European Environment Agency (EEA)

As a Champion User in the ESA WEED project, the EEA brings its expertise in environmental reporting and policy integration to ensure that Earth Observation-based ecosystem mapping aligns with European and global frameworks such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy, EU Nature Restoration Regulation, EU Habitat Directive, the Global Biodiversity Framework and SEEA Ecosystem Accounting.

EEA’s involvement in WEED reflects its commitment to advancing innovative solutions for ecosystem monitoring and reporting. The Agency recognises the urgent need for harmonised, high-resolution data to better track ecosystem extent and dynamics across Europe, land use pressures, and biodiversity loss. 

By being a champion user during the development of the WEED toolbox, EEA hopes to bring its expertise and perspective on policy, thematic expertise and relevance towards EU-level environmental assessments and Member State reporting. With the increased integration of Earth Observation-based tools into workflows, EEA aims to enable more accurate and timely assessments of ecosystem changes, supporting policy targets under the EU Green Deal. 

The involvement of EEA as WEED Champion User, will further build upon the experience of the agency in geospatial data foundation for ecosystem accounting within the European Union. In close collaboration with the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS; also part of the EEA), EEA has been developing a technical framework to produce a reliable, recurrent data product to support ecosystem accounting and mapping across Europe, ensuring full alignment with current EU legal and analytical requirements.