OBSERVER: How the EU Space Programme supports conservation efforts
OBSERVER: How the EU Space Programme supports conservation efforts
evan
Wed, 21/08/2024 – 14:19
Conservation is crucial to maintaining biodiversity—an essential component of healthy ecosystems which provide essential services to humanity, such as clean air and water, pollination of crops, and climate regulation.
In this week’s Observer, we are looking at how the EU’s Space Programme is supporting conservation efforts across Europe and beyond, either by providing data products to institutions or by supporting researchers and conservationists working on the ground to protect endangered species.
The importance of species conservation
Worldwide, species of all kinds—plants, mammals, fish and others—are undergoing significant population declines and increased risk of extinction. Habitat destruction, climate change, pollution, overexploitation, and the spread of invasive species are among the main drivers of these declines.
In the European Union, the numbers are worrying. In the latest State of Europe’s Nature report from the European Environment Agency, 47% of the 463 bird species that were assessed are in good conservation status, while 39% are in poor or bad conservation status, meaning they still face threats to their way of life. Although there are signs of recovery in some areas thanks to the ongoing efforts to reduce the impact of pollutants, eutrophication, and other threats, progress has not been sufficient to meet the objectives of the EU Biodiversity strategy to 2020.
The Missolonghi-Aitoliko Lagoons, part of a Natura 2000 site located on the western coast of Greece, provide a refuge for a wide variety of flora and fauna, including migratory birds such as flamingos, herons, and pelicans. Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery
That’s why the new EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030—a long-term plan to protect nature and reverse ecosystem degradation—strives to be more successful, setting out more ambitious targets and specific commitments and actions to restore and recover Europe’s nature and Biodiversity by 2030.
Restoring ecosystems also benefits people. By protecting endangered species and their habitats, we are also ensuring the survival of diverse biological resources that contribute to medical discoveries, agricultural innovation and cultural heritage. The EU Space Programme contributes to these efforts in many ways.
For example, Earth Observation for Biodiversity brief, published by the European Commission’s Knowledge Centre on Earth Observation (KCEO), showcases how the Copernicus Services play an increasingly important role in delivering products and tools to monitor changes in ecosystems and biodiversity loss, making them useful for evaluating the efficacy of conservation work.
Copernicus and marine conservation
Conservation efforts are supported by advanced technology and data analysis, which provide critical insights into environmental change and biodiversity trends. The Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS) plays a key role in this regard.
By providing near real-time data on oceanographic conditions, CMEMS supports the decisions to designate and create protected areas dedicated to biodiversity, such as Natura 2000 sites or Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). A marine protected area is an area of the ocean where a government has placed restrictions on human activity. Many MPAs allow people to use the area in a way that does not damage the environment. activity. Many MPAs allow people to use the area in a way that does not damage the environment.
The Portofino Marine Protected Area, located along the Ligurian coast in the region of Liguria, northern Italy, was established to safeguard its extraordinary marine biodiversity and to promote a sustainable use of its natural resources. Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery
In addition, CMEMS provides assessments and forecasts of many relevant variables needed to monitor the marine environment, such as water salinity, temperature, and turbidity. Scientists can rely on this data to study anthropogenic pressures on specific areas. They can also use it to investigate abnormal declines in species.
For example, a team in the Atlantic islands of the Azores in Portugal is using CMEMS’ micronekton product to support the monitoring of whales in the North Atlantic. The research team created a monitoring model using multiple data sets, including CMEMS data, and modelled the whales’ habitat preferences in relation to certain environmental and prey-related variables. Micronekton are small fish, crustaceans, or molluscs which migrate to the surface in the water column and play an important role in the marine food web. The distribution of micronekton provides insights into the movement patterns and population dynamics of baleen whale species, such as fin, blue, and sei whales. These baleen whales, which are considered endangered, are vulnerable to anthropogenic threats such as ship collisions and noise disturbance.
Loss of biodiversity and climate variables
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) is also useful on the conservation front. The Service has many products which help us better understand climate change, but some of this data can also be used to support the conservation of species in different ecosystems.
In a recent project, the Sectoral Information System (SIS) to support Global Biodiversity, C3S provided tailored climate-biodiversity indicators to properly assess and manage biodiversity loss. These datasets and applications, available in the Climate Data Store, support the biodiversity and conservation user community in tracking the health of key ecosystems by offering insights into habitat suitability, species distribution, species fitness and reproduction, and ecosystem services.
For example, the ‘Thermal suitability for fish species habitat’ application, developed within the SIS, explores the thermal suitability for selected fish species habitats across the world’s oceans and inland seas, based on climate projections. Users can visualise thermal suitability for 14 commercially important fish species—such as cod, sardine or haddock—and sea surface temperature based on annual, summer, and winter means.
The ‘Thermal suitability for fish species habitat’ application explores the thermal suitability for selected fish species habitats across the world’s oceans and inland seas. Credit: European Commission, Copernicus Climate Change Service
Preserving terrestrial ecosystems
Earth’s forests are some of the richest and most biodiverse habitats. Not only do they serve as important carbon sinks, but they are also home to diverse species of insects, animals, vegetation, and microbes. Data and products from the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) prove helpful to the stakeholders protecting these key ecosystems.
A particularly interesting product in this regard is High Resolution Vegetation Phenology and Productivity (HR-VPP). This high spatial and temporal resolution land monitoring dataset allows better monitoring of vegetation dynamics and assessment of climatic and anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems. With its wide range of applications, the HR-VPP product strengthens CLMS’s ability to support the implementation of key EU policies, such as the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Screen capture showing the seasonal productivity parameter from the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service’s High Resolution Vegetation Phenology and Productivity product. Credit: Copernicus Land Monitoring Service
Protecting vulnerable habitats
Protecting habitats such as forests, grasslands, and shrublands is essential for safeguarding biodiversity and conserving threatened species across Europe. Copernicus data is used in the detection and monitoring of wildfires, providing critical information to emergency responders. The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which is part of the Early Warning and Monitoring component of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS), centralises information on forest fires and other types of wildfires and supports the national services responsible for fire management, enabling them to better prevent and respond to these disasters.
The EFFIS ‘Current Situation Viewer’ includes a layer called “Protected Areas Layer” which enables users to assess fire danger in nature reserves and to monitor the extent of wildfires and the ecosystems that are impacted by them. To further understand the impact of wildfires on habitats, users can also access the EFFIS annual reports to find out the proportion of burnt area affecting Natura 2000 sites.
The EFFIS network currently covers 43 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa and provides specific support to the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) for near-real-time information on forest fires and other types of wildfires. It provides information to policymakers, supporting wildfire management and the protection of natural areas in the EU.
EU Grassland Watch
Another ongoing project which is helping to improve conservation efforts across Europe is EU Grassland Watch. Grasslands are essential for biodiversity and food production and play a crucial role in ecological processes such as pollination, water regulation, carbon sequestration, and climate regulation. They are one of the world’s largest biomes, covering about a third of the Earth’s terrestrial surface and 70% of the world’s agricultural land.
In 2019, the Copernicus for Natura 2000 (COP4N2K) project was launched as a first step towards developing consistent and effective Natura 2000 monitoring services specifically addressing grassland monitoring. The project resulted in the development of an Earth Observation (EO) data processing and analysis workflow and a prototype EU Grassland Watch platform. The platform was designed to support site managers, Member State representatives, and the general public in monitoring and reporting on grassland-dominated Natura 2000 sites.
A consortium formed around the initial COP4N2K partners has now been selected by DG Environment to update and extend the current EU Grassland Watch prototype into a fully operational service which will leverage data and products from Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS). This will allow a better integration of Earth Observation capabilities for ecosystem protection and conservation.
Grasslands such as meadows support a wide range of flora and fauna, including important pollinators such as bees and butterflies.
GNSS and wildlife protection
Although Copernicus is the first to come to mind when we think of the EU Space Programme and its impact on nature conservation, other components, such as Galileo, also play an important role. Galileo, Europe’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), provides highly accurate positioning, navigation, and timing information, which is important for detailed ecological mapping, wildlife tracking, and protected area management. For example, GNSS-enabled collars are used to track the behaviour of wild animals, and Galileo’s multi-frequency capabilities reduce signal interference and improve location accuracy—a particularly useful feature in dense forests or remote areas where other GNSS signals might be less reliable.
In a recent study, researchers tested GNSS collars in a forest and mountain environment to simulate the trajectory of a wild mammal. They found that multi-frequency GNSS collars performed better than single-frequency GNSS collars. They were able to collect more accurate locations, providing fine-scale information on animal behaviour in terms of feeding strategies and competition for resources. By using multi-frequency collars instead of single-frequency collars, the ecologists were able to improve their understanding of wildlife behaviour, which can inform more effective conservation strategies.
Another interesting way in which Galileo improves conservation work is through the new High Accuracy Service (HAS). This service provides free access, via the Galileo signal (E6-B) and terrestrially (Internet), to the information needed to estimate an accurate positioning solution in real time using a Precise Point Positioning algorithm. It provides horizontal accuracy down to 20 cm and vertical accuracy of 40 cm—a level of precision which can help better monitor endangered animals.
A team of scientists working in the Galápagos Islands is already using these capabilities to study turtles. By using drones with Galileo HAS-enabled receivers, ecologists are exploring the ecological impact of introducing Española Island tortoises in the archipelago following the extinction of the native Santa Fe tortoises. Galileo HAS provides precise positioning, enabling the drones to achieve high accuracy in their multispectral imaging tasks. This precision is critical for mapping flora distribution and monitoring the activities of the introduced tortoises and native Santa Fe land iguanas. The research aims to restore the ecological balance on the island, which has been disrupted by the loss of species.
The Galapagos Islands are renowned for their extraordinary biodiversity and home to unique species such as giant tortoises and marine iguanas. Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-3 imagery
Data and services provided by the EU Space Programme play an important role in advancing nature conservation efforts across Europe. Copernicus is certainly a leader in this regard, with its six thematic services supporting marine, terrestrial, and climate-linked conservation projects, providing invaluable insights and environmental monitoring capabilities. This is complemented by Galileo, which provides accurate and reliable positioning, navigation, and timing information, allowing for effective ecological mapping and wildlife tracking. Together, these components equip conservationists with powerful tools to help protect biodiversity and preserve Europe’s natural heritage—aligning with and reinforcing the broader EU environmental policies and goals.
Wed, 21/08/2024 – 12:00
