Selection and application of spatial indicators for nature conservation at different institutional levels

As European integration increasingly affects pan-European nature conservation, indicators for the assessment of habitats are urgently needed to support ecosystem integrity monitoring as well as the target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010. The Natura 2000 network of protected sites with a strong focus on the protection of habitat types and strict monitoring obligations is now legally binding for all Member States. From a set of indicators that have been proposed for habitat monitoring by the SPIN project (Spatial Indicators for European Nature Conservation) we describe measures of landscape structure and soil function and their potential for the monitoring and management of protected areas and the surrounding landscape. In a case study from Austria, we show that structure-related indicators hold potential for the documentation of local-scale changes on a degraded raised bog Natura 2000 site. In a regional scale case study in northern Germany, we show how landscape metrics relate agricultural statistics, e.g. farm size and livestock density to landscape structure. In a third case study from Slovenia, we show how coarse-scale soil data can be disaggregated to finer scale by integrating topographic information and additional parameters for modelling, and production of soil-related habitat suitability maps. From these case studies we provide an overview of some of the critical issues affecting the selection and application of spatial indicators for nature conservation monitoring tasks. End users of spatial indicators work at different scales and in different biogeographical regions. The indicator selection and application demonstrated in our three case studies reveals the capability to contribute to a more quantitative evidence base for monitoring and management of biodiversity in Europe.