Conservation Management

 

Background

image (c) Franz Michael GruenweisThis topic should deal with an issue of particular policy relevance, as Green Infrastructure is a main issue of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020 stating that “by establishing Green Infrastructure and restoring at least 15% of degraded ecosystems, European ecosystems and their services should be maintained and enhanced by 2020”. We found the Biodiversity Unit of DG Environment as most relevant requesters and decided in a scoping exercise with this unit for a Green Infrastructure topic related to multifunctional land-use and well balanced delivery of ecosystem services, and finally to the specific topic of ‘biodiversity impact of multifunctional floodplain management’. This topic is currently highly policy relevant, and directly related to policies such as the Habitats Directive, the Water Framework Directive, the Nitrates Directive, the Floods Directive, and the Ramsar Convention.

Information on the recent EU Green Infrastructure Communication (6 May)

kalender2011 2321 8bit

Objectives, approaches & outputs

Objectives:

To assess the impact of the most important floodplain management measures on biodiversity, and to assess how this impact depends on the level of multifunctionality of the measures

Approaches:

We chose the approach of a systematic review (SR) as particularly appropriate for our topic.

The SR will be complemented by two expert assessments. One will cover the country-specific expertise including such not covered by scientific literature, the other one will deal with the relations between the effects of management intervention on the provision of ecosystem services.

Outputs: 

  1. A SR protocol  published in the journal Environmental Evidence;
  2. A report containing the most important aspects of the SR protocol, and preliminary results of the SR;

  3. Expert assessment published in Landscape Ecology: Multifunctionality of floodplain landscapes: relating management options to ecosystem services;

  4. A report covering the country-specific expert assessment on the topics including Ireland, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and the Ukraine (to be published later on as scientific paper in a journal focused on river or landscape management);
  5. The full systematic review on the “biodiversity effects of multifunctional floodplain management” to be published in Environmental Evidence and with a more specific focus in a scientific journal dealing with river or landscape management;
  6. A poster "Conservation of biodiversity in floodplains: Is multifunctionality the solution? " for the River restoration Conference, September 11-13 in Vienna;
  7. In collaboration with the evaluation team: a report (and possibly later on a research paper) on the lessons learned regardingthe NoK – processes.

Agenda

The second workshop of the Working group on floodplain management took place in Hainburg an der Donau/Austria, 7.-9.11.2012.

 Please find details in the agenda. 

Presentations:

  1. Biodiversity effects of multifunctional floodplain management: a BiodiversityKnowledge Demonstration Case 
  2. Biodiversity effects of multifunctional floodplain management: a Systematci Review
  3. On the value of Nature: the concept of Ecosystem Services

 

For further information contact Stefan Schindler. 

 timeline

Who is playing what role (according to prototype)?

  • REQUESTERS: DG Environment
  • KNOWLEDGE HOLDERS: scientists, research institutions, practitioners, floodplain managers, protected area managers
  • KNOWLEDGE HUBS: Nationalpark Donauauen, Institute of Ecology and Botany Hungary/ Academy of Science, International Association for Ecology, Ecosystem Services Partnership, Umweltforschungszentrum Leipzig, International Centre for Ecology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Swiss Biodiversity Forum
  • NOK Knowledge coordination body: Stefan Schindler, Michaela Kropik, Thomas Wrbka, Barbara Livoreil, Andrew Pullin, Luis Santamaria
  • SCOPING GROUP: Stefan Schindler, Sonja Völler, Michaela Kropik, Thomas Wrbka, Marco Fritz, Evdokia Achilleos
  • AD-HOC WORKING GROUP Systematic review: Stefan Schindler, Michaela Kropik, Thomas Wrbka, Lukács Balázs, Gábor Borics, Stuart Bunting, Victor Gasso, Klaus Henle, Maurice Hoffmann, Stephanie Hudin, Peter Søgaard Jørgensen, Robert Kanka, Andreas Krug, Sophie Lauwaars, Volker Mauerhofer, Alexandra Rogers, Christiane Schulz

logos conservation case

 

Useful links:

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/ecosystems/index_en.htm

 http://biodiversity.europa.eu/ecosystem-assessments 

 1339 3161 1649 057  081113 03