The 9th GEO European Projects Workshop took place on 15 and 16 June 2015, in Copenhagen, Denmark. A special session dedicated to biodiversity and ecosystems was held as a part of the meeting, where EU BON and other topic relevant projects were presented.

The session was started by Gary Geller with an introduction and overview. Particularly the importance of the long-term sustainability of the projects and the linkages to the overall aims of GEO were stressed, as well as the opportunity of the session to find further synergies among the GEO-related projects.

Participants at the biodiversity and ecosystems sessions during the 9th GEO European Projects Workshop; Credit: Florian Wetzel

EU BON was presented at the meeting by the project coordinator Christoph Häuser, who outlined the core elements for an integrated biodiversity information system. There is the challenge to provide a sound framework to overcome the fragmentation of available biodiversity information to obtain better information for political decision making.  EU BON with its 31 partners tackles this challenge and its main objective is to serve as a European contribution to GEO BON.

Other projects presented during the session were EU H2020 projects ECOPOTENTIAL and GLOBIS‑B, both already in the list of associated partners of EU BON.  The third H2020 project presented here was SWOS, a Satellite-based Wetland Observation Service.

One of the major outcomes of the session was the agreement that further follow-ups of the discussions are needed and that the projects should have further exchange among each other.

An  EU BON workshop took place on 20-23 July in Manaus, Brasil for a targeted group of representatives of the different EU BON WPs or task forces. The workshop was attended by European representatives of EU BON and INPA to discuss potential options to further the integration between European teams and the Brazilian team.

Among topics discussed at the workshop were issues of designing and running biodiversity monitoring observatories (i.e. optimization and guidelines for planning biodiversity monitoring); analyses of biodiversity data to be addressed for assessing changes and patterns; and linkage of (meta-) data to EU BON portal.

  
Images from the workshop; Credit: William Magnusson (INPA) & Israel Peer (GlueCAD)

Being hosted in Manaus, this workshop also looked into facilitationg the integration of Brazilian and European expertise, for instance by updating about the progress made by Brazil in starting participatory resource monitoring in Brazilian National parks and the development of databases to integrate this information. 

Besides presentation and discussions, INPA organized an excursion to show their log-term biodiversity monitoring field sites (RAPELD) and to explain the rationale and methodology behind their design and organization. 

      
Images from the excursion; Credit: Charlie Marsh 

From 9 to 11 November in Vienna, Austria the EU H2020 project Detecting changes in essential ecosystem and biodiversity properties – towards a Biosphere Atmosphere Change Index: BACI has organised a special workshop titled "Remote sensing applications related to land use/change" with the aim to facilitate co-design and co-production of knowledge with regard to innovative applications of remote sensing products.

EU BON project partner Duccio Rocchini was among the invited lecturers at the event. His talk titled "Like in a Rubik’s cube: Recomposing Biodiversity Information by Remote Sensing Data" introduced some experience from EU BON.

The overarching objective of BACI is to tap into the unrealized potential of existing and scheduled space-borne Earth observation data streams to detect changes in ecosystem functioning and services that have repercussions for essential biodiversity variables, land use potentials, and land-atmosphere interactions.

A joint WP2/3/4/6/7 workshop took place on 23-24 November 2015 in Cambridge, UK. The overall goal of the workshop was to identify synergies and overlapping objectives across WP3/4 and 6/7 and beyond and to thereby identify applications of EU BON’s tools to decision-making, including at the policy level.

The idea for this small, focused workshop emerged as a result of the popularity and outreach achieved by the Aquamaps North-Sea fisheries infographic, developed under WP6. This infographic has demonstrated how the AquaMaps modelling tool can help answer a clear policy or question relevant to decision-making.

Under EU BON, WP3 and WP4 have developed some powerful tools, and more are in the making. The next challenge for EU BON is to use these tools to address policy-relevant issues/questions and to link EU-BON’s modelling capacity to policy needs. Producing cutting-edge innovations is important, but their implementation for policy and decision-making needs is what has real impact.

This is what the Cambridge workshop was about - bringing different players together to identify the right ways to make EU BON innovation policy relevant.

Outcomes of the meeting:

• An improved vision of how to ‘market’ EU BON’s products for end-users;

• A better understanding of the end-users and the barriers that they face in accessing and using biodiversity data tools; and

• Improved collaboration between EU BON Work Packages and a coherent vision for future synergies.

The 3rd EU BON stakeholder roundtable took place from 10 to 11 December 2015 in Granada, Spain. The meeting brought together participants from global, European and regional projects, institutions, governmental organizations and universities to discuss biodiversity data workflows across different scales. Other important issues to discuss were current limitations of workflows but also tools and products from EU BON and other projects that may help to improve data collection, analysis and use in policy and practice.

Images from the workshop showing participants and group discussions; Credit: Dirk Schmeller/Florian Wetzel

The roundtable focused on EU BON test sites, workflows of data/information and the further usage for policy reporting and political processes. These issues were discussed with partners from EU BON and related biodiversity projects (LTER, GEO BON, Life Watch, Ecoscope) and stakeholders of biodiversity data (regional biodiversity networks: the environmental information network of Andalusia (Rediam), the Center for Monitoring and Assessment of Global Change (CAESCG), the Life project ADAPTAMED as well as local scientists).

On the first day, the different approaches from global (GEO BON) and European projects (EU BON, LTER, Life Watch, Ecoscope) were presented with a special emphasis on data collection, integration and analysis tools from EU BON. Furthermore, regional stakeholders pointed out their demands with regards to data mobilizations issues.

During the second day, discussions focused on the workflow of biodiversity data and the current barriers was discussed and current barriers and possible solutions to overcome the problems. Currently particularly socio-economic data is lacking as well as funding schemes to support interdisciplinary work as well as lacking capacities to address these questions.

In the World Café session, smaller groups discussed details of the workflow, particularly on (1) data mobilization, (2) data and tools, (3) implementation, and (4) upscaling.

As outcomes of the discussions at the round table, several recommendations were drafted, for example, to prioritise developed EU BON tools for further usage in the project and through the portal, to better address the user groups on different levels and provide a detailed and specific description for the tools. There are several biodiversity data workflows existing at the test sites, that could be improved by additional / existing tools, guidelines and standards from projects such as EU BON and by an enhanced communication between local sites, regional networks (as "middle-ware") and European networks.

Overall, it was agreed that a showcase for the workflow of biodiversity data from collection up to visualization (e.g. maps and using user such as the Andalusian Rediam network or/and IPBES as an example) is needed to showcase better the benefits of a European biodiversity network and enhance current functionalities by analyzing barriers and limitations in such an example of an "EU BON storyline".

Presentations:

Presentations Day 1

Presentations Day 2

Picture: Main European networks, projects and regional participants; Credits: Dirk Schmeller/EU projects logos

The Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM) network has the aim to measure and compare plants, terrestrial mammals, ground-dwelling birds and climate using a standard methodology in a range of tropical forests, from relatively pristine places to those most affected by people. TEAM currently operates in sixteen tropical forest sites across Africa, Asia and Latin America supporting a network of scientists committed to standardized methods of data collection to quantify how plants and animals respond to pressures such as climate change and human encroachment.

A recent TEAM network paper published in PLOS Biology deals with the standartization of methods in assessing biodiversity trends in tropical forest protected areas.

Abstract: 

EU BON has signed memoranda of understanding with almost thirty institutions and projects from across Europe and outside to state its desire for collaboration and exchange of expertise. Among the early partners in this list is the LTER-Europe group, focussed on the integration of scientific research  and ecosystem research approaches, including the human dimension.

Dr. Mark Frenzel who took part in the EU BON Third Stakeholder roundtable in December 2015, gives an overview of his impressions from the meeting as well as his ideas on the co-work between LTER-Europe and EU BON.

Credit: Florian Wetzel

Q: The LTER-Europe network looks at conceptualizing Long-Term Ecosystem Research (LTER) as an essential component of world-wide efforts to better understand ecosystems. How is the network planning to achieve this?

A: This is / will be achieved mainly by funded project work. Actually the H2020 eLTER project is the most important backbone, an ESFRI eLTER initiative is running too. In terms of content there are several challenges which need to be addressed: (1) Harmonisation in terms of what and how is being measured at LTER sites, (2) collection and representation of metadata about sites, actors and data sets within the web tool DEIMS, (3) open access of data and DOI registration of data sets, (4) considering the human component as a major driver for changes in ecosystems by including socio-economy and socio-ecology in the LTER approach.      
 

Q: How would EU BON and its planned European biodiversity portal be beneficial to LTER-Europe and its aims in the next years?

A: Biodiversity is not the only, but an important focus within LTER. It depends on the services and benefits connected with this portal and its long-term perspective. The most important added value I would see in an elaborated framework-based agreement on the set of  "essential biodiversity variables" which will be a compromise between importance and feasibility. This selection process should be well tuned with the relevant players in this field.
 

Q: The LTER-Europe network includes several hundreds of sites that are collecting large amounts of data  – how can this data be used for improving our knowledge of biodiversity, particularly for policy-relevant questions?

A: The big advantage (and potential) of LTER-Europe sites is the coverage in terms of geography and bioms, the general shortcoming is in the heterogeneous reasons why these sites have been set up (e.g. for monitoring air pollution) and that there is no targeted funding (in terms of a specific research question) for all sites.

Not all sites are dealing with biodiversity data. First, suitable sites need to be selected according to metadata in DEIMS (https://data.lter-europe.net/deims/). Second, data sets according to fitting topics have to be compiled (perhaps no easy task, as datasets up to now are not exhaustively documented). Site managers of representative sites (depending on the question to be addressed) could be motivated to create a common standardised data sets (needs external funding depending on the resources necessary for the task or at least a very attractive research question) responding to e.g. policy needs. Moreover, the long-term knowledge of site coordinators about the development and the important drivers of change at their sites (e.g. by assessing ecosystem services) comprises valuable meta information about the context of data sets.

Data obtained from the sites could potentially help with policy-relevant questions like status of endangered species or status of ecosystem service relevant system parameters which could be extracted from LTER sites.
 

Q: According to you what are the next three most urgent step in order to achieve better understanding of ecosystem services and their benefits for policy, economics and society?

A: (1) reliable data and suitable scale of data, (2) understanding the effect of scale on ecosystem services, (3) make use of large networks to approach this issue, bring the results down to a scale understandable for the layman.
 

About LTER-Europe:

Long-Term Ecosystem Research (LTER) is an essential component of world-wide efforts to better understand ecosystems. LTER contributes to the knowledge base informing policy and to the development of management options in response to the Grand Challenges under Global Change. From the beginning (around 2003) the design of LTER-Europe has focussed on the integration of natural sciences and ecosystem research approaches, including the human dimension. LTER-Europe was heavily involved in conceptualizing socio-ecological research (LTSER). As well as LTER Sites, LTER-Europe features LTSER Platforms, acting as test infrastructures for a new generation of ecosystem research across European environmental and socio-economic gradients.

Are you in Eastern Europe and actively involved in monitoring and managing biodiversity data? Then the EU BON "Biodiversity data sharing and data publishing workshop" might just be the thing for you.

The event will take place on 22-23 March 2016 in Sofia, Bulgaria with focus on publishing of biodiversity data, in particular species occurrences, sample-based and citizen science data. The training will include a practical session during which participants will be assisted by experienced trainers from the EU BON project. To register and for more information, click here.

The sessions on data sharing will cover introductory overview of key concepts, demonstration and practical exercise using the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT). The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is the world's largest initiative for enabling free access to biodiversity data via internet.

Special attention will be paid to data paper publishing led by specialists from Pensoft Publishers - a company well known among biodiversity scientists worldwide for technologically cutting-edge open access journals, such as: Research Ideas and Outcomes, ZooKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal, Nature Conservation, and a strong advocate of data publishing. Registration of data in GEO registry system will be also addressed during the workshop.

The following topics will be covered (detailed program will follow):

• The data publishing landscape, gaps and mobilization efforts
• Demonstration and practical session on data publishing using the GBIF IPT: step-by-step demo will show in detail (and in practice) how to publish a dataset using IPT.
• The Data Publishing Toolkit at EU BON: Automated creation of data papers, data and text integrated publishing via the ARPHA Publishing Platform
• Citizen Science gateway and demo of PlutoF Citizen Science module
• GoldenGate Imagine tool and copyright issues
• Registration of data in the GEO Registry System

Context and background: 

Addressing global problems, such as biodiversity loss and impacts of climate change requires open access to data. This was concluded by world leaders at Johannesburg Summit in 2002 when they established the Group for Earth Observations (GEO). EU BON (Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network) seeks to enhance biodiversity data availability and integration, and is the European contribution to the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network.

All biodiversity databases need to be integrated in GEO. Therefore, EU BON undertakes capacity building of biodiversity communities (e.g. researchers, citizen scientists, non-governmental organisations) that are involved in collecting and disseminating biodiversity information, including monitoring initiatives.

To register and for more information, click here.

Open access to biodiversity is key for addressing pertinent ecological issues such as biodiversity loss and impacts of climate change. On 22 & 23 March 2016, experts from EU BON met with scientists, policy makers and practitioners from across Europe to discuss issues of biodiversity data sharing, curation and publishing.

The workshop, which took place in Sofia, Bulgaria, introduced participants to key concepts, demonstration and practical exercise in biodiversity data sharing using the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT). Practical training sessions led by Larissa Smirnova from the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Belgium) and Kyle Braak from GBIF demonstrated the integration and management of datasets in GBIF. A step-by-step demo and practical session on how to publish a data was also featured in the workshop.

Participants at the EU BON data sharing & data publishing workshop in Sofia; Credit: Pensoft

Special attention was paid to innovative data publishing practices in a session led by the local hosts Pensoft Publishers who introduced their ARPHA publishing platform, as well as its new journal Research Ideas & Outcomes (RIO), which publishes unconventional output types across the research cycle, including data and software descriptions, workflows, methods and many more.

PlutoF demonstrated its citizen science gateway and  demonstrated how the citizen science data can be managed using the CS module. Plazi also presented their GoldenGate Imagine tool, optimized for marking up, enhancing, and extracting text and data from PDF files.

    
Sessions at the at the EU BON data sharing & data publishing workshop in Sofia; Credit: Pensoft

Registration for the "10th GEO European Projects Workshop" is now open until 2 May 2016. The event this year will take place in Berlin, Germany, spanning over three days from 31 May to 2 June 2016.

To register and learn more, please click here.

An EU BON-Team  from the Museum für Naturkunde  will also organize a Break Out Session at the event. The dedicated session #11 is called "Challenges for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Observation for the Next Ten Years", where several EU-projects will present their current and future activities with regards to biodiversity and ecosystem data, knowledge and contributions to the GEO work. This will be followed by interactive World Cafés:

1. World Café desk I: EEA and policy – data/model/portal needs.
2. World Café desk II: Follow-up joint products of GEO EU Biodiversity projects.
3. World Café desk III: Strengthening the in-situ approach in GEO by biodiversity and ecosystem-related projects.
4. World Café desk IV: Connecting with other GEO Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs), e.g. Agriculture, Health.

The Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (BIP) Secretariat is looking for indicators to fill gaps in the global suite of biodiversity indicators and allow a full understanding of progress towards globally agreed targets.

They are inviting experts and organisations to participate in an open online consultation to fill the gaps in the global indicator framework for the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020. Through this short online survey they want to hear about any existing indicators (both global and sub-global in scale), indicators under development, potentially useful datasets or key experts or organisations in the fields. The main focus is on indicators that respond to the gaps in the global framework, which are listed on the attached flyer, but they are also keen to hear about any other indicators that could potentially enhance the existing indicator suite.

The consultation is open until 30 June 2016. Further information on the consultation is available in the attached flyer, the BIP website http://www.bipindicators.net/gaps, and the CBD notification SCBD/OES/RH/KNM/85710.

The 10th GEO European Projects Workshop took place from 31 May until 2 June 2016 in Berlin, Germany. Representatives from science, business and public administration met in Berlin to discuss how European Earth observation initiatives can contribute to the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS).

The workshop, was jointly organised by the European Commission, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure of Germany, and the Museum für Naturkunde - Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science. A  wide range of events gave projects the opportunity to showcase their work and findings and discuss the future of earth observations. The event also featured a series of world cafés where, in a more informal and relaxed environment, experts could discuss topics focused on different aspects and challenges for biodiversity and ecosystem observation for the next ten years.

Group photo of the participants at the 10th GEO European Projects Workshop; Credit: H. Götz

During the meeting EU BON was presented at a specialized session focusing on the "Challenges for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Observation for the Next Ten Years". EU BON’s co-ordinator Dr. Christoph Häuser alongside project partner and WP2 leader Dr. Hannu Saarenmaa presented the latest project developments and results.

#GEPW16 @EUBON1 Christoph Häuser: gaps in biodiversity data in Europe pic.twitter.com/4j02nlUUxJ

— ENEON (@ENEONetwork) June 2, 2016

Special attention was paid to presenting and explaining the functionalities of the recently launched beta version of the EU BON European Biodiversity Portal, which aims to provide a substantial part of GEO BON’s Global Portal.

  


Clockwise from top left: Dr. Christoph Häuser presenting EU BON; Audience of the 10th GEO Projects Workshop; Panel at the Biodiversity and Ecosystem session; Credits: Florian Wetzel, Hwaja Götz and Anke Hoffmann.

For further information see:

Presentations

General Programme

Find out more resources on the official event webpage.

The EU BON workshop "Biodiversity research for and by citizens in Eastern Europe: tools, information services and public engagement" was organized to present the EU BON citizen science gateway, share accomplishments of the project, promote products, raise and discuss challenges of citizen science and facilitate networking between countries, especially eastern and central European countries.

There were 33 participants from Baltic countries and Finland and EU BON partners from Norway, Spain, Israel and Brussels. First day was showcasing the citizen science initiatives in Estonia, following best practice examples from EU BON consortium. During the second day the participants got a chance to learn the tools and methods for citizen science data management by ECSA and EU BON. This was followed by world cafe style discussion about the needs of citizen science initiatives and Pan-European citizen science gateway. One of the important conclusions for Baltic countries is that there is a need for stronger collaboration and supportive infrastructure to make citizen science more effective and also deliver accessible data to research community.

Some workshop participants also took part of Tartu Mini-BioBlitz on 29th June, first BioBlitz in Estonia. BioBlitz participants observed 239 species of animals, plants and fungi .

.

Workshop agenda

Read a first hand report form the workshop in the two great blog posts by Egle Marija Ramanauskaite (a workshop participant from Lithuania):

http://seplute.tumblr.com/post/146841955105/citsci-overtakes-the-baltics-citizen-science

http://seplute.tumblr.com/post/146844410470/citizen-science-workshop-in-tartu-recap-of-day-2

The EU project EKLIPSE has joined our family of associated partners. The MoU was signed by Dr. Carsten Neßhöver, UFZ, on behalf of EKLIPSE project Coordinator Dr. Allan Watt (NERC-Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Edinburgh, UK) and Dr. Anke Hoffmann, on behalf of EU BON Coordinator Dr. Christoph Häuser, during the 2016 GEO BON Open Science Conference & All Hands Meeting in Leipzig, Germany.

Dr. Carsten Neßhöver and Dr. Anke Hoffmann at the handing of the MoU; Credit: EKLIPSE

EKLIPSE is a EU project that will set up a sustainable and innovative way of knowing, networking and learning about biodiversity and ecosystem services. EKLIPSE is an unusual project in several ways, particularly:

• The project is funded for four years to develop a sustainable mechanism  that will be in place for many years to come.

• The development of the support mechanism through the project is facilitated by project partners. Their role is to facilitate linkages between science, policy and society, through different actions, such as knowledge synthesis, identifying research priorities, and building the Network of Networks  that will support the other actions.

The EU is a party to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilisation. The EU ABS Regulation1, which transposes into the EU legal order the compliance pillar of the Protocol, became applicable as of 12 October 2014. The principal obligations of the Regulation – i.e. Article 4 on due diligence, Article 7 on monitoring user compliance and Article 9 on checks on user compliance – will become applicable as of 12 October 2015.

In this context it is important that those who utilise genetic resources (i.e. conduct research and development on the genetic and/or biological composition of genetic resources, including through the application of biotechnology) are aware of the obligations arising from the Regulation, and that they can take the necessary measures to ensure their activities are compliant.

What's in it for you?

The EU ABS Regulation workshop aims at providing the participants with knowledge about their obligations under the EU ABS Regulation and what they practically imply for their everyday work. In the first part of the workshop, the new legal framework will be explained, providing insight into the main provisions of the EU ABS Regulation. In the second part of the workshop, participants will have a chance to put the knowledge gained into practice through interactive case studies, based on real-life examples and realistic scenarios.

The workshop should allow participants to better understand their obligations under the EU law, and to establish which steps they need to follow and which practical measures they should take when dealing with genetic resources originating from Parties to the Nagoya Protocol.

Planning and location of the workshops: 

Feel free to apply for registration to one of the following workshops:

• 18 October: Stockholm
• 17 November: Warsaw
• 21 November: Leiden
• Date to be determined: Budapest

The workshop is targeted at senior academics and experienced researchers conducting research and development on genetic resources who have an interest in gaining an essential understanding of the new legal framework in the EU, in view of the ABS Regulation becoming fully operational later this year.

Registration page: http://www.euconf.eu/abs/en/registration/index.html

Recently published the GEO Handbook on Biodiversity Observation Networks presents a powerful resource that will provide valuable guidance to those committed to protecting, sustaining and preserving biodiversity across the planet. The practical experience which GEO BON has accumulated through its own actions, and through the efforts of its network partners, is a valuable resource to biodiversity information systems everywhere—from those just starting out in places where there has previously been little information, to large operations holding vii enormous amounts of data and wishing to know how better to use it. 

The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) is a voluntary international partnership of 102 governments and 92 participating organisations which share a vision of a future in which decisions and actions for the benefit of humankind are informed by coordinated, comprehensive and sustained Earth observations. GEO achieves its mission largely through self-organising communities focused on important Earth observation domains where decision-making will benefit from data that is shared broadly and openly. These communities form connected systems and networks, creating a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

During its first ten-year implementation period, 2005–2015, GEO identified biodiversity as a key ‘Societal Benefit Area’, resulting in the formation of the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network, GEO BON. As GEO moves into its second, ten-year implementation period, GEO BON is recognised as one of its strongest communities. It has helped to mobilise and coordinate the data and information needed for an effective response to the global threats faced by organisms, species and ecosystems. In collaboration with international treaty bodies such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, GEO BON has worked with national conservation agencies and non-governmental organisations at scales from regional to global. These efforts have revealed both the benefits of working together and the challenges of such a complex, but urgent task, not least of which is filling the remaining large gaps in data and information. 

The 4th EU BON roundtable took place on 17 November 2016 in the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. Focused on the topic "Pathways to sustainability for EU BONs network of collaborators and technical infrastructure" the 35 participants discussed key questions with regards to the sustainability of the EU BON network and products, and shared their rich expertise, coming from different backgrounds ranging from science to policy.

The Roundtable brought together key European users and stakeholders, such as the European Environment Agency, UNEP GRID, and the GEO secretariat, including 27 different institutions and organisations, as well as European funded projects, infrastructures and networks that share the EU BON objectives of assembling biodiversity and ecosystem-related data and knowledge, such as Lifewatch, the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA), ECOPOTENTIAL, EKLIPSE and others.

Credit: Florian Wetzel

In her welcome address, Katrin Vohland, head of the Science Programme "Public Engagement with Science" and task lead for stakeholder engagement in EU BON explained that key lessons learnt are that:

1. stakeholder identification may yield unexpected results as in the case of EU BON where next to scientifically based organisation less practitioners but more citizen scientists seem to become stakeholder;

2. early and continuous connections are necessary, as for example to other EU initiatives and projects;

3. target group specific communication avoiding acronyms helps; and

4. the idea of teal organisations may support overcoming the limitations to  make networks economically sustainable - which are important but non-monetary assets.  

While former Roundtables addressed European policy, citizen science and the link to practitioners, this final EU BON Stakeholder event discussed the future and sustainability of the European biodiversity observation network and its products and tools.

Key questions for the participants were:

• How can the many different EU BON products be sustained and further developed after the project ends in May 2017?

• Which institutions will host the products in the future and what key products could be further developed by EU BON to meet European and global policy and research needs (e.g. for monitoring, reporting)?

• How can a European Biodiversity Network as a whole be sustained in order to serve as a central infrastructure and pool of expertise for generating biodiversity data and information on a European scale?

Ideas and plans were developed to secure the sustainability and long term re-use of EU BON products. More information on the outcomes of the meeting can be found below in the minutes and the presentations given during the day.

The report form the meeting was officially published in RIO Journal as a part of the dedicated EU BON outputs collection:

Wetzel F, Despot Belmonte K, Bingham H, Underwood E, Hoffmann A, Häuser C, Mikolajczyk P, Vohland K (2017) 4th European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON) Stakeholder Roundtable: Pathways to sustainability for EU BONs network of collaborators and technical infrastructure. Research Ideas and Outcomes 3: e11875. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.3.e11875

For further information please contact:

Dr. Katrin Vohland, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin,  Email: katrin.vohland@mfn-berlin.de

Dr. Florian Wetzel, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin,  Email: florian.wetzel@mfn-berlin.de

Presentations from the meeting: 

1. EU BON_RT_Katrin Vohland

2. Key achievements _ Christoph Häuser

3.1 EUBON Products_ Lauren Weatherdon

3.2 EU BON products and stakeholders_David Rose

4. EU BON and modelling tools_Bill Kunin

5. CS and EU BON tools_Bernat Claramunt

6. Businessplan_Sustainability_Dirk Schmeller

7 .EKLIPSE_EUBON_Carsten Nesshöfer-Dirk Schmeller

8. EEA - EEA_EU BON_Beate Werner

9. LifeWatch_Wouter Los_Christos Arvanitidis

10. Thoughts on Sustainability_Gary Geller

11. Biodiversity data, gaps and effors_Florian_Wetzel

12. EUBON-portal_Tim Robertson

The 11th European Projects GEO Workshop took place between 19-21 June 2017, in Helsinki, Finland, bringing together European stakeholders interested in and actively contributing to the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS).

Alongside the plenary (see presentations here), the conference featured 20 sessions looking at various aspects GEOSS, its objectives and their implementation.

Among those EU BON took part in a dedicated session titled ‘How Ecosystem and Biodiversity data and knowledge can support the GEO objectives’, alongside fellow projects and initiatives, and associated partners ECOPOTENTIAL, LTER-Europe, GLOBIS-B, EKLIPSE and ENEON.

Credit: F. Wetzel

The session aimed to inform about recent developments of relevant projects that focus on Ecosystems and Biodiversity and also outline how the generated data and knowledge can support the GEO objectives and inform relevant policies on a European and global scale.  

.@ft_wetzel explaining the @EUBON1 approach to mobilising linked and standardised data #EGW2017 #citizenscience #harmonisation #biodiversity pic.twitter.com/jJJ5jADAzG

— Scent (@SCENT_EU) June 20, 2017

EU BON, as a now completed project, opened the session by presenting its major products in particular the European Biodiversity Portal and how current and future projects can build on the outcomes achieved.

Overall, the session gave the opportunity to learn about the different approaches of selected EU-projects that address the mobilization, integration and analysis of biodiversity and ecosystem data, their current achievements and existing barriers. Here are some of the Key Messages that emerged from the session: 

• For biodiversity and ecosystem approaches, European level efforts are needed to achieve comprehensive data coverage and full open access, especially for in situ data integration.
• Existing European-level data portals and information platforms need to be sustained and considered as integration points for national and local data hubs. 
• Systematic approaches for biodiversity are needed, which means linking biotic and abiotic data and improving harmonization efforts for the whole data cycle/ workflows from data collection, analysis and dissemination for different disciplines (SBAs). 
• Essential (Biodiversity) Variables (EBVs) are a key concept / framework especially for monitoring / long-term observations that should be applied for all available biodiversity/ecosystem data fields.
• Use examples from existing projects and networks as successful blueprints for bottom-up/user-driven approaches in GEOSS that relate to knowledge and user needs at the local scale. 

The ECOPOTENTIAL H2020 project, focusing its activities on blending Earth Observations from remote sensing, field measurements, data analysis and modeling of current and future ecosystem conditions and services, is organizing this workshop in Brussels on the 10th of January 2018, from 9.00 to 17:30. 

The main objective of the workshop is to prospect the state-of-the-art of Remote Sensing as a Sentinel tool to monitor, characterize and understand the state, ongoing changes and effectiveness of conservation and management actions of natural landscapes and to facilitate an open debate among scientists and the involved Institutions. This workshop is part of the multiple events organized by the ECOPOTENTIAL Project on the week of 9th-12th of January 2018, starting on Jan 9th with the opening of the photo-exhibition with the same title, on display at the European Parliament. 

Registration: http://ves.cat/emIm

Agenda: http://www.ecopotential-project.eu/images/ecopotential/img_news/Spaced-workshop-AGENDA-Jan-10-2018.pdf

Event's website: http://www.ecopotential-project.eu/2015-08-19-15-19-05/2015-10-16-13-48-29/205-spaced-using-earth-observations-to-protect-natural-landscapes.html

The Research Infrastructures Unit of DG RTD and the infrastructure project LifeWatch invites you to a 1 and ½ day workshop : "Towards a Roadmap for Research Infrastructures on Biodiversity and Ecosystem research in Europe". The workshop will take place Brussels on 19 and 20 March 2013.
The overall objective of this workshop is to develop synergies between ESFRI research infrastructures (RI), existing research infrastructures implemented as Integrating Activities (IA), Integrated Projects (IP) and Joint Programming Initiatives (JPI) which are relevant to Biodiversity and Ecosystem research.
The following topics will be discussed:
1. Synergy between the biodiversity components of different initiatives, also in view of the supporting role of the European research infrastructures in this area.
2. A strategy for the development of biodiversity research infrastructures in the next ten years in view of emerging scientific and technical challenges.

Further information: EuroMarine

The next GEO European Projects' Workshop (GEPW7) is planned to take place in Barcelona on 8 and 9 April 2013. The event, which will be hosted by CREAF (Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications) of the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona, is intended to bring all those interested in and actively contributing to the GEOSS from all over Europe together in order to present their work and actively discuss how Europe can contribute to GEO and GEOSS.
The proposed venue is the famous Catalan art nouveau building owned by the university: "La Casa de la Convalescència" (Convalescence House) located in the centre of the city.
All Coordinators of EC projects are informed and encouraged to notify members of their teams or colleagues who may be interested in participating.
Event web page: Geo European Projects Workshop 2013

iMarine e-Infrastructure for data driven decision making and research
iMarine  is organising an invitation-only workshop to discuss data driven decision making and research on 14th & 15th May 2013 at DG Connect, Avenue de Beaulieu 33 (BU33), Room 0/54, Brussels, Belgium.
The goal of iMarine is to facilitate policy makers in addressing the global challenges impacting on the marine ecosystem, the fisheries sector, local economies and communities and to demonstrate that science based policy making can benefit from a large and distributed e-Infrastructure for cross-disciplinary data collection, harmonization and analysis necessary for the management and conservation of marine living resources.

The first EU BON Informatics Workshop will take place in Trondheim, Norway from 29 to 31 May 2013. The event aims at discussing the data standards and informatics architecture that will be followed by the EU BON project. The workshop will also focus on highlighting linkages to GEOSS Common Infrastructure and the GEO BON. Among the agenda on the list are also presentation of the plans and operations of the EU BON Helpdesk as well as the first assembly of the global Informatics Task Force of EU BON. The workshop is by invitation only. The agenda and travel details have been updated on 2 May 2013, see the below attachment.

Introduction to using BioVeL workflows for taxonomic refinement, biogeographic analysis, and species distribution modelling

The training workshop will teach the attendees in using the informatic tools and services developed by the BioVeL project to address research topics such as historical analyses, invasive species distribution modelling, endangered species distribution modelling, and dynamic modelling of ecologically related species. In particular, there will be  introductions to the BioVeL e-infrastructure, Taxonomic data cleaning, Taxonomic name resolution and synonym expansion, Ecological niche modelling, model testing, statistical analysis of GIS data, invasive and endangered species distribution modelling, historical comparison biodiversity from museum collections. more ...

The course is a two-day hands-on training event. The course will accommodate 10-15 researchers. The program consists of introductory lectures, practical computer work, and discussions. Researchers will be contacted upon admission in order to consider their own research objectives for the course. more ...

The 2014 SCIENCE POLICY SYMPOSIUM to support the implementation of the 2020 Biodiversity strategy and the EU Water Framework Directive will be held between 29-30 Jan 2014 in the Museum of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Brussels. The symposium is jointly organised by the EU FP7 funded projects BioFresh and REFRESH.

Numerous EU biodiversity and water related policies have been designed to protect freshwater ecosystems and ensure their sustainable use. However, major challenges still persist in the implementation of these policies. Freshwater ecosystems support 10% of all animal species on Earth and provide a diverse array of functions and services that contribute to human well-being. In recent decades global freshwater biodiversity has declined at a greater rate compared to terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

The Science Policy Symposium for Freshwater Life is organised with the aim of bringing together policy makers and stakeholders from the water, energy and conservation sector, NGOs, the scientific community and selected experts to discuss challenges to implementing the 2020 Biodiversity strategy and the EU Water Framework Directive.

A key goal of the iMarine initiative is to support stakeholders in a sustainable use of the marine ecosystem. 

On 7th March 2014, iMarine is organizing an interactive workshop "iMarine data platform for collaborations" to showcase how its powerful data infrastructure is capable of addressing the challenges of the Ecosystem Approach. 

The workshop also offers important opportunities to work together on developing plans related to iMarine sustainability, such as the public partnership model concept, as well as engage new potential users and partners for the future. 

The workshop is co-located with the Fishery Dependent Information conference and will take place at Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) headquarters, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy. 

Participation is free of charge but subject to registration. 

After a successful networking session in Bangkok, Thailand the SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN project is organising another networking session for interested institutions and research projects in Brussels, Belgium. The event will take place on 28 March 2014 in Brussels, Belgium.This meeting is helpful if you

• want to get to know and network with fellow environment research projects (in the areas of climate change, resource efficiency and raw materials) with an ASEAN focus and/or relevant research results for the region
• want to identify and harness synergies with other projects (possible future cooperation; sharing of results and work, etc.)
• want to get in touch with the SUSTAIN team, communicating what kind of support your research efforts would benefit from

The SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN project generally has to offer

• networking and project twinning support: find and coordinate with similar projects!
• R&D services for results take-up: get support in approaching potential investors!
• communication and exposure support: make your results visible for potential users!

Get in touch here, if you are interested in joining the meeting. The pre-meeting agenda is available as an attachment below,

Read more about the event on the SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN website.

On the 1st of April, between 9:30 and 16:30, the BiodiversityKnowledge project organises a conference where outcomes will be presented and widely discussed with policy makers, science and other stakeholders at the European parliament in Brussels. As final result, BiodiversityKnowledge will present a stakeholder’s document outlining a recommended design on how such a Network of Knowledge could operate and produce added value.

EU BON will be also presented at the confernce as one of the knowledge providers of the Network of Knowledge.

To counteract biodiversity loss, efforts have considerably increased over the past years to strengthen the science-policy-society interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services. There is indeed an active landscape of projects, institutions, organisations and individuals in Europe involved in this interface, all aiming to improve the knowledge flow so that decisions at different policy levels (from European, to national and local levels) are based on the best available knowledge.

With the 7th Environmental Action Programme and the start of Horizon2020 and its focus on innovative solutions for society, the need for more concerted activities in this context become even more important.

In this context, BiodiversityKnowledge (FP7 KNEU), an EU-funded coordination action has been set up to help to map, mobilise and organise this landscape focusing on the knowledge holders’ community. For this the project has been developing and testing a prototype Network of Knowledge since 2011 with more than 300 active participations of representatives of the biodiversity and ecosystems services knowledge community. Stakeholders involved ranged from practitioners and researchers to policy-makers.

Please find the conference agenda attached below.

The 9th International Conference on Open Repositories will be held from 9 to 13 June, 2014 in Helsinki,  Finland. It is the leading international conference in its field, and the attendance is likely to be around 400, with participants from all around the world. The main theme of the conference is "Towards Repository Ecosystems".

DataONE will host an all-day workshop at the conference on Monday, 9 June.

The full conference program is likely to published in late April, 2014, but there is a draft version of the schedule available.

Conference registration has been open since February 14, 2014. There are also sponsorship opportunities available.

The conference will be hosted by University of Helsinki‘s twin libraries: Helsinki University Library and the National Library of Finland. You can contact the organizers by e-mail: or-2014[at]helsinki.fi.

For more information and to register, please visit the conference wensite:http://or2014.helsinki.fi/

The European Commission announces the 8th GEO European Projects Workshop (GEPW-8) which will take place in Athens, Greece, on 12 and 13 June, hosted by the Greek GEO Office - National Observatory of Athens and co-organized by the Mariolopoulos-Kanaginis Foundation for the Environmental Sciences.

The eighth of the annual series of GEO European Projects Workshops is intended to bring all those interested in and actively contributing to the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS) from all over Europe together, in order to present their work and discuss how Europe can contribute to this international effort, especially in the wake of the launch of the new EU Framework Programme for Research, Horizon 2020, and renewal of the mandate of GEO for another 10 years through the endorsement of the 2014 Geneva Declaration.

Registration:

Registration is already open since 20th of March at the GEPW8 website.
Registration for attendance deadline: May 23, 2014
Registration of presentation deadline: April 30, 2014. Application form will be available at GEPW8 website.

For more information please visit the event's website at: www.gepw8.noa.gr 

Hands-on Workshop for registering and accessing COOPEUS Research Infrastructures through the GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI)

The main goal is to foster the use of the GCI by getting data managers of the COOPEUS research infrastructure initiatives (RI) involved. The workshop will be carried out as hands-on exercise of registering resources of the RIs with the GCI and then demonstrating the benefits achieved thereby. This process will provide valuable feedback to the operators of the GCI and to our team.

The partners of the COOPEUS project are judging the GCI as a unique opportunity to integrate all available environmental information in a common platform.

Dates:  July 1-2, 2014 (Start at 10 AM on July 1st and finish on July 2nd at 5 PM)
Venue:  MARUM, Bremen, Germany

To Register for the workshop, please send an email with the following information to COOPEUS@marum.de:

1) Name and institution
2) Research infrastructures/ research infrastructure projects that you are involved with
3) potential involvement in specific GEOSS tasks?
4) contact information (business address, phone, email etc.)

- Only a limited number of attendees can be accommodated !

Here you can find a campus map of the University of Bremen  (find MARUM on Leobnerstrasse on the left-hand side) and Information about travel and accommodation.

Target group: programmers, developers and system engineers. The workshop is also open to anybody who might be interested to learn more about the DINA-system.

Preliminary agenda:

• Presentations from all DINA-partners
• APIs, service oriented architecture and road map for distributed development guidelines and principles on how to build a module and join the DINA-system
• Case studies
• Delivery options: creating installations from hosted environment, virtual machines down to code.

Workshop Program.

There will be a SETF-meeting for DINA consortium members on the 15th of September.

Welcome to register for the workshop here:

DINA - Technical Workshop 16-18 September, Stockholm

The workshop is an activity within WP 1 Task 1.4

The aim of the event is to inform and guide prospective applicants preparing project proposals, to facilitate sharing of ideas and experiences. It will give participants the chance to network and to find partners for their projects.

ICT-16 is part of Horizon 2020's ICT work programme 2014-2015

The activities supported under this topic contribute to the Big Data challenge by addressing the fundamental research problems related to the scalability and responsiveness of analytics capabilities (such as privacy-aware machine learning, language understanding, data mining and visualization). Special focus is on industry-validated, user-defined challenges like predictions, and rigorous processes for monitoring and measurement.

The current outline of the draft agenda can be found HERE

Registration

The registration to the event is now open and is on the first-come-first-serve basis. Click HERE to register. The closing date is 8 January 2015.

After the registration you will have the possibility to upload a presentation for the ICT-16 networking and partner finding session which will take place in the afternoon (max 3 slides for 3 minutes presentation).

In parallel to the ICT-16 networking session a workshop on multilingual data value chains will be organised. Therefore, you should pay attention to which part of the event you enrol.

Please note that bilateral meetings with EC Project Officers to discuss proposal ideas (proposal clinics) will *not* be possible, in compliance with H2020 regulations.

More information available here.

The RS4EBV workshop organized by GEO BON will take place on 28 & 29 January 2015 at the iDIV, Leipzig.

The second EU BON WP6 & 7 Workshop will take place from 16 to18 Feb 2015  in Aix-en-Provence, France.

The objective of the workshop is to further develop on cross WP and task interactions and to define outputs. 

Place and date: Joensuu, Finland, 17-20 March 2015

Purpose of this meeting is to launch several EU BON products, give a related training workshop, work on upcoming deliverables, and gain synergies by working with CETAF. Registration for the workshop is now open, see below!

More nformation is available here: http://digitarium.fi/en/content/eu-bon-and-cetaf-joint-informatics-workshop

European Geosciences Union
General Assembly 2015
Vienna | Austria | 12 – 17 April 2015

http://www.egu2015.eu/home.html

One Workshop partiicluarly relevant for EU BON: ESSI2.17 Aggregation, consolidation and coordination of Earth observation networks. Harmonization and gaps

Convener: Joan Masó
Co-Convener: Ivette Serral

Abstract
We are investing in many efforts in creating pan-European or global EO thematic networks but are managed independently and coordination between them is limited. Europe is investing in the Sentinel constellation an at the same time, several initiatives are setting out to create, maintain and operationalize networks of in-situ sensors. These observation networks are usually conceived with a specific purpose in mind (e.g., air quality monitoring in the main cities or coastal water contamination), and they often lack a general coverage, are scattered irregularly in the territory, and sometimes are removed when the measurement campaign ends. There is a need for integrating systems and coordinating them more efficiently, explore synergies and make progress in harmonized and extend them.
Some initiatives aim to coordinate several themes into a single observation set. This is the case of the Critical Zone Exploration (the Earth’s outer layer from vegetation canopy to the soil and groundwater that sustains human life). The CZEN (Critical Zone Exploration Network; http://www.czen.org) is a network of field sites investigating processes within the Critical Zone.

This session is asking for presentations on the coordination between observation network examples and solutions to overcome technical and political barriers that help to reduce the cost and increase value by combining and sharing structures. Papers discussing gaps or redundancies in the current Earth observation networks are also welcome.

http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2015/session/18560

http://geobon.org/bon-in-a-box-workshop-colombia/

GEO BON in partnership with Colombia’s Instituto von Humboldt held the first BON in a Box (Biodiversity Observation Network in a Box) regional workshop in Armenia, Colombia.

Over 50 participants from Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and several ‘external’ GEO BON participants convened over 4 days to enthusiastically define the structure and content for this regional toolkit for biodiversity observations.

The workshop outcomes are directly guiding the development of the first prototype of this web-based, customizable toolkit which will be released in November of this year.

EU BON was represented by Hannu Saarenmaa, who gave a presentation on using GBIF IPT for sharing sample based data and the related new data standards.

The GEO Workplan Symposium 2015 is planned to take place on 5-7 May 2015 in Geneva, Switzerland.

For more information, please consult the GEO meetings list.

Teh GEO BON 2nd RS4EBV workshop will take place 27 to 28 May 2015 in Frascati, Italy.

• reviewing extensively the status of existing essential variables in different Societal Benefits Areas (SBA) of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO);
• assessing their observational needs and readiness (in terms of temporal frequency, spatial resolution, accuracy, etc.);
• describing the monitoring networks currently operational;
• capturing gaps and requirements for EV operational definition (mainly in terms of integration of all types of Earth Observations);
• identifying the process underlying EV definition in support to less mature domains and the elaboration of new variables.

The 9th GEO European Projects Workshop will take place on 15 and 16 June 2015 in Copenhagen, co-organised by the Danish Meteorological Institute, the European Commission and the European Environment Agency.

The objective of the GEO European Projects Workshop is to bring together European players interested in and actively contributing to the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS). The aim is to enable participants to present their work and discuss how Europe can contribute to this international effort. Its timing has been set to maximise early insight and awareness of the new Implementation plan for the next decade of GEO as well as input to and awareness of Horizon 2020 work programme for 2016 and 2017.

Building on the experience from previous GEO European Projects Workshops, it is intended to continue working towards greater involvement of the European private sector, especially SMEs, in GEO.  The workshop will also focus on user engagement, and the priorities for future flagship initiatives, foreseen to be strengthened in the next phase of GEO, in order to fulfil GEO's ambition to provide information for decision making.

While registration is now closed, due to demand the event will be recorded and streamed live on  http://stream.dvc.dk/9thgeo/ 

More information available on the official event page: http://geo.pbe.eionet.europa.eu/

An GEO BON - EU BON workshop iis scheduled for 20-24 July in Manaus, Brasil for a targeted group of representatives of the different EU BON WPs or task forces.

The workshop will specifically target the following:

– Issues of designing and running biodiversity monitoring observatories (i.e. optimization and guidelines for planning biodiversity monitoring)

– Analyses of biodiversity data to be addressed for assessing changes and patterns

– Linkage of (meta-) data to EU BON portal

Being hosted in Manaus, this workshop will facilitate the integration of Brazilian and European expertise, for instance by updating about the progress made by Brazil in starting participatory resource monitoring in Brazilian National parks and the development of databases to integrate this information. The workshop will be held at the Federal University of Amazonas Experimental Site.

DINA Technical Comittee will have a workshop in Copenhagen with updates on ongoing module developments and coding sessions.

http://www.dina-project.net/wiki/Physical_TC_meeting_2015

The 3rd EU BON Stakeholder Round Table "Biodiversity data workflow - from data mobilisation to practice" will take place on 10&11 December 2015 Granada, Spain.

One main objective of the round table is to understand how the workflow from data mobilisation to decision making functions in practice, including within the context of EU BON.

Firstly, we want to evaluate what kind of (biodiversity) data are available and what workflows and best practices already exist. Secondly, we want to assess which gaps still exist and what will be needed to improve the current situation to overcome existing barriers.

Please register here: http://societas.biodiv.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de/?q=node/64

The "International Workshop Decision Models and Population Management" will take place from 2 to 4 February, 2014 in Paris, France. The three days international and interdisciplinary workshop is devoted to the decision making, in particular in presence of multiple actors with or without interaction. These problems occur in a natural way in management of populations, where the dynamics are strongly related to the decisions. The workshop aims to bring together Mathematicians, Computer Scientists and Ecologists around the problem of populations management. The population dynamics, viability theory and game theory form an umbrella of helpful mathematical tools in this context. On the other hand, the computer sciences bring the online and algorithmic mechanism design.

The workshop is motivated by concrete problems proposed by ecologists and aims to create a synergy between scientists from different backgrounds to address the challenging modelling of decision making in the context of ecological paradigms.

Invited Speakers
- Michel BENAIM (Université de Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Swtizerland)
- Renato CASAGRANDI (Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
- Denis COUVET (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France)
- Sylvain DUCTOR (LIP6, UPMC, Paris, France)
- Marino GATTO (Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria-Politecnico di Milano, Italy) 
- Ihab HAIDAR (Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France)
- Sophie MARTIN (UR LISC - IRSTEA)
- Nicolas MAUDET (LIP6, UPMC, Paris, France) 
- Paco MELIÀ (Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
- Jean-Baptiste MIHOUB (UPMC-Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France)
- Vianney PERCHET (Université Denis Diderot, Paris, France)
 - Karl SIGMUND (University of Vienna, Wien, Austria)
- Sylvain SORIN (IMJ-PRG, UPMC, Paris, France)
- Jean-Philippe TERREAUX (IRSTEA-ADBX, Bordeaux, France)
- Tristan TOMALA (École des hautes études commerciales de Paris, Paris, France)
- Vladimir VELIOV (Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria)
- Yannick VIOSSAT (Université Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France)

Workshop 1 and 2 have the aim to identify the options and problems associated with the general challenges of provisioning the research infrastructures to deliver capabilities for supporting the generation and calculation of EBVs. The two workshops (Figure 1) will focus on the EBV class ‘Species populations’ (EBVs ‘Species distribution’ and ‘Population abundance’) for which the data, models and understanding are presently much better developed than for other EBV classes.

Workshop 1 will have integrated as well as parallel sessions with ecologists and biodiversity scientists (with special expertise in species distributions and abundance and its monitoring), biodiversity informaticians and infrastructure operators, and legal interoperability experts.

http://www.globis-b.eu/33/workshop_1.html