Virtual library for ecosystem assessments - Library2018-11-05T20:07:04Ztag:archives.eionet.europa.eu,2018-11-05:/ecosystem-assessments-virtual-library/libraryhttps://archives.eionet.europa.eu/ecosystem-assessments-virtual-library/misc_/Groupware/site.gifVirtual library for ecosystem assessmentsVirtual Library Surveytag:archives.eionet.europa.eu,2018-11-05:/ecosystem-assessments-virtual-library/library/survey2018-11-05T20:07:04Zbjarnasonlaporva<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #ffcc99; font-family: andale mono,times;">The “<a href="http://biodiversity.europa.eu/ecosystem-assessments"><span style="background-color: #ffcc99;">Ecosystem assessments in Europe</span></a>” platform of BISE aims at facilitating the planning and development of ecosystem assessments in Europe. Currently, the platform introduces the main sources of information on the concepts and methods that are useful for conducting an ecosystem assessment, documents some case studies in Europe, and informs about related events. To meet the objective of the platform, a <b>virtual library is needed</b> to provide a more comprehensive and indexed collection of documents that are relevant for developing ecosystem assessments in Europe.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">We would like to invite you to give us your feedback regarding your needs and your potential contributions to the virtual library, by answering the questionnaire below. Your feedback will be very useful to help us define the proper scope of the virtual library, and develop adequate tools for collecting and indexing the documents in the library, and for searching for documents across the whole library.</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong>Context</strong></span></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">The Millennium Assessment (<a href="http://www.maweb.org/en/Index.aspx">MA</a>), and the study on the economic significance of the global loss of biological diversity (<a href="http://www.teebtest.org/">TEEB</a>), have highlighted that ecosystems are being degraded and that these degradations have major socio-economics effects. These degradations are further predicted to worsen if no action is taken, with potentially irreversible changes. Increasing knowledge and raising awareness about ecosystems and the socio-economic impacts of their degradation, as well as identifying strategies to reverse the ongoing degradation are therefore major issues.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Ecosystem assessments are needed to identify pathways towards a sustainable development. In Europe, some countries have already published a national ecosystem assessment, while initiatives are on-going or are in an explorative stage in some other countries. In 2011, the European Commission adopted a new <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/biodiversity/comm2006/pdf/2020/1_EN_ACT_part1_v7%5b1%5d.pdf">EU Biodiversity Strategy</a>. Action 5, under target two of this strategy, foresees that:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><i>“Member States, with the assistance of the Commission, will map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory by 2014, assess the economic value of such services, and promote the integration of these values into accounting and reporting systems at EU and national level by 2020”.</i></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">This specific action aims at providing the knowledge base on ecosystems and their services in Europe and underpins the achievement of other targets of the strategy (improve the outcomes of EU nature legislation, streamline biodiversity objectives into sectoral policies, combat invasive alien species, and help avert global biodiversity loss), as well as the other actions related to target two (insuring no net loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and setting priorities to restore and promote the use of green infrastructure).</span></p>
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<h2><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><b>Envisaged principles for the virtual library on ecosystem assessments in Europe</b></span></h2>
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<p><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">The virtual library provides a repository of all documents relevant for planning and shaping ecosystem assessments in Europe; these documents can be in any European language.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">The virtual library is a collaborative tool: it is populated by multiple experts that are directly involved in planning or shaping ecosystem assessment at national, subnational or European scale, in policy bodies and research organisations.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">The inclusion of any document in the virtual library requires specific information about the document according to a tick list in English (e.g. regarding the issues covered, the spatial specificity, etc.).</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Searching tools use the mandatory information provided when uploading a document.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">The virtual library provides a processing/analytical instrument allowing the generation of summary overviews and statistics.</span></p>
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</ol>
<h2><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong>Questionnaire to review the needs and contributions from all users of the virtual library</strong></span></h2>
<p><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">With the questionnaire below, we would like to review the needs and potential contributions from all users of the virtual library. Below, you can find a limited set of questions, developped as a tick list, asking for your needs and potential contributions, with regard to:</span></p>
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">the medium of the documents which could be referenced and indexed in the virtual library (e.g. websites, reports, events...);</span></li>
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<div><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">the type of the documents which could be referenced and indexed in the virtual library (case studies, guidelines, related research projects, policy documents, scientific papers, tools, etc);</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">the ecosystem assessment issues covered in the documents (process & governance, conceptual framework, biophysical baseline, valuation, scenarios, policy analyses…);</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">the spatial specificity of the documents (no spatial specificity, national documents, …)</span></div>
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<p><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Your answers to these questions will help us for defining the scope of the library, and for developing adequate tools (including the tick list for collecting mandatory information on the documents).</span></p>