User Manual for the delivery of a new national Natura 2000 database to the Commission. Version 1.1

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Curtis Rafe Montgomery
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1 User Manual for the delivery of a new national Natura 2000 database to the Commission Version 1.1 The Natura 2000 network of protected sites consists of the sites classified under the Birds Directive first adopted in 1979 (2009/147/EC) and the Habitats Directive adopted in 1992 (92/43/EEC). It therefore comprises of Sites of Community Importance (SCIs) & Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) proposed by the Member States and then adopted by the European Commission - under the Habitats Directive and Special Protection Areas (SPAs) designated under the Birds Directive. The Natura 2000 database, which is based on the national deliveries of each Member State, is the documentation of this EU-wide network and should be reasonably kept up-to-date. It is used for publication (e.g. Natura 2000 viewer, filtered public database), for analysis (e.g. biogeographic process), research & planning (LIFE+) purposes as well as a range of statistics. This user manual is intended to compile all information on how to correctly deliver a national Natura 2000 database. 1. What is understood by a national Natura 2000 data delivery? A national Natura 2000 data delivery to the Commission is composed of three parts: 1. A descriptive dataset containing the information of the Standard Data Forms 1 (SDF) for all sites (pscis, SCIs, SACs, SPAs) in digital format (MS Access). 2. A spatial component containing the boundaries of all sites in electronic format (ESRI Shapefiles) 3. A standard explanation note explaining the changes occurring in the database and justifying a new delivery. The data delivery must be a national one and comprise both the exhaustive set of SPAs and SCIs/SACs in the same dataset. National Natura 2000 data delivery Dataset Content Format Descriptive Site Standard Data Forms MS Access Spatial Site boundaries ESRI Shapefiles Explanatory note Textual description Standard Template 2. Summary of instructions for a new national Natura 2000 data delivery to the Commission The following instructions have been compiled to ensure that new datasets delivered by Member States can be efficiently processed by the Commission and rapidly included in the EU-wide Natura 2000 database. Incomplete or non-compliant datasets lead to unnecessary complications and errors. To fully benefit from the possibilities of automation, it is necessary 1 For information material on the currently valid Standard Data Form (SDF) see: 1

2 that the datasets respect a certain amount of rules. To facilitate the assessment of the changes occurring in a new dataset and to evaluate their scientific relevance by our thematic experts (ETC/BD) it is important that the documents that are indispensable for this work will be provided. By complying with the following set of instructions, Member States will help the Commission achieve these basic conditions. Datasets which are not compliant with the following instructions will be rejected. 1) The dataset must be a full national dataset, including the totality of compulsory information to be delivered to the Commission, meaning the Standard Data Form in electronic format (MS Access database) and the electronic boundaries of the sites. Regional or partial datasets will be rejected. 2) The dataset must comprise both Birds Directive (SPA) and Habitats Directive (psci, SCI, SAC) sites. They may not be reported separately as they are often interlinked. 3) The GIS files may consist of multiple files to accommodate the different projections used by Member States. 4) The national delivery will consist of three parts: a. A descriptive database comprising the information from the SDF in electronic format b. A spatial dataset comprising the electronic boundaries of the sites c. A standard explanation note enumerating all changes occurring both in the descriptive and spatial database 5) The format of the descriptive database should be identical to the template posted here. 6) Spatial dataset: The electronic boundaries should be submitted in ESRI Shapefile format. The electronic boundaries must include a field called SITECODE, containing the Natura 2000 code of the site. The electronic boundaries should be dissolved according to SITECODE. Un-dissolved Shapefiles require additional processing steps The Shapefiles must contain a projection file (.prj) containing the necessary projection system to view the files. Paper submissions of site boundaries are not required. Optional: maps in PDF format may be adjoined to the delivery. However, in no way do they constitute a replacement for the electronic boundaries. 7) The national dataset will be delivered to the Commission through Reportnet. 3. When to submit an updated national Natura 2000 data delivery to the Commission? The Natura 2000 database serves as an up-to-date documentation of the sites and therefore should in the view of its uses and purposes - be regularly updated based on best available information. The updating of the content of the Standard Data Forms is seen as a continuous process and an updated database can be provided by a Member State in an ad-hoc manner whenever changes have been made. Change means when one or more fields in the Standard Data Form of a site have been modified or when the spatial boundaries of one or more sites have changed. Either of these two conditions should lead to the submission of a complete, updated national database to the Commission. A practical updating frequency would be once a year, also in regard of the current practice of producing yearly community lists and making yearly quality checks of the data provided. A time-plan on these processes is usually agreed upon in the Habitats Committee. 2

3 4. How to submit a national Natura 2000 data delivery to the Commission? National Natura 2000 data deliveries have to be provided via the Reportnet Central Data Repository (CDR), a system maintained by the European Environment Agency (EEA). The person(s) nominated to DG Environment as the data suppliers responsible for reporting will be given Eionet accounts with a password. These people will have upload rights to the CDR. It is not possible to deliver data to CDR without upload rights. The delivery process for data suppliers is very simple. You need to log in with your EIONET account and password in CDR. The hyperlinks to the relevant CDR folder for each country are listed in the table below. You should then carry out the following steps: 1. Create the delivery envelope and give the envelope the appropriate metadata 2. Activate the task 3. Upload the files to be delivered from your system to CDR. You should deliver both your database and your GIS files together with any other relevant information in the same envelope. You can use the Restrict from public view option if there are any files which should not be available to the public. 4. Upload the necessary explanation note regarding the changes contained in the delivery. 5. Release the envelope 6. Finish the envelope: this will close the envelope and indicate to DG Environment that your electronic submission is complete. An automatic acknowledgement of the delivery will be generated in CDR at this stage. This receipt must be used by the Member State as an annex to the formal notification of delivery sent to DG Environment by the Permanent Representative, only then your electronic data will be considered as official and will be validated. Nominated Data Suppliers: The person(s) responsible for transmitting new national deliveries have been designated by Member States Habitats Committee delegates. In case of changes, please notify DG Environment will ensure that the necessary user privileges are granted or revoked. Help If you need any assistance during the delivery process, do not hesitate to contact EIONET helpdesk at helpdesk@eionet.europa.eu or by telephone (details at Country (ISO*) Austria (AT) Belgium (BE) Bulgaria (BG) Cyprus (CY) Czech Republic (CZ) Denmark (DK) Estonia (EE) Finland (FI) France (FR) Germany (DE) Natura 2000 deliveries in CDR Hyperlink to national folder

Greece (GR) Hungary (HU) Ireland (IE) Italy (IT) Latvia (LV) Lithuania (LT) Luxembourg (LU) Malta (MT) Netherlands (NL) Poland (PL) Portugal (PT) Romania (RO) Slovakia (SK) Slovenia (SI) Spain (ES)

4 Greece (GR) Hungary (HU) Ireland (IE) Italy (IT) Latvia (LV) Lithuania (LT) Luxembourg (LU) Malta (MT) Netherlands (NL) Poland (PL) Portugal (PT) Romania (RO) Slovakia (SK) Slovenia (SI) Spain (ES) Sweden (SE) United Kingdom (UK) * except United Kingdom Officialising the national data delivery The national dataset on Reportnet will be officialised vis-à-vis the Commission by a note sent through the Permanent Representation of a given Member State. The note must be accompanied by the acknowledgement receipt generated by Reportnet. Datasets must be delivered according to the above-described procedure. Incoming datasets on media such as CD's or DVD's will no longer be accepted. 6. What next? On reception of the national dataset, the Commission checks if it is conformant with the above rules. The following steps are performed by the Commission and 4

5 1. The files are copied from Reportnet to a local archiving repository. The content of the delivery is verified all required files must be present. The absence of required files will lead to the refusal of the delivery, whereby Member States will be duly notified. 2. The descriptive and spatial data are then submitted to an automated process in order to detect the changes in the descriptive and spatial database. A report highlighting the main changes is generated and shared with the relevant Commission Desk Officer and ETC/BD. 3. ETC/BD analyses the national dataset and verifies if deletions or modifications have been satisfyingly justified in the accompanying explanatory note. ETC/BD formulates a recommendation for the acceptance or refusal of the database based on the available information. The Commission forwards this recommendation to the MS. a. If the national data delivery complies with the required criteria, it is accepted and waits for its inclusion in the EU-wide Natura 2000 database, which occurs every six months. The Natura 2000 database is then used for its various derived products: Natura 2000 viewer, Commission's Intranet application, Natura 2000 downloadable databases, compilation of the Community Lists, Natura 2000 Barometer, GIS Area Calculations and various other statistics. b. The MS may be requested however, at this stage, to provide additional documentation concerning the changes occurring in its submitted database. The acceptance of a national dataset can be delayed due to the absence of such documentation. Note: The Commission does not wait for the reception of the confirmation of the Permanent Representation to perform this initial verification exercise. This is to allow time to MS for correcting possible issues with the datasets before the yearly Community Lists deadline. 7. QA/QC Every year Member States will receive a QA/QC report on the status of their data. This report will outline the remaining issues affecting the database and possible discrepancies between the spatial and the descriptive database. MS will use this report as a basis for improving the quality of their national datasets. 8. Important dates For a dataset to be taken into account for the following year's Community List process, Member States must submit a new database before the 1 st of October. Please note that the verification process of the newly submitted database may reveal inconsistencies or unjustified changes that may lead to the delivery of a new dataset or additional information. The time for accomplishing this should be taken into account with regard to the final deadline. Hence, a timely delivery of a new database does not necessary imply its inclusion into the following year's Community Lists as the acceptation of the database may be delayed by pending issues. 9. Reference documents All relevant documents can be found at the following address where not stated otherwise: 5

6 1. Note to the Habitats Committee, June 2005, on the necessity to regularly update the SDF 2. Note to the Habitats Committee, June 2010, Updating of the Natura 2000 Standard Data Form (SDF) 3. Note to the Habitats Committee, February 2009, on the submission of data through Reportnet 4. Annex to the note to the Habitats Committee, February 2009, on the submission of data through Reportnet "HabComm Annex.pdf" 5. Manual for using Reportnet - Reportnet-Manual (v1).ppt 6. Template for Natura 2000 descriptive database - template.mdb Note to the Habitats Committee, October 2009, on lifting the requirement to submit paper: 009/meeting_october/documents/doc_ pdf/_EN_1.0_&a=d 6

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