EU BIOCLIMA

The main project goal is to review and assess EU policies on land-use with diverse objectives from forestry, food production, climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation, and then assess their impacts on biodiversity (e.g. species conservation status and ecosystems extent and condition) and on carbon stocks and flows.

The project has an EU focus and is intended to be an ex-ante assessment of existing policies and policy proposals, that will provide much needed evidence-base to support the implementation of national and EU policies aimed at realizing the ambitions of the European Green Deal.

The project will start with a review of land-use and biodiversity models, aimed at identifying the most fitting modelling suite to perform land-use scenarios for biodiversity and carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems. Concurrently to the model review, there will be a policy review, which will include questionnaires sent to delegates of EU Member States to complement information available from existing policy databases and other material available to the consortium.

In task 3, the set of models chosen as part of the model screening and evaluation will undergo a limited amount of development, aimed primarily at improving models’ abilities to simulate relevant land-use policies at appropriate resolution and improving the accuracy and responsiveness of ecological models to land-use management.

In task 4, the improved modelling suite will be used to simulate a set of scenarios that mimics land-use policies and actions for biodiversity conservation and emission reductions and removals in combination and isolation, to estimate their impacts on various objectives of the EU Green Deal.

The project is funded by the European Union - Directorate General Environment and its expected to inform national policies and strategic decisions at sub-national to continental levels in terms of conservation actions and land-use policies, e.g. the forthcoming legally binding restoration targets for EU Member States.

Last edited: 01 April 2021