Reliable monitoring tools are essential for tracking habitat and ecosystem health, supporting EU and global biodiversity goals. Satellite Remote Sensing (SRS) offers great potential for monitoring changes, but faces challenges.
We are organising an expert workshop on 27 March 2025, from 13:00 to 17:00 CET to explore integrating SRS with other technologies to develop reliable biodiversity indicators.
We will focus on two key examples:
- The Natural Area Connectivity indicator, proposed for the EU Biodiversity Platform dashboard to support the EU Biodiversity Strategy’s Target 1 (protecting 30% of EU land and sea while integrating ecological corridors).
- The Forest Connectivity indicator, adopted under the EU Nature Restoration Law.
Currently, both indicators face significant accuracy challenges. The Natural Area Connectivity indicator incorrectly classifies grasslands as “non-nature,” while the Forest Connectivity Indicator ignores habitat quality.
Using these two indicators as case studies, the workshop will address:
- Current SRS capabilities and limitations;
- Emerging tools like airborne LiDAR, drones, and improved field sampling;
- Strategies for integrating these tools to refine biodiversity indicators;
- Approaches for interpreting results and setting biologically relevant indicators.
13:00 – 13:15 Welcome words and introduction
13:15 – 14:00 Presentations on key examples of connectivity indicators
- Presentation of the connectivity algorithm, by Peter Vogt
- Application to calculate forest connectivity, by Peter Vogt
- Application to calculate natural area connectivity, by Marine Robuchon
- Q&A session
14:00 – 15:30 Methodologies to assess habitats and ecosystem connectivity
- Capabilities and limitations of current SRS technologies
- Emerging tools like airborne LiDAR, drones, and improved field sampling, which, together with SRS, can potentially tackle these challenges. Also addressing scalable approaches to account for various resolution and spatial coverage.
- Examples from grasslands and forests
15:30 – 15:45 Break
15:45 – 16:15 Exchange with participants on establishing robust biodiversity indicators with remote sensing
16:15 – 16:45 Exchange with participants on key examples of connectivity indicators
16:45 – 17:00 Summary
