Gregoire Dubois

European Commission | ec · Joint Research Centre (JRC)

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) has been developed to support the European Union’s efforts in strengthening our capacity to mobilize and use biodiversity data so that they are readily accessible to policymakers, managers, researchers and other users. Assessing protected areas for biodiversity conservation at national, regional an...

Land free of direct anthropogenic disturbance is considered essential for achieving biodiversity conservation outcomes but is rapidly eroding. In response, many nations are increasing their protected area (PA) estates, but little consideration is given to the context of the surrounding landscape. This is despite the fact that structural connectivit...

Various prioritisation strategies have been developed to cope with accelerating biodiversity loss and limited conservation resources. These strategies could become more engaging for decision-makers if they reflected the positive effects conservation can have on future projected biodiversity, by targeting net positive outcomes in future projected bi...

To halt biodiversity loss and achieve internationally agreed conservation goals, the importance of adequate and well-targeted financial resources is well recognised. Yet there is a lack of consistent, comparable, and complete data on biodiversity funding. Better information is needed for decision-makers to be able to assess the impacts and effectiv...

Low public awareness on nature and biodiversity has been identified as a major cause for inadequate action on protecting the environment. Increased urbanisation is weakening the human-nature relationship, with detrimental effects on humans as well as the environment. In this report we emphasise the importance of systemically integrating biodiversit...

The rate and extent of global biodiversity change is surpassing our ability to measure, monitor and forecast trends. We propose an interconnected worldwide system of observation networks — a global biodiversity observing system (GBiOS) — to coordinate monitoring worldwide and inform action to reach international biodiversity targets.

Genetic diversity (GD) and phylogenetic diversity (PD) respectively represent species' evolutionary potential and history, and support most of the biodiversity benefits to humanity. Yet, these two biodiversity facets have been overlooked in previous biodiversity policies. As the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Ku...

The effectiveness of Protected Areas in conserving forest ecosystems has been examined at the continental scale using area-based habitat parameters, but knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of forest habitats is still lacking. Here, we assess the effectiveness of European Protected Areas in conserving the vertical structure of forests by an...

Genetic diversity (GD) and phylogenetic diversity (PD) respectively represent species' evolutionary potential and history, and support most of the biodiversity benefits to humanity. Yet, these two biodiversity facets have been overlooked in previous biodiversity policies. As the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity plan to meet in Dece...

This publication is a Technical aims to provide evidence-based scientific support to the European policymaking process. The scientific output expressed does not imply a policy position of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use that might be made of this p...

Observations are key to understand the drivers of biodiversity loss, and the impacts on ecosystem services and ultimately on people. Many EU policies and initiatives demand unbiased, integrated and regularly updated biodiversity and ecosystem service data. However, efforts to monitor biodiversity are spatially and temporally fragmented, taxonomical...

A brief example of monitoring forest areas in Cote d'Ivoire

Arctic regions are expected to be increasingly affected by both demographic and migration processes, as a result of the ever-accelerating climate and socio-economic pressures. Long-term monitoring of the Arctic population dynamics using a consistent harmonised approach can help understand these pressure and effects and explore the linkages between...

Protected areas (PAs) are a key strategy to reverse global biodiversity declines, but they are under increasing pressure from anthropogenic activities and concomitant effects. Thus, the heterogeneous landscapes within PAs, containing a number of different habitats and ecosystem types, are in various degrees of disturbance. Characterizing habitats a...

Showcase part of a JRC Science for Policy Report. Citation: Atlas of the Human Planet 2020 – Open geoinformation for research, policy, and action, EUR 30516, European Commission, Luxembourg, 2020, ISBN 978-92-76-27388-2, doi:10.2760/16432, JRC122364.

Arctic populations are expected to be significantly affected in the future by both demographic and migratory changes, as a result of the ever-accelerating climate and socio-economic changes in the region. Long-term monitoring based on an integrated approach and including explorations of the linkages between demographic, social, economic, and natur...

Protected areas (PAs) are a key strategy in global efforts to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services that are critical for human well-being. Most PAs have some built-up structures within their boundaries or in surrounding areas, ranging from individual buildings to villages, towns and cities. These structures, and the associated human activit...

Tracking changes in total biomass production or land productivity is an essential part of monitoring land transformations and long-term alterations of the health and productive capacity of land that are typically associated with land degradation. Persistent declines in land productivity impact many terrestrial ecosystem services that form the basis...

Land free of direct anthropogenic disturbance is considered essential for achieving biodiversity conservation outcomes but is rapidly eroding. In response, many nations are increasing their protected area estates but little consideration is given to the context of the surrounding landscape. This is despite the fact that connectivity between protect...

In 2010, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted a Strategic Plan for Biodiversity with 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets expected to be achieved by 2020. Target 11 sets out goals for protected and conserved areas in terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems. This paper, prepared on behalf of the Global Partnership on Aichi Target...

Tracking changes in total biomass production or land productivity is an essential part of monitoring land transformations and long-term alterations of the health and productive capacity of land that are typically associated with land degradation. Persistent declines in land productivity impact many terrestrial ecosystem services that form the basis...

Connectivity of protected areas (PAs) is needed to ensure the long-term persistence of biodiversity and ecosystem service delivery. The Convention on Biological Diversity agreed in 2010 to have 17% of land covered by well-connected PA systems by 2020 (Aichi Target 11). We here globally assess, for all countries, the trends in terrestrial PA connect...

Inland waters are unique ecosystems offering services and habitat resources upon which many species depend. Despite the importance of, and threats to, inland water, global assessments of protected area (PA) coverage and trends have focused on land habitats or have assessed land and inland waters together. We here provide the first assessment of the...

Details of the validation of GSWE, with reasoning for, and effect of, the 5% and 10% percentage thresholds applied in this analysis. (DOCX)

Details of processing for the protected area geometries. (DOCX)

Illustration of the location and impact of point-only PAs in the WDPA version used for this analysis. (DOCX)

Net change in area (1984–2015) of permanent and seasonal water inside and outside each country’s protected areas. (PDF)

Overall net change trends (1984–2015) in water inside and outside each country’s protected areas. This table also highlights the cases where trends are altered by including buffered points. (PDF)

Estimates of global surface water from previous studies. (DOCX)

Country water coverage and water protection. Percentages of each country’s area which is covered by water (seasonal, permanent and all surface water) and the percentages of that water that is protected. PAs with point geometries only are assessed separately and their effect on the total protection is noted. (PDF)

Abstract Connectivity of protected areas (PAs) is crucial for meeting their conservation goals. We provide the first global evaluation of countries' progress towards Aichi Target 11 of the Convention on Biological Diversity that is to have at least 17% of the land covered by well-connected PA systems by 2020. We quantify how well the terrestrial PA...

Table 2 with the same content as in the paper, but formatted so that it fits all in one page and is easier to read. The full citation for the paper in which this table is included is: Saura, S., Bertzky, B., Bastin, L. Battistella, Mandrici, A., Dubois, G. (2018). Protected area connectivity: shortfalls in global targets and country-level prioritie...

The chapter provides a brief assessment of the current situation and outlook for biodiversity and protected areas in Africa. It also includes a summary of key challenges and opportunities, including ongoing initiatives such as the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) and the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management Programme (BIOPAMA),...

The European Commission has a commitment to open data and the support of open source software and standards. We present lessons learnt while populating and supporting the web and map services that underly the Joint Research Centre's Digital Observatory for Protected Areas. Challenges include: large datasets with highly complex geometries; topolog-i...

Societal, economic and scientific interests in knowing where biodiversity is, how it is faring and what can be done to efficiently mitigate further biodiversity loss and the associated loss of ecosystem services are at an all-time high. So far, however, biodiversity monitoring has primarily focused on structural and compositional features of ecosys...

The growing access to Earth Observations and processing capabilities have stimulated the production of global and regional products that are commonly used to assess tree-covered habitats and their changes. The popularity of these products has led to their use for defining baselines and to assess progress in conserving natural habitats, in particula...

Nature recreation and tourism is a substantial ecosystem service of Europe's countryside that has a substantial economic value and contributes considerably to income and employment of local communities. Highlighting the recreational value and economic contribution of nature areas can be used as a strong argument for the funding of protected and rec...

Protected areas (PAs) are the main instrument for biodiversity conservation, which has triggered the development of numerous indicators and assessments on their coverage, performance and efficiency. The connectivity of the PA networks at a global scale has however been much less explored; previous studies have either focused on particular regions o...

This report details the progress during the final period August 2015-December 2016 by the Joint Research Centre in executing the “Protected Areas Component” of the BIOPAMA project. This is the 5 th , and final, year of the project, which began for JRC with the signature of the Administrative Arrangement on 21 July 2011. The authors of this repo...

The map shows the values of the Protected Connected land (ProtConn) indicator for all the terrestrial ecoregions of the world (lakes and Antarctica excluded) for a reference median species dispersal distance of 10 km. ProtConn is the percentage of the ecoregion area covered by protected connected lands; it accounts for both the land area that can b...

The map shows the values of Protected Connected land (ProtConn, % of ecoregion area covered by protected connected lands), calculated for a reference median species dispersal distance of 10 km, and of protected area coverage (% of ecoregion area under protection) for all the terrestrial ecoregions of the world (lakes and Antarctica excluded). ProtC...

Assessing the status and monitoring the trends of land cover dynamics in and around protected areas is of utmost importance for park managers and decision makers. Moreover, to support the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)'s Strategic Action Plan including the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, such efforts are necessary to set a framework to reach...

Protected areas (PAs) need to be assessed systematically according to biodiversity values and threats in order to support decision-making processes. For this, PAs can be characterized according to their species, ecosystems and threats, but such information is often difficult to access and usually not comparable across regions. There are currently o...

The map shows the percentage of coverage of the terrestrial and marine ecoregions of the world, excluding lakes, rock and ice, by protected areas. The statistics were computed using the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA) from April 2016 and ecoregion maps defined by Olsen et al. (2001) and Spalding et al. (2007). The marine ecoregions were cl...

Protected areas act as refuges for species and ecological processes that cannot persist in intensely modified landscapes and seascapes and provide space for natural evolution and future ecological restoration. This chapter first highlights the range of opportunities existing for space-borne environmental information to support monitoring efforts of...

Although satellite-based variables have for long been expected to be key components to a unified and global biodiversity monitoring strategy, a definitive and agreed list of these variables still remains elusive. The growth of interest in biodiversity variables observable from space has been partly underpinned by the development of the essential bi...

Protected areas spearhead our response to the rapidly accelerating biodiversity crisis. However, while the number of protected areas has been growing rapidly over the past 20 years, the extent to which the world’s protected areas are effectively conserving species, ecosystems, and ecosystem services is poorly understood. Highlights new techniques...

In the current decade, the main goals for biodiversity conservation and environmental protection at the level of the European Union are set in the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020: halting biodiversity loss and restoring ecosystem services. A key requirement for the implementation of the Strategy in terms of targeting measures and funds, and monito...

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission has developed, in consultation with many partners, the DOPA as a global reference information system to support decision making on protected areas (PAs) and biodiversity conservation. The DOPA brings together the World Database on Protected Areas with other reference datasets on species, ha...

eConservation is a new web service that provides critical information on biodiversity conservation projects worldwide in an interactive mapping interface. The service is an important module of the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) and supports the BIOPAMA programme for improved decision-making on biodiversity conservation in African, C...

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) has been developed to support the European Union’s efforts in strengthening our capacity to mobilize and use biodiversity data, information and forecasts so that they are readily accessible to policymakers, managers, experts and other users. Conceived as a set of web based services, DOPA provides a...

The map shows the percentage of coverage of the terrestrial and marine ecoregions of the world, excluding lakes, rock and ice, by protected areas. The statistics were computed using the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA) from August 2014 and ecoregion maps defined by Olsen et al. (2001) and Spalding et al. (2007). The marine ecoregions were c...

There are over 100,000 protected areas in the world that need to be assessed systematically according to their ecological values in order to support decision making and fund allocation processes. Ecological modelling has become an important tool for conservation and biodiversity studies. Moreover, linking remote sensing with ecological modelling ca...

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) is conceived as a set of distributed Critical Biodiversity Informatics Infrastructures (databases, web modelling services, broadcasting services, ...) combined with interoperable web services to provide a large variety of end-users including park managers, decision-makers and researchers with means...

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) is conceived around a set of interacting Critical Biodiversity Informatics Infrastructures (databases, web modelling services, broadcasting services, ...) hosted at different institutions, including the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre...

The eStation is a collecting and processing system designed to automatically deal with the reception, processing, analysis and dissemination of key environmental parameters derived from remotely sensed data. Developed mainly at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the eStation has been distributed to 47 sub-Saharan countries in the...

Much progress has been made in the past ten years to fulfil the potential of biodiversity informatics. However, it is dwarfed by the scale of what is still required. The Global Biodiversity Informatics Outlook (GBIO) offers a framework for reaching a much deeper understanding of the world’s biodiversity, and through that understanding the means to...

Climate change and landcover modification are one of the major challenges for conservation and biodiversity loss. Pereira et al. (2013) identified this challenge and argue for a coordinated global monitoring program. Necessary parameter to monitor biodiversity similar to the Essential Climate Variables are discussed within the Essential Biodiversit...

We are developing eHabitat, a Web Processing Service (WPS) that can model current and future habitat similarity for point observations, polygons defining an existing or hypothetical protected area, or sets of polygons defining the estimated ranges for one or more species. A range of Web Clients makes it easy to use the WPS with predefined data for...

If properly managed, the use of fuelwood for heating and cooking is often considered as sustainable; Africa, may be an exception to this rule. The reliance on fuelwood in Africa as a primary energy source by a significant proportion of the population, combined with rapid population growth means that population growth equates to increased pressure o...

Africa is home to some of the most vulnerable natural ecosystems and species on the planet. Around 7000 protected areas seek to safeguard the continent's rich biodiversity, but many of them face increasing management challenges. Human disturbances permeating into the parks directly and indirectly affect the ecological functioning and integrity of p...