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Highlights: [•] We provide a review of monitoring requirements and priorities in supranational biodiversity policies. [•] We quantify overlaps and gaps among policies. [•] In terms of spatial priorities, guidelines are lacking in most policies. [•] We suggest an overarching system for priority setting in biodiversity monitoring. [•] Our suggested system could serve as a first step towards more systematic prioritization of monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, per capita CO2 convergence among the EU-25 countries between 1920 and 2007 is analysed using the distribution dynamics approach. Furthermore, the analysis is complemented by investigating the asymptotic half-life of convergence, mobility indices and the continuous version of the ergodic distributions. The novel aspect of this work consists in the fact that it examines whether patterns could differ if weighted by either the population of each country or their economic sizes. The unweighted analysis indicates that the convergence patterns differ strongly before and after World War II, with more convergence being displayed after the seventies. Results of weighting both by population and by economic size show that convergence is much faster when these features are introduced into the model. Conclusions from this analysis are important for the environment policy adopted across the EU-25 countries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Forest condition, biodiversity and ecosystems services are strongly interlinked. • A transferable and operational European wide forest condition indicator is presented. • The methodology includes structural, functional, and compositional variables. • This spatially explicit indicator is built on information accessible EU databases. • This supports the monitoring and assessment of efforts towards EU and SDG goals. Forest condition, biodiversity, and ecosystem services are strongly interlinked. The biodiversity levels depend to a large extent on the integrity, health, and vitality of forests at the same time as losses of forest biodiversity lead to decreased forest productivity and sustainability. Under this conceptual framework, this study presents a methodology for mapping forest condition at European scale supporting the attainment of the 2020 Aichi Biodiversity Target 5 " the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests, is at least halved and where feasible brought close to zero, and degradation and fragmentation is significantly reduced" and the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), as well as the EU forest strategy since the sustainable forest management is oriented to support the provision of forest services and to enhance the condition of biodiversity forests' host. The work presents the developments of an operational indicator at European scale. This spatially explicit information on forest condition can be the baseline map with a 1 km resolution to monitor the state and changes of condition by exposition to pressures and threats. This condition indicator considers structural, functional, and compositional aspects of forest with relevance for health and vitality of species and habitats hosted by forest ecosystems. The methodology implemented used harmonized, published and open datasets. It provided confident results for the assessment of the condition within hemiboreal, temperate and alpine forests, showing the Carpathian, Dinaric Alps and Alps, among others, as hotspots with pre-dominantly good condition. The results were validated with data derived from the reporting for the EU Habitat Directive and explicit dataset on known primary forests in Europe. However, this method underestimated the forest condition in the Mediterranean and Boreal forest types due to data gaps, regional specific characteristics, and design limitations. This study illustrates an operational and transferable approach for addressing the assessment of ecosystem forest condition at European scale being considered as a support tool for European countries when mapping and assessing their national territory, as potential common approach to map forest ecosystems that allows for consistent aggregation and comparisons across scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural emissions in Europe are important to several atmospheric transport-related environmental issues. These include local and regional air quality problems, such as PM exposure, eutrophication and acidification, toxics and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in a number of environmental impacts. Over Europe, agricultural emissions are variable in space and time and the contribution to the different issues are variable. Most important are ammonia (90%), PM (20%) and methane and nitrous oxide (both 5%). Policies have been developed to combat some of the emissions with success in some countries. However, future, national and European policies are necessary to successfully decrease emissions and its related problems. Current research issues include the quantification of non-point sources, the atmosphere–biosphere exchange of ammonia, the quantification of landscape processes and the primary and secondary emissions of PM. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Digital technologies have the potential to make the transport system more connected, intelligent, efficient, reliable and sustainable. That is, digital technologies could fundamentally transform how people and goods are moved, with significant impacts on transport demand and on the related energy consumption and environmental impacts. This article proposes a scenario analysis for the future of European passenger transport, by evaluating the potential effects of digitalization on mobility demand, energy consumption and CO 2 emissions under different assumptions. The analysis illustrates that the penetration of digital technologies can lead to opposite effects with regard to both energy consumption and emissions. Two opposite scenarios are compared, to evaluate the effects of a "responsible" digitalization, in the direction of a sustainable mobility, against a "selfish" digitalization, where the final users maximize their utility. The likelihood of these two possible pathways is related to multiple drivers, including users' behavior, economic conditions and transport and environmental policies. Results show the variability range of the potential effects on energy consumption and CO 2 emissions in Europe by 2030 and 2050, by considering digitalization trends including Mobility as a Service, Shared Mobility and Autonomous Vehicles. The variability of key parameters is evaluated in a dedicated sensitivity analysis, where the effects of electric vehicles, electricity generation mixes and vehicles' efficiency improvements are assessed. The article concludes that in order to fully exploit the advantages of digitalization, proper policies are needed to support an efficient and effective deployment of available technologies through an optimized and shared use of alternative transport options. • The paper evaluates the effects on energy consumption of digitalization in transport. • Different scenarios allow comparing alternative digitalization pathways. • Digitalization needs a tailored policy support to avoid higher energy consumption. • A sensitivity analysis supports the discussion on the various aspects involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]