Remote sensing as a tool for Natura 2000 habitat monitoring: a strong need for clear user requirements

The EU-Habitats Directive and the Natura 2000 network represent a great stimulus for the conservation of natural and semi-natural habitats in Europe. However, their legal implementation and the associated reporting obligations require enormous efforts and have revealed a severe lack of recent data on natural habitats in many member states. Authorities are now looking for cost-efficient ways to fulfil their data needs, in order to comply with European legislation. Remote sensing (RS) has a great potential to support reporting obligations in the field of Natura 2000 habitat monitoring (e.g. through new types of data, more frequent updates, higher cost-efficiency). Yet, its use is still limited to exemplary cases, and a more operational use may be hampered by a mismatch between what users need and what producers can deliver. We state that potential users of RS-derived information can help to overcome these difficulties by making their requirements explicit in terms of characteristics directly related to remote sensing (e.g. thematic accuracy, spatial & temporal resolution). We illustrate this approach with some examples from the Habistat-project.