Five European GBIF nodes in Belgium, France, Ireland, Norway and Portugal initiated the BiReMe project to describe and understand nature-related reporting processes and data flows with the aim of identifying how GBIF can facilitate improved reporting. Its recommendations suggest changes to GBIF tools/procedures that could improve the GBIF network's ability to contribute to EU reporting on the Habitats Directive, the Birds Directive, Water Framework Directive, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and the Invasive Species Regulation.
The project team used a questionnaire to analyse the reporting data flow for each country and identify key factors, including key actors, data sources, data flow, data accessibility, GBIF role and tools. Along with the final project report, the team prepared detailed use cases from:
We conclude, based on the survey results, that National European Commission Directive reporting for status of the biodiversity remain largely independent from coordination with the national GBIF nodes. Data sources used in the reporting remain to a large part separate from data published in GBIF and are generally only made available in various non-standardized raw formats and not made publicly available in any readily accessible forms.
Information produced as part of the project has been stored using the Open Science Framework, which has proved a beneficial repository for ensuring that the project materials and data remain accessible.
