REABIC services for Early Warning Systems

The need to develop of a Europe-wide early warning and information system to report new and emerging alien species and crucial role of information management for future pan-European early warning and rapid response system to tackle biological invasions has been recently recognized (see EEA Technical report Towards an early warning and information system for invasive alien species (IAS) threatening biodiversity in Europe). A complete and effective early warning system (EWS) comprises four inter-related elements: risk knowledge, monitoring and warning service, dissemination and communication and response capability (see the UN Global Survey of Early Warning Systems). The Regional Euro-Asian Biological Invasions Centre (REABIC) is currently developing several information tools in order to contribute to most of these key elements of regional and national EWSs, including: - international open-access online journal “Aquatic Invasions” as instrument of rapid IAS information dissemination and communication platform of experts; - searchable online Experts Database; and online GIS applications on IAS: - GIS Invader-World; - GIS Invader-Europe; - GIS Invader-Black Sea basin; - GIS Invader-Baltic Sea basin; - GIS Invader- NE Baltic Sea (Gulf of Finland) For details on the early warning functions of international journal “Aquatic Invasions”, please see our technical report to European Commission Also, with support of the European Commission FP7 enviroGRIDS project, we are working on development of the regional risk assessment-based Decision Support System on IAS for the Black Sea basin, based on indicators on alien species tested for European inland waterways (see Panov et al. 2009).