Work packages description

The BioClima project's structured approach to biodiversity and climate monitoring is exemplified through the interconnected roles of its Work Packages (WPs), as depicted in the schema.

WP1 lays the groundwork with integrated observations for climate and biodiversity, establishing the data requirements that inform all other WPs.

WP2 builds upon this, focusing on biodiversity conservation and analysing spatial patterns to assess climate change impacts and adaptation strategies. It relies on WP1's harmonised Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) to align methodologies across the project.

WP3 takes this a step further by employing spatial and AI-enhanced analytics models for climate and biodiversity integration and monitoring. The tools and early warning systems developed here are informed by the integrated observations from WP1 and the conservation patterns and data from WP2, providing crucial feedback and validation.

WP4 utilises the outputs from WP3, applying case studies, policies, and strategies to create real-world applications that demonstrate climate and biodiversity synergies. The lessons learned here loop back into WP3, offering practical feedback to refine the analytical models and tools.

WP5 encompasses the communication, dissemination, and multi-stakeholder engagement aspect of the project, ensuring that the findings and advancements from all WPs are globally integrated and disseminated, particularly between the EU and China. This WP not only promotes the project but also fosters sustainable knowledge exchange and stakeholder networks for future collaborations.

Overarching all these activities is WP6, which ensures coordination and management across the project. It acts as the backbone, supporting the ethical governance of data and methodologies, and maintaining the integrity of the project's execution. Each WP is thus a cog in the greater BioClima machine, interlinked and co-dependent, driving forward the project's goals to enhance our understanding and response to the dual crises of biodiversity loss and climate change.

WP7 Ethics Requirements outlines the ethical standards the project must follow, focusing on data protection, privacy, and responsible use of technologies such as AI and camera traps. It promotes non-invasive biodiversity monitoring and ethical collaboration with non-EU countries. An Independent Ethics Advisor will support GDPR compliance and oversee all ethical aspects. All team members will receive ethics training before starting practical work.

WP1 Integrated Observations for Climate and Biodiversity

Objectives

The objective of WP1, with an added focus on Data Integration, emphasises its critical role in ensuring the seamless amalgamation of diverse data sources. This includes in situ observations from sensors and citizen science initiatives, integrated with remotely sensed data. The enhanced detail in data integration aims to establish protocols and standards that facilitate data fusion, crucial for accurately summarising species distributions and abundances, leading to the calculation of EBVs. The WP1 objective includes a proactive response to data standardisation requests from WP2 and necessary data for assessments from WP3, acting as a central data provision platform. For WP4, WP1 ensures a robust data foundation, especially for experiments in WP3 leveraging citizen science, underpinning the development and dissemination of common EU-China platform standards through WP4. This strategic approach to data integration is pivotal for the project's success, ensuring data consistency, accessibility, and interoperability across all work packages.

WP2 Biodiversity conservation and spatial patterns for climate change impacts and adaptation

Objectives

WP2 is positioned as a methodological core within the BioClima project, directly influencing the frameworks and outcomes of all other WPs (a common methodological framework for WP2 and WP3 defined in D3.1). It addresses the essential data needs and standardisation requirements from WP1, ensuring alignment with the project's overarching goals. Moreover, WP2 methodologically guides WP4, integrating WP4's findings as feedback to refine and enhance the project's methodologies, underscoring WP2's central role in driving the project's scientific advances. WP2 emphasises advancing biodiversity and climate monitoring in vulnerable ecosystems such as forests, grasslands, and European alpine and Arctic regions. It focuses on the challenges posed by climate change and human activities on biodiversity loss, habitat degradation and fragmentation. The work package includes the identification and utilisation of functional and structural EBVs to assess ecosystem biodiversity status and landscape dynamics, using ECVs as proxies for climate change. WP2 aims to develop an effective understanding of the impact of climate change on biodiversity by applying ECVs and EBVs. This includes assessing the effects of climate change stressors on ecosystem structure and functioning, as indicators of ecosystem health status.

The objectives for WP2 are as follows:

● Objective 1: Monitor and understand the impacts of climate change on ecosystem structures and functions by applying EBVs and ECVs. Applying EBV candidates suitable for monitoring ecosystem structure and functioning, identifying vulnerable regions, and understanding the impact of climate change using terrestrial ECVs on geographically explicit ecosystems.

● Objective 2: Assessing the impacts of climate change on ecosystem health and services using satellite-derived EBVs.

● Objective 3: Identifying and quantifying the response of the biogeographical regions and ecosystems to extreme climate change-related events at the European scale.

WP3 Spatial and AI-enhanced analytics models for climate and biodiversity integration and monitoring

Objectives

WP3 stands at the core of developing physical and AI models, leveraging the data repositories from WP1 and methodological guidance from WP2 to align with the project's analytical framework. This work package is dedicated to advancing ecological risk assessment, biodiversity monitoring, and analysing climate change impacts through cutting-edge modelling and geospatial technologies. By crafting Integrated Distribution Models (IDMs) and employing techniques like hierarchical statistical modelling, agent-based modelling, and Adaptive Cluster Reinforcement Graph Neural Networks (ACR-GNN), WP3 aims to forecast biodiversity alterations due to climate dynamics accurately. It emphasises the integration of sophisticated visualisation tools and the creation of an innovative early warning and decision support system. This system will use AI-driven insights for selecting optimal modelling approaches for particular ecological scenarios and propose mitigation strategies. Additionally, WP3 is tasked with performing comprehensive climate impact assessments on biodiversity using AI/ML models and geospatial data, supported by a robust calibration and validation framework to ensure the models' accuracy and reliability. The results and innovations from WP3 will be extensively tested in WP4 for applicability before being widely disseminated in WP5, significantly extending the project's impact and the utility of its tools and models in ecological conservation and climate change mitigation efforts.

WP4 Case studies, policies, and strategies for climate and biodiversity synergies

Objectives

WP4 will methodologically be guided by WP2, integrating feedback to refine strategies and policies for climate and biodiversity. It will utilise data from WP1 and apply tools developed and tested in WP3 to execute and evaluate case studies. WP4 revolves around the execution, evaluation, and feedback of case studies that demonstrate the synergies between monitoring biodiversity (EBVs) and climatic/terrestrial ECVs (including CO2 and CH4 fluxes, fire disturbances, land cover patterns and water dynamics). The execution of use cases will involve piloting and demonstrating various strategies and policies and upscaling to the EU-scale modelling and scenarios. The evaluation process will assess the efficacy of these strategies and policies, with a focus on their impact on climate and biodiversity goals at regional and EU scales.

The key objectives include:

1) Execute and evaluate use cases to demonstrate synergies between climate and

biodiversity monitoring,

2) Evaluate the impact of integrated scenarios of biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation on land use and LULUCF emissions and removals at the EU scale,

3) Evaluate the effectiveness of strategies and policies for climate and biodiversity synergies.

WP5 Communication, dissemination, and multi-stakeholder engagement

Objectives

WP5 stands as a crucial component of the BIOCLIMA project, dedicated to communication, stakeholder engagement, and promoting international collaborations, notably with China and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). It's designed to amplify the project's influence through strategic outreach, promotional endeavours, and capacity enhancement activities. Tasked with acting as the conduit for cooperation with China and GEO, WP5 plays a critical role in ensuring the global integration and dissemination of insights from all work packages, underpinning sustainability and facilitating knowledge exchange. It aims to establish a lasting network of stakeholders for ongoing collaboration.

The work package lays out an exhaustive communication strategy, encompassing the development of promotional materials, maintenance of the project website, dissemination through newsletters, and active engagement across social media platforms. Additionally, WP5 underscores the importance of capacity building, hosting webinars, and generating e-learning content to share project findings broadly. Presenting at international conferences and weaving project achievements into global initiatives like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), ChinaBON, EuroBON, and standards development within GEO flagships, WP5 ensures BIOCLIMA's contributions are seamlessly integrated into wider environmental and biodiversity conservation discourses. By addressing sustainability measures, WP5 not only focuses on the immediate impact of

BIOCLIMA's outcomes but also on their long-term viability, fostering avenues for future collaboration and establishing a robust network for effective knowledge exchange.

WP6 Coordination and management

Objectives

● Define and maintain a clear project vision, establishing comprehensive project management processes including mechanisms for conflict resolution.

● Continuously monitor the project's overall performance, ensuring timely delivery of all outputs within budget and at the required quality standards via international expert panel.

● Uphold strict quality criteria for all project outputs, manage risks effectively, and address issues promptly to keep the project on schedule.

● Efficiently manage all project resources, overseeing budget allocation and expenditure, and maintaining thorough documentation of all project activities.

● Ensure diligent data management practices, adhering to privacy and ethical standards throughout the project's lifecycle.

WP7 – Ethics requirements

Objectives

This work package sets out the 'ethics requirements' that the project must comply with.

The work package addresses ethical issues in these areas

● Ethics recommendations for BioClima project will propose different non-invasive methods to enhance global biodiversity monitoring and develop collaborations between EU and Non-EU countries.

● The consortium will address the ethical issues related to Data Protection, particularly in case studies

● Independent Ethics Advisor will help the consortium with the following ethics issues:

Ensure the privacy of persons present in the monitoring zone,
Use of Camera trap,
GDPR compliance in stakeholder interaction,
Use of AI.

All project members will be informed and trained in ethical and legal aspects before starting the practical work in the project. All ethical documents will be validated by the Ethics Advisor.