Concept note on a methodological approach to define priorities for monitoring biodiversity

In this report Biodiversa+ introduces a generic methodological approach to identify biodiversity monitoring priorities driven by stakeholder needs. The approach is based on a ‘supply and demand’ framework, which lists categories of usage of biodiversity monitoring data and results, and by extension identifies users of such data. We then propose a simple survey targeting these users, in order to highlight their needs to be used as thematic priorities. This document reviews the design of the survey and the wording of the core question, as well as important elements regarding the stratification (which information is required to properly interpret the results) and analysis of the answers. We advocate for a periodical deployment strategy, for instance over 2 to 4 years, with users’ suggestions contributing to the next survey cycle. The survey is generic enough to be applied at various scale from local to regional, and answer to different communities. At the European scale, we recommend to consider this periodical survey as a cornerstone of the European landscape of biodiversity monitoring, which could possibly become a mission under the umbrella of the future European biodiversity observation coordination centre (EBOCC).