Delimitations of Rural Areas in Europe Using Criteria of Population Density, Remoteness and Land Cover

This report aims to improve current delimitations of rural areas in Europe as a support to statistical descriptions by introducing the criteria of peripherality/remoteness and ¿natural (non-artificial) area¿ in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) typology. In 1994, the OECD developed an easy concept to identify rural and urban areas based on the population density of a geographical unit. This scheme proved to be highly sensitive to the size of the geographical area and the classification of the thresholds. Over the years, endeavours have been made to review and improve the OECD approach and also alternative methodologies have been proposed. The current methods based solely on population distributions, do not allow for detailed and quantified geographical analysis and do not reflect two main characters differentiating rural from urban areas: the ¿natural¿ (non-artificial) surface and the accessibility/remoteness. In this study, a new rural typology has been developed by integrating the peripherality index and the land cover indicator in the OECD methodology. The analyses were carried out at Local Administrative Unit (LAU 2) level for EU-27and then aggregated at NUTS3 and NUTS2.The methodology applied is flexible and the thresholds of accessibility or land cover implemented can easily be modified to fit-for-purpose.JRC.H.5-Rural, water and ecosystem resource

High Nature Value Farmland in Europe - An Estimate of the Distribution Patterns on the Basis of Land Cover and Biodiversity Data

Europe's agricultural landscapes provide highly varied living conditions for many plants and animals. Baldock et al. (1993) and Beaufoy et al. (1994) described the general characteristics of low-input farming systems in terms of biodiversity and management practices and introduced the term high nature value farmland. Typical high nature value farmland areas are the extensively grazed uplands in the UK, alpine meadows and pasture, steppic areas in eastern and southern Europe and dehesas and montados in Spain and Portugal. The more intensively farmed areas in lowland western Europe can also host concentrations of species of particular conservation interest, such as migratory waterfowl. The need for measures to prevent the loss of high nature value farmland is widely acknowledged. Conservation of biodiversity on agricultural land is an explicit objective of the pan-European Biodiversity and Landscape Strategy, the Bern Convention, the European Landscape Convention, and, at EU level, the Habitats and Birds Directives and the Rural Development Policy (Community Strategic Guidelines for Rural Development Programming Period 2007-2013). In their 6th Environment Action Programme, the EU committed itself to halting biodiversity decline by 2010. Conserving High Nature Value farmland is key to achieving this 2010 biodiversity target. Pan-European data on distribution and conservation status of HNV farmland, however, were largely lacking. In their 2003 "Kyiv" declaration, the European Environment Ministers have therefore set the goal to fill this data gap and take adequate conservation measures. In support of this policy process, EEA and UNEP published a Joint Message (EEA 2004), presenting a preliminary map of HNV farmland and analysing the targeting of agricultural policy instruments. The Joint Message used the concept as developed by Andersen et al. (2003) that describes HNV farmland as: "Those areas in Europe where agriculture is a major (usually the dominant) land use and where that agriculture supports, or is associated with, either a high species and habitat diversity or the presence of species of European conservation concern, or both". The aim of estimating HNV farmland distribution at European level according to a standardised method is primarily to gain insight in the current status, as well as enabling analysis of European trends and targeting of relevant policy instruments, such as Less Favoured Area (LFA) support. In order to increase accuracy, JRC and the EEA have been preparing the first EU27 map of High Nature Value farmland, on the basis of new land cover data, refined and regionally differentiated selection criteria, and additional biodiversity datasets.JRC.H.5-Rural, water and ecosystem resource

Analysis of Farmland Abandonment and the Extent and Location of Agricultural Areas that are Actually Abandoned or are in Risk to be Abandoned

Farmland abandonment (FLA) can be defined as the cessation of agricultural activities on a given surface of land and not taken by another activity (such as urbanisation or afforestation). This process attracts the attention of policy-makers both at national and EU level, in particular within the context of the Rural Development Policy. And, considering its importance in environmental and socio-economic terms, it is necessary to better understand the geographic distribution and strength of farmland abandonment trends in the EU-27, and to develop indicators to identify the most important farmland abandonment tendencies. The first aim of this study was to establish the state of the art concerning farmland abandonment (definition, type) and methodologies for identifying/quantifying this phenomenon (dataset, period of analysis, scale). Then, it was about contributing to a new definition of Less Favoured Areas by assessing the driving forces of farmland abandonment and preparing the guidelines for agri-environmental indicator Nr 14 [COM2006 (508final)] by evaluating the state and risk of farmland abandonment. The proposed methodology was based on two main elements: the variation of the UAA and the definition of rural areas. After identifying clear definitions for each variable, the way to consider the main flows of land use changes was studied. Due to a lack of accurate data at the appropriate scale, farmland afforestation could not be separated from the flow of FLA and the flow from farmland to sealed soil was estimated based on the hypothesis that it was mainly located in urban areas where the population density is high or increases very fast. The methodology was tested in three of the main agricultural countries in the EU-27 in terms of surface (France, Spain and Poland). Then, five regions were chosen to cover different contexts where a high level of FLA was observed and interviews of experts and stakeholders completed the study. Based on the results on the main causes of FLA, indicators of risk were proposed and recommendations were formulated to improve the methodology and datasets.JRC.H.5-Rural, water and ecosystem resource

Spatial data infrastructures in Malta : state of play 2010

This report aims at summarizing the state of play of SDI in Malta, and at reflecting the degree to which the SDI situation in Malta is similar to the ideas set out in the INSPIRE position papers and the more recent INSPIRE scoping documents. Since documents, project references could hardly be found, the report is based mainly on the study of the few web sites readily accessible in English (some sites with technical specifications or illustrations also in Maltese). The report has been completed by integration and consolidation of comments received early 2003 from representatives of the National Statistics Office and the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA). Early 2004, more comments were received and taken into account, coming from Malta Environment and Planning Authority and from a private GI-company (Datatrak IT services). The comments were provided in written form (e-mail). The update of 2005 was based on input from Ms. Carol Valentino from MEPA. The update for 2006 was based on various sources, focusing on the legal and organisational elements of the SDI. For the update of 2007, no information regarding data sharing, data sets or services was received. Some information on licence fees could be found through other channels. For the 2009 update, no information regarding the survey questionnaire was received and the main source of information was extracted from the 2009 ICT components for a Shared Environmental Information System State of Play report. In this version obsolete information was removed, while a conclusion paragraph regarding the status of each indicator was added for each component.peer-reviewe

LINKVIT - D4 - Learning Paths Specifications

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Did we approach the objectives of INSPIRE? Lessons learnt from the State of Play

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Study on harmonised collection of European data and statistics in the field of urban transport and mobility. Final report

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Identification of High Nature Value Farmland at the EU27 Level on the Basis of Land Cover and Biodiversity Data

The paper describes the work carried out by JRC and EEA to map High Nature Value farmland across the EUJRC.DDG.H.5-Rural, water and ecosystem resource

Developing a pan-European Data Base of Drainage Newtorks and Catchment Boundaries from a 100 Meter DEM

Digital data on river networks, lakes and drainage basins (catchments) are an important pre-requisite for modelling hydrological processes, including the analysis of pressures and their impact on water resources. Datasets covering extensive areas such as the European continent are especially important for mapping and monitoring activities of European institutions. Unfortunately such data have not been available up to now with sufficient coverage, quality and detail to satisfy such needs. Especially international river basins face the problem of the diversity of national information systems in terms of detail, scale, and projection systems, leading to incompatibilities at the national boundaries. In order to fill this gap, the Catchment Characterisation and Modelling (CCM) activity of the European Commissions’ DG Joint Research Centre has developed methodologies to derive adequate layers from digital elevation data and ancillary information using advanced algorithms based on the concepts of mathematical morphology and implementing a landscape stratification for drainage density. This paper details the methodology implemented in developing this pan-European database of hierarchically structured river networks and catchment boundaries. The resulting database covers the entire pan-European continent from the Atlantic to the Urals and from the Mediterranean to northern Scandinavia, including the Atlantic islands and Turkey. The use of homogeneous input data and their analysis with the same methodology ensures data with comparable and well documented characteristics (e.g., level of detail, geometric quality, attributes) over the entire area.JRC.H.5-Rural, water and ecosystem resource