A Webinar for the

by

Grégoire DUBOISSantiago SAURALucy BASTIN

http://nbsapforum.net/#read-thread/1672

20 July 2016

Assessing and Monitoring

Protected Areas

with the

Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA)

Outline

1. What is the JRC?

2. Introduction to DOPA

3. Assessing Protected Areas: DOPA Explorer 1.0

4. Monitoring Protected Areas: Current developments on DOPA

5. Supporting protected areas: Who is doing what and where?

European Commission (EC) = Executive Body of the European Union (EU) based in Brussels

Joint Research Centre (JRC) =In-house science service of the EC; provides independent scientific and technical support to EU policy

JRC established in 1957

Directorates spread over 5 countries with 3,000 staff (35% short-term)

Over 1,300 publications per year

What is the JRC?

500m Euro from EU for biodiversity conservation in

Africa since 1985 EU B4LIFE Initiative2014-20: 850m Euro

• Global biodiversity loss affects the EU

• EU contributes to global biodiversity loss

• EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020:

Target 6 –“Help avert global biodiversity loss”

• EU and its Member States support biodiversity conservation in developing countries

Why does JRS work on global biodiversity issues?

Why the ?

• Need for global reference information system to support decision making. Where are protected areas with highest biodiversity and exposed to highest threats? Which are the protected areas without financial support?

• Need for integrated information taking into account species, ecosystems, pressures, funding which need to be available at Country, Ecoregion and Protected Areas level.

• Need for free, open access services to develop web based tool for different end-users.

What is the difference between WDPA (see www.protectedplanet.net) and DOPA?

% ecoregion protected?

GIS Analysis

WDPA

Ecoregions

% threatened endemics protected?

GIS Analysis

WDPA

Red List

Indicator AnalysisSource Data

DOPA integrates critical biodiversity information produced by many actors.

• DOPA recognized as support tool for NBSAP and PoWPA action planning and implementation (Decision XI/24 & Notification)

• DOPA is supporting:

- UNEP/IUCN Protected Planet Reports

- CBD Country dossiers for Targets 11 & 12

- CBD Regional workshops

DOPA and the CBD

• DOPA Explorer 1.0 provides simple means to explore all protected areas ≥ 100 km2, identify those with most unique ecosystems and species composition and assess the pressures they are exposed to through human development.

• DOPA Explorer 1.0 is available in English, French Spanish and Portuguese.

• http://dopa.jrc.ec.europa.eu/explorer

Assessing protected areas with DOPA Explorer 1.0

Country level statistics

Protected Area level: Site characteristics

Protected Area level: Assessment at country level

Each protected area is assessed (red line) according to species irreplaceability, habitat uniqueness and various pressures against the average country indicators (grey area)

Protected Area level: Assessment at ecoregion level

Country Ecoregion

Reference dispersal distance 10 km

0 10 50 100Planned format of the connectivity indicator to be

included in DOPA for end 2016 (DOPA Explorer 2.0)

Protected Area level: Assessment (DOPA Explorer 2.0)

• Monitoring = repeated assessments! Earth Observations play an essential role

• DOPA Explorer 2.0 (release December 2016) will provide simple means to analyse long term changes in protected areas with a focus on land cover change.

Monitoring protected areas with DOPA

1a) Land Cover change in Protected Areas

2000

2010

DOPA will be updated with ESA CCI Land Cover map

Forest loss

Surroundings of Parque Nacional de Gorongosa, Mozambique

2a) Monitoring changes in surface water in Protected Areas

unchanged permanent water surfaces as of today: 387.1 km2

unchanged permanent water surfaces at start: 1,215.1 km2

loss of permanent water surfaces: 828.0 km2

gain of permanent water surfaces: 0.0 km2

% loss of permanent water surfaces: 68.0%

unchanged seasonal water surfaces as of today: 1.7 km2

unchanged seasonal water surfaces at start: 65.5 km2

loss of seasonal water surfaces: 63.8 km2

gain of seasonal water surfaces: 0.7 km2

% loss of seasonal water surfaces: 65.4 %

conversion of permanent to seasonal: 131.2 km2

conversion of seasonal to permanent: 0.0 km2

ephemeral permanent water 17.9 km2

ephemeral seasonal 67.5 km2

• Using 30 years of Landsat data (2,362,654 scenes)

• Covers permanent, seasonal and ephemeral water

• Free and open data to be made available

• Products include:

• 30 year occurrence dataset

• 30 year seasonality dataset

• 30 year monthly dataset

• 30 year change dataset

• Useful for many applications:

• Water management

• Wetland / PA monitoring

• Coastal zone management

Pekel, J.F., Cottam A., Gorelick N., Belward A. (2016). The first high-resolution mapping of global surface water; 1984 – 2015. Submitted to Nature

2b) Monitoring changes in surface water in Protected Areas

eConservationeConservation (Beta version online)

• Who is doing what and where? How much has been spent? Who are the main actors (focus on main donors)?

• Specific tool focusing on funding of biodiversity conservation activities

• ~ 5000 projects mapped,

• Beta tool, excellent feedback from UNDP, WorldBank, national agencies

trilogy

1. Assessments and reporting

DOPA Reporter (2016): Release of new tool for COP13 Describing all PAs ≥ 50 km2 (~20 000 PAs) and update/addition of indicators (ecoregion, country, PA level) using WDPA June 2016.

2. Monitoring and validating assessments

Open DOPA (2017): data collection through standardized forms (threats, projects, infrastructure, species, …)

3. Predicting & forecasting changes in and outside protected areas

DOPA Analyst (2017, Beta): Advanced users, times series in PAs (fires, NDVI, water bodies, connectivity), interactive maps. Backed up by GEE and Copernicus Land Services

What is coming next!?

Thanks!

http://dopa.jrc.ec.europa.eu/

@JRC_DOPA