CORINE biotopes Biotopes - Contents Colophon Preface Summary 1. Content and objectives of the CORINE biotopes 2. Working procedures 3. Scientific methodology 4. Results 5. Data use 6. Conclusions and recommendations References List of contributors CORINE biotopes manual CORINE biotopes 1 CORINE biotopes Colophon Published by the COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES Directorate-General Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection L-2920 Luxembourg LEGAL NOTICE Neither the Commission of the European Communities nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of the following information Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication ISBN 92-826-2431-5 Catalogue number: CD-NA-13231-EN-C (c) ECSC-EEC-EAEC, Brussels. Luxembourg, 1991 CORINE biotopes 2 CORINE biotopes Preface An important feature of successive Community environment action programmes has been the adoption of measures to protect and conserve the biosphere; these measures have greatly benefited from the early and sustained support of the European Parliament. Examples of such Community actions include Directives on the conservation of wild birds, the implementation in the Community of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, and the proposed Directive to protect important Community habitats. Fundamental to these policies are the principles of the world conservation strategy - the maintenance of essential ecological processes and life support systems, the preservation of genetic diversity and the sustainable use of species and ecosystems. Above all, it is recognized that the conservation of threatened biological organisms is critically dependent on our ability to maintain suitable habitats in sufficient numbers, sufficient in extent and with adequate geographic dispersal to ensure their survival. None of these measures can be properly implemented, nor can their effects be monitored without the ex- istence of reliable and accessible information about the status, condition and geographic location of the habitats and ecosystems in need of protection. A priority theme of the CORINE programme, as consti- tuted by the Council Decision of June 1985, was therefore to assemble comprehensive and compatible information on the location and state of important biotopes in the Community, through the compilation of a computerized inventory of sites of major significance for nature conservation. This report presents the achievements of the biotopes project. lt describes the approaches used, the results obtained and the lessons learned; it also illustrates some of the potential applications for the data. This constitutes the final report of just one of the CORINE projects, and should be read in conjunction with similar reports describing related work in the other thematic areas addressed by CORINE. Together, these provide a record of the complete CORINE programme and its associated information system on the state of the environment and natural resources in the European Community. I wish to express my thanks to the project leader, Dr Barry Wyatt and his assistant Dr Dorian Moss, and to each of the experts who make up the biotopes team. Pierre Devillers, of the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences, deserves special thanks for the development of the Community classification of habitats. The involvement of J.-P. Ribaut, as a representative of the Council of Europe, as well as the contributions of colleagues of international organizations, was decisive for the design and realization of the biotopes inventory, as a tool of wide use, for the policy of nature conservation at Community and international level. Also essential to the progress of the work were the stimulating discussions with the colleagues responsible for nature protection within the Directorate-General. Thanks are equally due to the scientific coordinator of the CORINE programme, Professor David Briggs and to Michel-Henri Cornaert for guiding the project, and to Ronan Uhel, Marc Roekaerts and Vital Schreurs for technical help. Finally, I wish to make a special acknowledgement to Professor Albert Noirfalise for his general and al- ways enthusiastic advice on the project. CORINE biotopes 3 CORINE biotopes Gunter Schneider Directorate-General Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection December 1990 The CORINE biotopes project was carried out during the period 1985-90 by a group of European experts working under the guidance and in close cooperation with the CORINE central team at the Directorate- General for the Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection of the European Commission. The main contributors to the project were: Project leader: Dr Barry Wyatt, Environmental Information Centre, Huntingdon, United Kingdom Dr Dorian Moss, Environmental Information Centre, Huntingdon, United Kingdom Biotopes team: Georges Bechet, Musée d'histoire naturelle, Luxembourg David Cabot, An Foras Forbatha, Dublin, Ireland Pierre Devillers, Institut royal des sciences naturelles de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium Eladio-Fernandez Galiano, Conseil de l'Europe, Strasbourg, France Ben Hallmann, Rapsani, Greece Hans Koeppel, Bundesforschungvanstalt für Naturschutz und Landschaftsökologie, Bonn, Germany Hervé Maurin, Musée d'histoire naturelle, Paris, France Cosme Morillo Fernandez, Instituto Nacionalpara la Conservación de la Natureza, Madrid, Spain Juan-Carlos Orella Lazaro, Instituto Nacional para la Conservacón de la Natureza, Madrid, Spain Gianni Pavan, Istituto di entomologia dell'universita di Pavia, Pavia, Italy Nick Phillips, Nature Conservancy Council, Peterborough, United Kingdom Ulla Pinborg, Miljoministeriet, Copenhagen, Denmark Jean-Picrre Ribaut, Conseil de l'Europe, Strasbourg, France Francisco Rodriguez Martin, Instituto Nacional para la Conservación de la Natureza, Madrid, Spain Marc Roekaerts, CORINE central team, DG Xl, Brussels, Belgium George Sfikas, Athens, Greece Suzette Stumpel-Rienks, Rijksinstituut voor Natuurbeheer, Lecrsum, the Netherlands Severin Ten Houte de Lange, Rijksinstituut voor Natuurbeheer, Leersum, the Netherlands Ronan Uhel, CORINE central team, DG Xl, Brussels, Belgium José Vasconcelos, Instituto Nacional de Parques, Reserves e Concervaçao da Natureza, Lisbon, Portugal Edwin Wymer, Wildlife Service, Dublin, Ireland Coordination with other CORINE projects: CORINE biotopes 4 CORINE biotopes David Briggs, Huddersfield Polytechnic, Huddersfield, United Kingdom Michel-Henri Cornaert, CORINE central team, Brussels, Belgium This report has been prepared by Dorian Moss, in collaboration with Barry Wyatt, Michel-Henri Cornaert and Marc Roekaerts Graphic design Jacques Finesso, Brussels, Belgium Drawings: G. Driessens, Lier, Belgium CORINE biotopes 5 CORINE biotopes Summary This report details the CORINE biotopes project: its rational, its aims; how those aims have been fulfilled during the period 1985-90; the working procedures and scientific methodologies which have been adopted for the selection and description of sites of Community importance for nature conservation. lt also identifies the various outputs that have been incorporated into the CORINE geographic information system. The report describes lessons learned in compiling the database and some uses which have already been made of the data, evaluates future needs in the Community for information on nature and the environment and recommends further actions required. The biotopes project forms part of the CORINE experimental work programme of the Commission of the European Communities, concerned with 'gathering, coordinating and ensuring the consistency of infor- mation on the state of the environment and natural resources in the Community'. lt is one of several projects, intended to demonstrate the feasibility of assembling a coherent and consistent database to support Community policies in a number of priority areas. The first task for the biotopes project was to establish a Community network of sources of information and expertise on all aspects of nature conservation. Within this network, agreed procedures were then developed and implemented: (a) to allow sites of Community importance for nature conservation to be selected using criteria which are consistent in all Member States, (b) for information on these sites to be recorded and exchanged in a common format, (c) for the use of agreed data procedures to ensure that the information conforms to these standards, (d) for the interrogation, analysis and dissemination of information from this database and (c) for the integration of these data within the overall CORINE geographic information system. These procedures (in particular, the selection criteria and the various standard nomenclatures developed in the biotopes project) are now also accepted as a basic standard by many international, national and regional agencies responsible for nature protection. A database describing some 6 000 sites of Community importance for nature conservation has been cre- ated and represents the most comprehensive European source of such information. Use of the database has been demonstrated in support of research, policy and management applications. Many of the human, scientific, technical and management problems which the project confronted and successfully overcame have general relevance for the creation of distributed information networks of environmental information. The report documents the key lessons and solutions. These have particular importance in the context of the establishment of the European Environment Agency,