GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

The EU and China face similar challenges as a result of climate change where it comes to biodiversity related aspects, while reaching climate neutrality will require critical contributions from terrestrial land, including through enhancing net carbon dioxide removals. Similar challenges could benefit from similar actions and defining best practices in improving monitoring of terrestrial ecosystems in order to design better approaches integrating climate change adaptation and mitigation, and biodiversity conservation.

The successful project should provide improvements in biodiversity monitoring infrastructures in support of integrated approaches able to deliver better synergies between mitigation, adaptation and conservation. Such integrated approaches can include a wide range of mitigation options, such as protection and restoring natural ecosystems, sustainable land management practices, sustainable forest and grassland management. Such options, based on a smart use of natural ecological processes and improved technologies, contribute to improving the quality, diversity and resilience of ecosystems, all of which have substantial benefits for biodiversity.

Most monitoring instruments for climate and biodiversity indicators on terrestrial land are carried out in a non-integrated manner and are based on statistical inventories without explicit geographical resolution. Earth observation (including satellite and near surface remote sensing as well as ground based methods), alongside analysis tools such as Geographic Information Systems, can be combined as multiple geographically-explicit data sets. Data acquisition, processing, cross-referencing and coherent integration on terrestrial land require substantial research and innovation investments.

Improving ground-based monitoring for better integrated approaches should assess or set up a strategy to assess the potential of natural and managed terrestrial ecosystems to contribute to:

• climate mitigation, including enhancing net carbon removals,
• climate adaptation, including resilience and disaster risk prevention, and
• protection, conservation and restoration of biodiversity.

Improving existing monitoring, including through designing new datasets and methods to set up a geographically-explicit monitoring of climate and biodiversity aspects fits within the scope of this topic.

The successful proposal should contribute to a strengthened cooperation between the EU and China, also in the context of a better cooperation under the Group on Earth Observations initiatives, building on the climate and biodiversity monitoring networks in China and the EU.

This topic is part of the EU-China flagship initiative on Climate Change and Biodiversity.