BirdWatch develops a monitoring tool for farmland bird habitat suitability, based on rigorous species distribution modelling and EO-based geospatial data to derive habitat suitability at the scale of an individual farmland parcel up to landscape and national scale.
On a local scale, BirdWatch will provide the users with the information on the agri-environmental measures (AEM), which apply in their region, and contrast them with capabilities to implement them, including budgetary and operational constraints, to identify viable pathways for habitat improvement. To determine the most appropriate choice of AEMs with respect of the available ressources, BirdWatch will optimise for the benefits of both, bird species and farmers, thus providing them with a decision support for financial and operational planning. On a regional scale, supervisory institutions, including environmental and paying agencies, will have a tool to compare the implemented AEMs against indicators, which reflect the actual state of habitat suitability of the farmer's parcels. On a national scale, policy-makers will be able to evaluate the efficiency of their guidelines by being able to evaluate the impact of the chosen AEMs. Thus, they will have access to data-driven indicators which can support decision-making for future policy guidelines.
BirdWatch's main internal components will consist of three main elements: a) a rigorous species distribution modelling framework which translates habitat requirements into a probability of occurrence; b) a large set of satellite-based geospatial indicators, chosen to reflect both the habitat and the agricultural setting; c) a powerful land-use allocation algorithm, which is able to identify the optimal pathway under a set of given constraints.
Access to service will be given via a web-based application.
With the BirdWatch service, we aim to make a signifant contribution to the goals of the European Green Deal, especially supporting the Farm to Fork and the EU's biodiversity strategy for 2030. BirdWatch will provide a monitoring service on the state of habitat suitability of the EU's farmland and help to evaluate current policies as well as their implementations and to identify necessary new guidelines to improve the health of our ecosystems.