation of different
methodologies and technologies. We expect that as a result of this activity user requirements
will evolve, becoming more analytical in nature, and during 2001 these prototypes, together
with the requirements, will be translated into formal specifications for the system to be
implemented.
Conclusions
Natura2000 has a vast scope, involving a broad group of actors, a diverse and detailed range
of information, much of which is geographic. Without GIS, management and access to the
Natura2000 data is problematic. For GIS to succeed, a robust, integrated spatial database is
required and this has been our priority activity to date. Initial GIS applications will, by
necessity, be simple and tackle the priority issues of efficiency in the identification of sites
and access to data related to them. Spatial analysis of site data does not have a high priority in
the current requirements, although this may change.