“Towards Harmonised Biodiversity Indicators: Insights from a Biodiversa+ Workshop on Connectivity”
Published: February 2026 | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18834837
In March 2025, Biodiversa+ organised a workshop dedicated to improving and harmonising habitat connectivity indicators.
Why this workshop?
Connectivity indicators play a central role in assessing ecosystem condition and guiding conservation and restoration efforts across Europe. As countries work to meet the Kunming‑Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and new EU biodiversity policies, there is a growing need for indicators that are scientifically robust, relevant for policy and comparable across scales. Such indicators must be able to track restoration progress, reflect both structural and functional connectivity, support decisions at different governance levels and ensure coherence between national, EU and global reporting.
Current approaches, however, remain highly diverse. This diversity reflects scientific progress, but it also complicates harmonisation and reporting. The workshop focused on identifying where methods are well established, where gaps remain, and how greater coherence could be achieved.
Main takeaways
Participants shared experiences from different countries and identified several priorities:
- Harmonisation: Methods vary widely across institutions and countries, limiting comparability and weakening EU-wide reporting.
- Data quality: Fine-scale habitat features such as hedgerows or small watercourses are often missing from coarse datasets. Higher resolution remote sensing and field data are important for more accurate assessments.
- Methodological clarity: The variety of tools and models complicates comparison. Clearer conceptual frameworks and more standardised workflows would support consistency.
- Capacity needs: Many authorities lack the expertise, time or computational resources to work with advanced connectivity analyses. Capacity building remains essential.
- Science and policy alignment: Indicators developed at EU level do not always reflect national or local ecological realities. Including national experts early in indicator development improves relevance, feasibility and trust.
The workshop also pointed to promising technological developments. These include high resolution satellite imagery, drone-based mapping, machine learning tools, and modelling frameworks such as ConScape. Participants underlined the value of combining remote sensing with in situ data in iterative and transparent workflows. Maintaining established structural indicators such as Forest Area Density while progressively integrating more advanced network-based approaches was identified as a practical way forward.
Biodiversa+ is committed to advancing this work by strengthening capacity building, promoting open data and tools, and fostering collaboration between countries and research and policy communities. These efforts will help ensure that connectivity indicators are coherent, practical and aligned with Europe’s biodiversity and restoration objectives.
