Habitats Committee 15.11.2010
Revision of the Art 17 reporting format for the period 2007-2012
1stConsultation of the Habitats Committee
Overview on the comments received from MS
(28.10.2010)
After a range of discussions in the context of the Expert Group on Reporting under the Nature Directives, the Habitats Committee was consulted by note of 14 July 2010 on a first draft of the revised reporting format under Art.17. Written comments were requested by 24 of September. Comments were received from 13 Member States (AT, DE, DK, EE, HU, IE, IT, NL, PL, PT, SE, SK, UK).
This document aims to provide a structured overview on all comments received and gives comments or proposed solutions onall of them.Please note however that some of the issues are still under debate in the WP1 Subgroup and thus some questions could not yet be fully answered. You can find all material related to this file on CIRCA Reporting ( )
General
SE: new format will better view the status and trends for habitats and species in Europe
DK: congratulates for the result, which reflect the discussions in working group & has taken on board MS comments.
IT, PT: appreciates the good work done, welcomes the efforts to streamline and harmonise most of the contents.IT: Standardization is important & necessary, but can force to higher data quality than that reasonably available.
Guidelines
Comment(s) by MemberState(s) / Proposed solution / commentsIT: Greater consideration of marine issues needed in the guidelines. / This part is currently under development and the recent "Art 17 marine meeting" of 25 Octoberwas an important input to improving the marine parts of the guidelines.
AT: Difficult to comment as the work is still on-going.
EE: Not possible to evaluate the format without guidelines as several aspects are mentioned with “further guidelines will be given”.
DE: Reporting format refers to incomplete parts and guidelines are not yet ready. MS needs to have the format in due course to be able to implement it.
UK: Consultation is premature given the continuing work of WP1.
Delivery mechanism: suggests a database such as MS Access to be used + IT system to strictly implement the agreed format on paper. Delivery mechanism must be part of final agreement on the format. Wants to test the format and guidelines before final approval. / A second consultation of the Habitats Committee is planned whereby the Committee will be provided with an updated reporting format and draft guidelines after the meeting of the Expert Group on Reporting of 2 December 2010.
The planning of the delivery mechanism has started and the experience with the previous IT system will be taken into account to avoid problems encountered in 2007. However, the IT-implementation phase will only start after the approval of the Committee of the format in 2011. The IT solutions will be subject to testing.
Tests of the format as such as to their usability for species and habitat types have been implemented by ETC already. Results were discussed in the WP1 sub-group meeting in early October.
Annex A – general reporting format
PT: Form is now much simpler and clearer. Connection to the national links makes consultation more effective for interested public. PT agrees that general report under Birds reporting can have similar format than Annex A.
AT: Supports reduction of sections.
UK: Welcomes simplification.
1. Main achievements under the Habitats Directive
Comment(s) by MemberState(s) / Proposed solution / commentsNL: What is the purpose of this field? Free text fields are not always useful, text field from different MS cannot be compared added, assessed. If for interested public, NL prefers to give this information on its own website(s)/other media.
UK: To combine this field with section 6? / Free text fields have been drastically reduced now compared to 2007 exactly due to the reasons NL mentions. However as the general report is supposed to give an overview for the interested public (national and European) and the Commission on what has happened the last 6 years it was considered useful (also by several MS) to have a short textual summary of main achievements (which could not be captured in any tabular format). The lastWP1 Subgroup even proposed to add the option (non-mandatory) to also include an English translation of this summary.
Section 6 will be analysed separately so a combination of these 2 sections is not considered practical.
2. General information sources
UK: Not sure whether all elements suggested are necessary. More than one web link is likely to be needed for each topic. / Only the most relevant topics were chosen for section 2, for which MS should have information available.The format will not limit the number of weblinks but it is recommended that only the most important ones are being inserted.3. Natura 2000 site designation
SE: Existing information should be used. Why this can not be calculated by EC using SDF information?NL: Supports, but asks what is the added value or relevance of splitting up the data in national and biogeographical level?
UK: EC already has this information. Cross-checking of SDF not sufficient reason to request these data. Advises to delete this field, but if retained, a date stamp needed.
PT: Area should be in ha, not km2 (compared to SDF, Commission decisions). / It is true that this information is (or should be) available from the Natura 2000 database. Therefore EC agrees to delete the field for the biogeographicalregion level. However the situation on national level should be part of the general report for coherence and overview reasons and because it is relevant for the interested public. Also the SDF information is unfortunately not very accurate at this moment as regardsSAC designation. This information is therefore also of interest to the Commission for analysis purpose.
A date-field can be added (should be the latest possible date in 2012.)
This is a question about scale. SDF is about sites and figures are smaller. There is no change to 2007 reporting, area was requested inkm2, whichdid not cause problems.
4. Management plans
SE: Existing information should be used. Why this can not be calculated by EC using GIS and database information?NL: Field/option to indicate the no of plans “in preparation” is missing.
UK: This question should not be mandatory (ref to Art 6.1. “if need be”). Advises to delete.
AT: The definition of the management plan is too detailed. / The new SDF (where information on management plans will be asked) is not yet in use and still needs to be decided upon. However, potentially this field is no longer needed in 2019 reports.
The question about plans in preparation was deleted. This was optional in 2007. It will be part of the SDF however.
Information on management plans is considered important information on the way MS implement the Directive, even though such plans are not mandatory as UK state correctly.
A rather general definition with minimum requirements for management plan needs to be given for reporting purposes in order to make the information comparable. This does not mean that this definition has to be used in a nationa/regional context.Austria is welcome to make a suggestion for a revised definition
5. Measures taken in relation to approval of plans & projects (Art 6.4.)
UK: Refers to the work of WP6. Suggests to delete this field & add a web link in section 2. / This information is considered of importance to the (national and European) interested public and is important for the Commission as well.WP6 plans to improve the information format and establish an IT tool forthe notification of compensation measures under Art.6.4. Work is unfortunately delayed.Potentially this field is no longer needed after the current reporting period.
7. (Re-)introduction of species (Art 22.a)
UK: Has concerns on potentially sensitive information. A simple Yes/No answer to whether a reintroduction has been successful is far too simplistic. A free text field would be appropriate. / If it is sensitive information to reveal the location of a certain re-introductions, the information in the location field could be generalised to a higher geographic level or simply the word "sensitive" be introduced (guidelines will clarify this).Option “Yes/No/Too early to say” can be added. Free text field is already included in the revised format which can be used to explain the reintroduction success or specific aspects of it.
Comments relevant to both Annex B and D
Distribution
UK:-Reminder of whether a map has been submitted is unnecessary.
-Projection of maps and over-representation of national mapping on 10km square grid must be resolved in the guidelines.
-Proposes distributions to be submitted as polygons on an agreed projection and those to be amalgamated by the ETC/BD.
-Suggests deleting 1.1.5. if national range is optional. / Considered useful to be able to know whether the map was mistakenly left out.
There is an obvious need for standardisation of distribution mapson EU-level as the previous reporting round has shown.We should learn from this. 10x10km standard grid is the compromise to this and MS are in the best position to create these maps with the least possible mistakes. ETC can advise MS if need be. It should also be kept in mind that the INSPIRE directive sets standards for grids (ETRS89 LAEA). If a MS has more precise spatial data, they can submit it under 1.1.4.
This is needed only for those cases where a MS does not use the automated range tool/agreed rules.
Date
IE: Some MS may take the date the expert made a judgement on the datasets while others may use actual dates of the datasets. / “Date or period when the actual data was collected” should be clear.
Marine regions
UK: Has concern about formal recognition of new marine biogeographical regions – guidelines to note that “biogeographical regions outlined in the directive do not adequately reflect the marine environment”.
DE: Accepts that only a technical reason to tick marine regions, but rejects introduction of marine regions as separate reporting obligation as no legal basis and extra burden. No cartographic/typological definition. / The marine regions add nothing to the directives as such and have no "legal" meaning; they are used as an assessment unit on the EU-biogeographical level. The background to ask this information in the dataform is to have clarity as to the sea concerned (this concerns only a few MS) and eases the use of the database for analysis. The guidelines’ text will aim at explaining in detail the purely technical/practical reasons to include marine regions. There is no "separate reporting obligation" for species which use the marine as well as the freshwater/terrestrial environment as long as the same sea is concerned. A separate report would only be useful (and recommended) in cases where one species is present in two marine regions (eg. Atlantic and Mediterranean) but only in one biogeographical region.
A cartographic and descriptive delimitation of the marine regions will be given in the guidelines.
Map
EE: Standard format for submission – the grid to be downloadable also via Internet?
IT: Asks the next IT tool to include an automatic converter to make data processing easier.
PT:
- further guidance on marine species mapping needed.
- 1.1.4. “Additional distribution map” – does this mean a map with different scale than the standard?
- “1.1.5.Range map –optional” – does this mean different than obtained from automated range tool?
- Biogeographical region maps & grid maps should be provided by EC to avoid mismatches of the last report.
In principle the IT tool can do automatic conversion, but any automated conversion needs manual check-up by MS.
If mapping "in field" is meant, it is out of the scope of Art 17 guidelines. However the general guidance on the marine environment will be improved.
Yes, for both 1.1.4. and 1.1.5. An additional distribution map/optional range map means different than the standard one required.
An online reference portal for Art 17 will provide these (similar than for SDF).
Range - Range Tool
IT: Accepts the tool, but asks guidelines to underline that for 3rd national report short-term trend estimation to be essentially based on expert opinion and not on automatic comparison with range surfaces reported in 2nd report.PT: Agrees with the automatic calculation so that all MS start with the common ground, but points out:
a) MS may have more accurate information that justifies a change in range map set automatically,
b) some gaps may result from insufficient information & do not represent real gaps in distribution,
c) some range maps of flora species include an area larger than actual distribution. These will have consequences on range area & range maps need to be redesigned. For these cases, should alternative range map be included in field 1.1.5.?
PT, UK: 2.3.5. Additional information. PT: Cases with non-significant changes, but rather changes on distribution of the range should be considered also.UK: if both answers are “no”, then what? Suggests to have free text field.
UK: Clarify the reference to Annex F (range definition). / The reporting format includes a possibility to inform under “additional information” if reported values between reporting periods differ due to “use of different method”. In principle 2007 range could be recalculated based on 2007 distribution with the range tool, but if that possibility is not used, the trendcan be based on expert opinion.
a) Range is a broad scale parameter. Part of departure is 10x10 km grid for distribution. But if better data exists for rare and localized species leading to more appropriate assessment, it is possible to work with more precise data. Also the range map provided by the IT-tool can be adapted manually.
b) Gap distance can be increased if data is very incomplete andit concerns a common species/habitat. Otherwise use expert opinion.
c) This is a normal situation as we consider range as an envelope including both occupied and unoccupied areas for the species.The automated range tool is not the only option to be used, but recommended because it is repeatable. See also comments above for distribution.
Range parameter is there to evaluate large scale changes in distribution. If distribution is decreasing this will affect other parameters which are more sensitive (habitat area, habitat for the species).
The field “additional information” helps to understand the differences between reporting periods (e.g.a case indicatingbig differences in values, but stable trend). WP1 proposed that the guidelines should advise how this field is meant to be used. Complementary information field can be used if MS wishes to explain the situation further.
Range definition is now part of the revised guidelines.
Trend – trend direction - trend period
SE: trend period for species should be matched to both the species generation time and a fixed number of years.SK: Reference period should be the year of joining the EU.
IT: reminds that a large literature indicates how difficult it is to get trend measures for population even at lower accuracy.
IE: if range has increased due to improved knowledge but is actually stable, then “stable” should be selected in 2.3.3. and a) selected in 2.3.5.?
PL: it is important to be able to tick both options of a) and b).
AT: The approach to have short-term and long-term trend seems to be meaningful, but 24 years should be still discussed. Does not favour shifting window, but fixed time reference e.g. 1994/1995.
UK: Questions the direction to use only the short term trend for the assessment & requests to have flexibility for some cases.
Long-term trend: all fields not visible - should be shown in the format. / WP1 has rediscussed these issues in its meeting of 4.-5.10. and clarification will be given in the guidelines. A main consideration must be comparability and statistically robust trend, which is why we need a clear guideline. Whereas this issue is still under debate, also countries which acceded only recently are encouraged to use the suggested trend periods. Recognizing that their legal obligations under the directives only starts with accession, this should ideally not keep them from reporting available information that is comparable and useful in the EU-evaluation context.
Yes
Both a) and b) can be ticked.
See the comment above. For the coming reporting period long-term trend is optional. If long-term trend is used, it needs to be clearly distinct from the short term trend.
This part still needs further explanation in guidelines. In principle, if a MS sees an (exceptional) case where long-term trend is more appropriate to be used this should be possible butshould be clearly explained in the complementary information field.
This is only a presentation question. Missing fields can be added.
Favourable reference values
IT, PT: Hopes to find more clarification in the guidelines on FRV calculation. / This section in the revised guidelines has been improved and examples will be added.Threats and pressures
PT: Table is more structured, but revision still needed on marine issues. New field “explanations” seems very important to standardise data input from MS.Questions the data quality definition and usefulness (considering 2 classes - “good” and “moderate”).
UK: Form needs to be laid out to allow pressures to be reported appropriately. / Final checking of marine threats and pressures is underway after UK proposal.
WP1 proposes to include data source separately for threats and pressures.
Ok, this will be improved.
Future prospects
PT, UK: Guidelines should make these parameters clearer. / There will be a separate chapter to guide on the assessment of future prospects including the recommended assessment table.Absent data/unknownNEW
EE: Does “absent data” as data source for map & population mean that MS can leave these empty and not send a map, because of absent data (although sufficiency of species/habitats in network has been evaluated in biogeographical seminar)?NL: what are consequences of using “no data” in the light of obligatory monitoring system?
PT: Unknown should be an option for “population size estimation” & favourable reference values & range surface. / In general the use of “absent data” optionis introduced to avoid situations of 2007 reports where it was not always clear whether empty field was due to a mistake or unavailable data. Guidelines will explain more on this.
The Commission does not envisage any direct consequences for a MS acknowledging unavailability of data in some cases. It is however expected that there are serious efforts made to close such data-gaps.
However if a MS has systematically no data available and has even to conclude on "unknown" in its overall assessment for a large proportion of its species or habitats this could be seen as a serious issue or even infringement on the monitoring duties.
Data source for population estimation, “0=absent data” covers this. There is no data source for range as automated tool using distribution information is recommended. “Unknown” option can be added for reference values.
ANNEX B – Species