COST 729 Mid-term Workshop 2009
Nitrogen Deposition and Natura 2000
Science & practice in determining environmental impacts
18-20 May, 2009 Brussels
Goal
To harmonize approaches for determining the impacts of atmospheric nitrogen deposition on Natura 2000 and review the future policy options.
Venue & Accommodation
The workshop will be held at the Bedford Hotel & Congress Centre, 135-137 Rue du Midi, 1000 Bruxelles.
www.hotelbedford.be.
The registration period is now over.
At present there is no common European approach for determining the impacts of nitrogen deposition on individual sites or on conservation status. This provides key challenges for this workshop: to develop best practices in environmental assessment and decision making, and to inform the needs for future policy development. The workshop will compare case studies from different European countries, review the scale of the nitrogen threat to Natura 2000 and conservation status, linking the science and decision making at local to European scales
Key Issues
- Pairing national scientists and conservation practitioners
- Considering site-based case studies
- Comparing approaches between countries
- Developing clear messages to improve assessments
- Exploiting cross-compliance and informing future policy development
- Communicating the scale of the problem
Workshop Topics
The workshop will focus on 5 main theses which will be addressed through background documents and in Working Group discussions:
- Comparison of impact assessment and decision making approaches to determine the N deposition impacts of plans and projects in the context of Habitats Directive Article 6.3 obligations.
- Comparison of approaches to assessing and reporting N deposition impacts on conservation status (Habitats Directive Article 17) and discussion of harmonising approaches for future reporting rounds.
- New science on the effects of N deposition and concentrations on Natura 2000 sites, including bio-indicators, effects of N-form (e.g., NHx vs NOy), and the relationships between critical thresholds and biodiversity loss.
- Approaches to modelling local N deposition and concentrations in the regulatory context of Natura 2000.
- Options for future policy development to manage and mitigate the impacts of N deposition effects on the Natura 2000 network.
The workshop will aim to develop the interactions between these topics, and be responsive to address other emerging issues related to the threat of nitrogen on the Natura 2000 network.
Target Participants
Practitioners in nature conservation & environmental regulation
- Decision makers regarding environmental assessments of nitrogen deposition
- Regulators and Planners
- Conservation managers responsible for Natura 2000 / site assessment and assessment of Conservation Status.
Scientific experts in N deposition, impact detection & environmental assessments
- Experts in emission-dispersion-deposition-assessment
- Experts in effects of N deposition and concentrations.
- Experts in biodiversity, policy analysis and scientific communication"
Policy advisers, generalists, and stakeholders (Nitrogen deposition, Biodiversity, Habitats Directive, Nitrogen emissions management)
- European Commission
- National Ministries and Agencies
- Conservation NGOs
- Source industry representatives