Validation of Habitat Assessment Services in Natura 2000 Sites: Streamlining the Role of Stakeholders from User Needs to Conservation Status Evaluation

A key success factor of the Copernicus programme is to ensure the acceptance of services by users. This acceptance and further adoption is based on high quality products that meet the specific information requirements of the user. In the realm of biodiversity monitoring and reporting on conservation status of Natura 2000 habitats, such products must meet different needs of local site manager and national environmental agencies, up to European authorities. Hence, the quality of these upcoming Earth observation based technologies must be validated in a pre-operational phase. The case of the MS.MONINA project shows the necessity to streamline the role of different stakeholders in the whole service delivery process. This process is described in depth, taken from the service validation in Sierra Nevada and Andalusia (Spain), showing potentials and limitations of the developed validation protocol and highlighting methodological, technical and scientific achievements obtained during this process.