Cost-effective biodiversity monitoring for EU policies

From the Commission's own budget table for this call. Confirm against the topic page before you plan around it: these move when a work programme is amended.

Expected Outcome: Proposals are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes: more precise and more efficient biodiversity monitoring schemes, building on advanced technologies and more abundant data, are available; policymakers and relevant competent authorities have more efficient and user-friendly tools at their disposal to implement and evaluate results of the EU environmental legislation, leading to simplification of policy implementation and better protection and restoration of ecosystems. Scope: The implementation of the EU environmental legislation, in particular the Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR), the Soil Monitoring Law (SML) and the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), requires precise monitoring of biodiversity to ensure that objectives are met. For instance, under the NRR, Member States are required to monitor annually the abundance and diversity of pollinator species using a specific monitoring method. Under the WFD implementation, the determination of ecological status of freshwater ecosystems is based on biodiversity monitoring. Under the SML, Member States have to monitor mandatorily the diversity of fungi and bacteria in soil through DNA metabarcoding, and optionally of archaea, protists and other relevant soil organisms. Data from these monitoring schemes, if produced according to the FAIR principle, can contribute to other monitoring frameworks, for instance to monitor the progress of the environmental objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Past and on-going projects [1] , and initiatives such as the European partnership Biodiversa+ or the EU mission “A Soil Deal for Europe”, have explored and/or demonstrated the potential of new technologies, tools and methods for in-situ biodiversity monitoring with potential for better accuracy of data, increased efficiency and wider scales for data collection. However, this potential is not fully integrated in current binding biodiversity monitoring schemes, which could benefit notably from the availability of increased data leading to more precise assessment of the status of ecosystems. These innovative solutions still need to be tested, operationalised and piloted in the context of the concrete implementation of the EU legislation. Proposals should address Area A: Nature Restoration Regulation, namely the EU Pollinators Monitoring Scheme [2] , Area B: Soil Biodiversity for the Soil Monitoring Law or Area C: Water Framework Directive. The area (A, B or C) should be clearly indicated on the application. Proposals under all the 3 areas should: develop scalable appr…