DRAFT, Nov. 2010

User Manual

for the delivery of a new national Natura 2000 database

to the Commission

DRAFT, November 2010

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 comprised of Sites of Community Interest (SCIs) & Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) designated by Member States 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 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

The data delivery must be a national one and comprise both 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. Too frequently the Commission is confronted with incomplete or non-compliant datasets that lead to unnecessary complications and errors. To fully benefit from the possibilities of automation, it is necessary 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 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.

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. However a minimum updating frequency in the opinion of the Commission should be of six years, ideally in relatively close time-relationship to the Art.17 reporting cycles. A more detailed planning for the updating needs to be developed by the Habitats Committee.

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.  Release the envelope

5.  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.

Help

If you need any assistance during the delivery process, do not hesitate to contact EIONET helpdesk at or by telephone (details at http://nmc.eionet.europa.eu/helpdesk.html)

Country (ISO) / Natura 2000 deliveries in CDR
Hyperlink to national folder
Austria (AT) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/at/eu/n2000
Belgium (BE) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/be/eu/n2000
Bulgaria (BG / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/bg/eu/n2000
Cyprus (CY) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/cy/eu/n2000
Czech Republic (CZ) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/cz/eu/n2000
Denmark (DK) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/dk/eu/n2000
Estonia (EE) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/ee/eu/n2000
Finland (FI) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/fi/eu/n2000
France (FR) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/fr/eu/n2000
Germany (DE) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/de/eu/n2000
Greece (GR) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/gr/eu/n2000
Hungary (HU) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/hu/eu/n2000
Ireland (IE) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/ie/eu/n2000
Italy (IT) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/it/eu/n2000
Latvia (LV) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/lv/eu/n2000
Lithuania (LT) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/lt/eu/n2000
Luxembourg (LU) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/lu/eu/n2000
Malta (MT) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/mt/eu/n2000
Netherlands (NL / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/nl/eu/n2000
Poland (PL / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/pl/eu/n2000
Portugal (PT) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/pt/eu/n2000
Romania (RO) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/ro/eu/n2000
Slovenia (SI) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/si/eu/n2000
Slovakia (SK) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/sk/eu/n2000
Spain (ES) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/es/eu/n2000
Sweden (SE) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/se/eu/n2000
United Kingdom (UK) / http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/gb/eu/n2000

5.  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?

  1. On reception of the national dataset, the Commission checks if it is conformant with the above rules. If it is not, the Commission will inform the Member States that its dataset cannot be accepted in its current state and request that a new, compliant dataset be delivered.
  2. If the national dataset is conformant, ETC/BD analyses the national dataset and verifies if deletions or modifications have been satisfyingly justified in the accompanying explanation note.
  3. 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.

7.  QA/QC

Every year in December 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.

8.  Important dates

To be taken into account for the following year's Community List process, Member States must submit a new database before the 1st of October.

Please note that the validation process of the newly submitted database may reveal major inconsistencies or unjustified changes that may lead to its rejection in its current state. Often, the motives for rejection are easy to repair, however the time for accomplishing this and the official delivery procedure should be taken into account. 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

  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 – "HabComm2009 - Annex.pdf"
  5. Manual for using Reportnet - Reportnet-Manual (v2).ppt
  6. Template for Natura 2000 descriptive database - template.mdb

5

[1] For information material on the currently valid Standard Data Form (SDF) see: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/legislation/habitatsdirective/index_en.htm#sdf