“Our proposal provides a plan for Europe to fix its messy and disconnected monitoring systems,” says lead author Dr Daniel Kissling, Associate Professor at the UvA. “We want to create one coordinated, continent-wide network that can track changes in species and ecosystems – from the DNA of plants and animals to entire forests, rivers, and oceans.”

A unified monitoring system for Europe’s biodiverse heritage

The roadmap identifies 84 Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) that form the backbone of a harmonised monitoring system. These EBVs – from bird abundance and insect phenology to seagrass extent, genetic diversity, and ecosystem productivity – provide Europe with a consistent, standardised checklist for measuring the state and change of its biodiversity.

“Europe has hundreds of monitoring programmes, but the data are often siloed, incompatible, or incomplete,” says senior author Prof Henrique Pereira, research group head at iDiv and the MLU. “Our roadmap provides the architecture for a truly integrated, transnational system – one that brings all observations together into a coherent whole.”

To enable this transition, the authors propose establishing a European Biodiversity Observation Coordination Centre (EBOCC). This new EU-level body would coordinate workflows, harmonise methods, ensure transparent data governance, align monitoring with EU policy needs, and act as the central hub for national and European data infrastructures.

High-tech biodiversity monitoring with people

A key message of the roadmap is that Europe must harness the combined strengths of technological innovation and human expertise, including the potential of new digital technologies, including:

• Automated digital sensors such as acoustic bird recorders, wildlife and insect cameras, and biological and weather radars
• AI for species recognition and automated data processing
• Environmental DNA (eDNA) and metabarcoding for detecting species and communities from water, soil, or air
• State-of-the-art remote sensing from satellites (including Copernicus), aircraft, and drones to observe habitats, vegetation structure, and ecosystem change

The roadmap also highlights that people remain central to biodiversity monitoring. Citizen scientists, taxonomic experts and professional monitoring networks provide essential observations, expertise, and continuity. New technologies complement and strengthen their contributions, making biodiversity monitoring more efficient, scalable and inclusive, while ensuring that human knowledge and engagement remain fundamental to Europe’s monitoring system.

Bridging data gaps through unified workflows

Europe’s current biodiversity data are extensive but scattered. The roadmap proposes to build data pipelines that can integrate information from many different sources – like professional field notes, reports from the public, electronic sensors, DNA samples, and satellite images, and merge them into scalable EBV datasets.

These new pipelines should enable Europe to create clear reports for decision-makers, spot trends quickly, and give early warnings of ecological change.

Step forward for international biodiversity policy

The roadmap was designed by EuropaBON, a Horizon 2020 project involving 15 research organisations across Europe and has led to a strong policy response, as the European Parliament has already approved a preparatory action for the EBOCC to start implementing parts of the roadmap. The roadmap for the EBOCC is directly aligned with the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR), and other major EU environmental legislation, including the Birds Directive, Habitats Directive, Water Framework Directive, and Marine Strategy Framework Directive. By delivering harmonised biodiversity data, an EBOCC would significantly improve reporting and support implementation across Member States.

Globally, the system would help track progress toward the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), support assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and contribute to GEO BON (Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network).

Publication:

Kissling, W.D. et al. (2026): Building the backbone for Europe’s biodiversity monitoring. Nature Reviews Biodiversity, DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/s44358-026-00140-6

Full access, view only version of the paper: https://rdcu.be/e5bRY