MAES Christmas Market: December 15, 2015, Brussels

SWOS prepared a stand at the MAES Christmas Market that took place in Brussels on the 15th of December 2015. The Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services Working Group (MAES) is steered by the Directorate General of Environments of the European Commission (EC), together with the European Environment Agency (EEA), and the EC Joint Research Centre (JRC). The MAES working group supports Target 2 Action 5 of the European Biodiversity Strategy to 2020; calling on Member States to map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territories. A wide community of experts from Member States (MS) and from research gathered in Brussels to discuss the developments done so far at the different levels in relation to the assessment of ecosystems and of their services.

In this context, the developments achieved by the SWOS project so far in terms of the set methodologies and the preliminary results on the delineation of wetland ecosystems and the indicators established for their assessment are an entry point to support this community. A SWOS team members represented by the University of Malaga (ETC-UMA), Wetlands International, and IUCN represented the SWOS project in this event. The team presented SWOS products and exchanged with the MAES community the main elements that SWOS provides in this framework.

Several products that SWOS developed so far were presented. Three SWOS posters focused on the user consultation process used in the project and on the mapping of wetland ecosystems; a looping presentation focused on SWOS indicators and their contribution to the MAES community; and an interactive SWOS stakeholders survey filling undertaken with some of the MAES stakeholders. More specifically, SWOS products presented:

  1. The SWOS delineation of wetland ecosystems that is based on the hydro-ecological characteristics of wetlands.
  2. The SWOS indicators to assess the condition of wetland ecosystems and the pressures wetlands are subjected to; and
  3. The use of the SWOS crosswalk nomenclature showing the relation between MAES, the Ramsar Convention, and Corine Land Cover nomenclature systems as a tool to support the assessment.

Further relevant information:

The MAES working group webpage: http://biodiversity.europa.eu/maes