The role of Earth Observation (EO) data in Protected Area condition assessment to underpin the UK 25YEP outcome indicators.

Description

The UK Government's 25 Year Environment Plan ('25YEP') includes outcome indicators for the UK Overseas Territories, including use of indicators to report on the areal extent and condition of Protected Areas (PAs) in the Territories. This will complement similar reporting on UK PAs. The UK Government intends to work with individual OTs to maximise use of this enhanced capacity to report on extent and condition of protected areas to: • support their own policy and planning processes; • support management of their natural capital resources; and, • assist in their wider reporting obligations at the international level. 2.2 The overall objective of the project described in this Annex A is to undertake an assessment of current potential practical application of Earth Observation (EO) in respect of condition assessment of PAs in 13 UK Overseas Territories and in the context of the outcome indicators included in the 25YEP. Definitions of relevant terms and background information including a list of the territories to be reviewed is presented in Section 3 of this Annex A. 2.3 The contract involves no foreign travel and is a desk-based project to involve the following tasks: Task 1: Review satellite data availability and attributes for the UK OTs; Task 2: Review relevant current and recent use of EO and associated techniques in the context of habitat distribution mapping, habitat condition assessment and species status assessments; Task 3: in collaboration with JNCC, and two OTs, undertake more detailed desk based, case study exercises, to demonstrate 'proof of concept' for the use of EO for condition assessment and monitoring. Task 4: review/identify the information management systems needed to implement EO based condition assessments to allow cost effective and reliable analysis and reporting within individual OTs, and scope for aggregating for reporting purposes according to region and across all OTs; Task 5: Attendance at March 2019, UK (Peterborough) one day workshop; Task 6: Final reporting preparation and recommendations; Task 7: attendance at May 2019, one day UK workshop.