The diverse Greek landscape and its biological assets, provide a variety of relevant ecosystem types, which in turn support the actual and potential provision of ecosystem services (ES), that are essential for sustaining human welfare (Perring et al. 1992, Daily 1997, Cardinale et al. 2012). Following modern approaches on environmental management which highlight ES importance (e.g. de Groot 1992, Daily 1997, Costanza et al. 1997) and in line with the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Hassan et al. 2005), EU included and prioritised the ES concept under Action 5 of Target 2 of its Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 (European Commission 2011), calling on Member States to Map and Assess the state of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES). Since 2014, the implementation of MAES in Greece is included in the Prioritised Action Framework (Hellenic Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Climate Change 2014a) for the Natura 2000 sites and as an obligation of the National Biodiversity Strategy (Hellenic Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Climate Change 2014b).

In Greece, in accordance with the provisions of Article 11 of the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) and in the framework of the project «Surveillance and Assessment of the conservation status of habitat types of community interest in Greece», the conservation status assessment of all habitat types was carried out with extensive field campaigns to collect data (2013-2015). Thus, a variety of detailed and geo-referenced data is available. However, until recently, the capacity of the relative state administrative units, as well as of the scientific staff, was unfamiliar with the ES concept, as proposed by the European Biodiversity Strategy 2020 (European Commission 2011) and thus could not use these data for integrated ES assessments. To overcome this shortcoming, the Hellenic Ecosystem Services Partnership (HESP), came up with a first approach of the MAES conceptual framework and since then an action plan guides the production of a set of national ecosystem type and condition maps (Dimopoulos et al. 2017b).

Following this action plan, which prioritises biophysical assessment and mapping in 2018 and 2019 and by using the guidelines given in the analytical framework for mapping and assessment of ecosystem condition in EU (Maes et al. 2018), we conducted (a) a national scale assessment of the ecosystem types' condition in the Natura 2000 Specific Areas for Conservation (SACs) in Greece, based on recent monitoring data for habitat types (Hellenic Ministry of Environment and Energy 2016) (Fig. 1) and (b) a large scale analysis of the forest types' condition. Forest types were selected as being the predominant habitat group in Greece (forest habitats represent 37% of the natural habitat types in Greece), where most of the recent monitoring (Hellenic Ministry of Environment and Energy 2016) plots (and the relevant data e.g. pressures, species recordings etc.) have been sampled.

Figure 1.  

Sample plots’ locations (blue dots) used for mapping and assessment of the ecosystem condition. This dataset derives from the monitoring protocols collected for the surveillance and conservation status assessment of habitat types in Greece (Hellenic Ministry of Environment and Energy 2016).

Assessing and mapping ecosystem condition is one of the core objectives for the implementation of any MAES related study at every scale (i.e local, regional, national), because it represents both quality and biophysical state measures that are required to assess the capacity of the ecosystems to generate services (Bordt 2015). The fifth EEA (European Environmental Agency) MAES report (Maes et al. 2018) proposes an analytical framework on how to approach the "ecosystem condition" idea. In this report, ecosystem condition refers to the physical, chemical and biological condition or quality of an ecosystem at a particular point in time and embraces legal concepts (e.g. conservation status under the Birds and Habitats Directives, ecological status under the Water Framework Directive and environmental status under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive), as well as other proxy descriptors related to state, pressures and biodiversity.

Based on experiences gained and capacity building via the ESMERALDA H2020 Project*1, the present study aims to:

1. map and assess the condition of the MAES level 2 ecosystem types in Greece, using the available data on habitat types’ conservation degree (national scale approach within the major MAES level 1 ecosystem categories),
2. apply a large-scale analysis of the forest categories of Greece in order to interpret the results of the national scale condition mapping and assessment (national scale approach within the MAES level 2 ecosystem types),
3. explore and interpet the relationship of the forest categories condition to the recorded pressures and typical plant species diversity (national scale approach within the forest categories).

The present study and the assessment presented in Kokkoris et al. (2018) are considered as initial steps needed for the MAES implementation in Greece, to move forward with operational integrated MAES studies, as described in the framework proposed by Burkhard et al. (2018).

This study is based on the ecosystem condition assessment framework presented by Maes et al. (2018), which proposes indicators to assess the ecosystem condition in various ecosystems. Following the guidelines of suggested indicators by Maes et al. (2018) and, according to data availability, the following indicators have been used:

1. the conservation degree of each habitat type at the sample plot level, to assess the ecosystem condition of MAES level 2 ecosystem types and of forests categories
2. the pressures recorded at MAES level 2 ecosystem types and at forests categories
3. the typical species richness per forest category

The term conservation degree is used for the conservation status assessment at local (i.e. sampling locality) or regional (i.e. Natura 2000 SAC) scale, while, at the national scale, the term conservation status is applied. This need for differentiation in the terminology has been proposed by Evans and Arvela (2011), as well as by Chrysopolitou et al. (2015) for Greece to distinguish the assessments made at local/regional scale for the completion and/or update of Standard Data Forms, from those made at the national or biogeographical scale for the purposes of habitat types monitoring according to Article 17 of Directive 92/43/EEC.

Pressures used as an indicator for ecosystem condition represent past and/or contemporary ongoing impacts that cause a decrease in environmental quality (Maes et al. 2018) and threaten the long-term viability of the ecosystem types and their habitats (Tsiripidis et al. 2018).

In the present contribution, typical plant species (determined objectively using algorithms and fidelity coefficient values, sensu Tsiripidis et al. 2018) richness per habitat type serve as an ecosystem condition indicator, which:

1. is related to indicator species following the phytosociological approach and thus correspond to the characteristic and/or the differential species of the associations/plant communities, as well as of the higher level syntaxa (alliances, orders, classes) (e.g. Braun-Blanquet 1964; Dierschke 1994; Leuschner and Ellenberg 2017a, Leuschner and Ellenberg 2017b),
2. reflects the favourable structure and functions of each habitat type and
3. is sensitive to changes in the condition of the habitat (“early warning indicator species”) (Evans and Arvela 2011).

Condition assessment of ecosystem types

To assign each habitat type to the relevant MAES level 2 ecosystem type, we created a typology following EEA*2 and Kokkoris et al. (2018) (Table 1). Hence, each habitat type has been attributed to one of the following ecosystem types: (a) grasslands, (b) woodland and forests, (c) heathland and shrub, (d) sparsely vegetated land, (e) wetlands, (f) rivers and lakes, (g) marine inlets and transitional waters.

Table 1.

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Typology of ecosystems and correspondence of the habitat types of Greece (Dimopoulos et al. 2018) with the MAES ecosystem categories and types (Level 1 and Level 2). Habitat type codes of Greek interest are underlined; in bold, the habitat types assessed in the present study; asterisk (*) indicates habitat types of conservation priority in Europe. The habitat type code names are provided in Suppl. material 1.

MAES Categories		Natura 2000 Habitat types’ codes
Major ecosystem category (Level 1)	Ecosystem type (Level 2)
Terrestrial	Grasslands	1510*, 5150, 6110*, 6170, 6220*, 6230*, 6260*, 6280, 6290, 6420, 6430, 6450, 6510, 62A0, 62D0, 651A
	Woodland and forest	2270*, 9110, 9130, 9140, 9150, 9180*, 9250, 9260, 9270, 9280, 9290, 9310, 9320, 9340, 9350, 9370*, 9380, 9410, 9530*, 9540, 9560*, 9580, 91ΒΑ, 91CA, 91E0*, 91F0, GR91K0, GR91L0, 91M0, 925A, 952B , 92A0, 92C0, 92D0, 934A, 951A, 951B, 95A0
	Heathland and shrub	1420, 1430, 2210, 2250*, 2260, 4060, 4090, 5110, 5210, 5230*, 5310, 5330, 5340, 5350, 5420, 5430
	Sparsely vegetated land	1210, 1240, 1410, 2110, 2120, 2220, 2230, 32B0, 8140, 8210, 8220, 8260, 8310, 8320
	Wetlands	2190, 7140, 7210*, 7220, 7230, 72A0, 72B0
Freshwater	Rivers and lakes	3130, 3140, 3150, 3170*, 3240, 3250, 3260, 3280, 3290
Marine	Marine inlets and transitional waters	1310

Accordingly, all spatial data from the standardised habitat type monitoring protocols, applied at each sample plot, were assigned to the relevant ecosystem type, grouped and projected on the EEA 10 km grid. Each monitoring protocol (Tsiripidis et al. 2018) resulted in a conservation degree (that incorporates typical species presence and abundance, structure and functions, presence and intensity of pressures) for each habitat type at the plot level (Dimopoulos et al. 2018, Tsiripidis et al. 2018). The condition assessment has been achieved by assigning the plot conservation degree value (i.e. Good, Poor or Bad) on a scale from 1 to 3, i.e Good = 1, Poor = 2 and Bad = 3; hence, the conservation degrees below "Good" contribute with an increased weight in the condition calculation, integrating the importance of "Poor" and "Bad" conservation degree into the ecosystem’s condition per cell. For each grid cell with available monitoring protocols, we calculated and used the mean value of the weighted conservation degree of all plots as the ecosystem condition indicator for each cell; the results of this analysis were classified according to a five-rating scale that represents the condition value for each ecosystem type at each grid cell, as follows: Excellent, Good, Adequate, Poor, Bad and are represented thematically using GIS (Fig. 2).

Figure 2.  

Schematic representation of the methodology used to assess the ecosystem condition in each cell (snapshot from the woodlands and forests assessment). Cell colours represent the ecosystem condition as the mean of all plot values in the cell.

Condition assessment of the forest ecosystems

Condition assessment of ecosystem types

The national scale assessment for the condition of each ecosystem type (per EEA 10 km grid cell), resulted in the following:

1. the largest proportion of the ecosystem condition for all ecosystem types, except wetlands, is excellent and good (i.e. 57% and 12% of the grasslands are in excellent and good conditiion, respectively);
2. grasslands, woodland and forests, heathland and shrub, sparsely vegetated land and marine inlets and transitional waters in their majority are in excellent condition,
3. wetlands are assessed mostly (44%) in adequate condition;
4. amongst all ecosystem types, the higher percentages of bad condition are recorded for the wetlands (20%), rivers and lakes (18%), marine inlets and transitional waters (18%).

Detailed results of this assessment are presented in Table 3 and in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 (ecosystem condition maps). From the ecosystem condition maps, presented in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, it is evident that:

Table 3.

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Proportion (%) of the ecosystem condition categories assigned to the ecosystem types (MAES level 2) of Greece (EEA 10 km grid cell analysis). The ecosystem condition is scaled as: Excellent, Good, Adequate, Poor and Bad.

MAES ecosystem type (level 2)	Ecosystem condition (% total)
	Excellent	Good	Adequate	Poor	Bad
Grasslands	57	12	21	5	5
Woodland and forest	59	5	28	2	6
Heathland and shrub	71	4	17	1	7
Sparsely vegetated land	62	6	22	2	8
Wetlands	28	8	44	-	20
Rivers and lakes	48	3	28	2	18
Marine inlets and transitional waters	51	6	25	-	18

Figure 3.  

Mapping of the ecosystem types’ condition (EEA 10 km grid cell analysis) for: (a) grasslands, (b) woodland and forests, (c) heathland and shrub. Pressure(s) cumulative effect for each ecosystem type is presented in plates (a΄), (b΄) and (c΄), respectively.

Figure 4.  

Mapping of the ecosystem types’ condition (EEA 10 km grid cell analysis) for: (d) sparsely vegetated land, (e) rivers and lakes, (f) wetlands and (g) marine inlets and transitional waters. Pressure(s) cumulative effect for each ecosystem type is presented in plates (d΄), (e΄), (f΄) and (g΄), respectively.

1. no specific pattern is detected along the latitudinal and longitudinal gradient;
2. areas with cells in bad condition are not uniformally distributed in all ecosystems types;
3. ecosystem types in mountainous areas are in their majority in excellent and good condition;
4. the majority of the pressures' effect on ecosystem types follows a rather uniform pattern ranging from "No" to "Low" intensity.

Forest categories assessment

Condition assessment of the forest categories

The analysis revealed that, in their majority, the forest categories are assessed at above-adequate condition, with the maximum (82%) of excellent condition recorded in temperate mountainous coniferous forests and the minimum (48%) in floodplain forests. Temperate deciduous forests and Mediterranean deciduous forests present higher percentages (68% and 69%, respectively) in excellent condition compared to the remaining forest categories. Mediterranean coniferous forests and floodplain forests present the highest percentage (10%) in bad condition. Detailed results of this assessment are presented in Table 4 and Fig. 5

Table 4.

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Proportion (%) of the different ecosystem condition categories assigned to the Woodland and Forest Ecosystem category (MAES level 2) in Greece, based on the EEA 10 km grid cell analysis. The ecosystem condition is scaled as: Excellent, Good, Adequate, Poor and Bad.

Forest category	Ecosystem condition (% total)
	Excellent	Good	Adequate	Poor	Bad
Temperate mountainous coniferous forests	82	1	12	-	5
Temperate deciduous forests	68	7	22	-	3
Mediterranean deciduous forests	69	5	21	-	5
Mediterranean sclerophyllous forests	55	5	32	2	6
Mediterranean coniferous forests	58	7	25	-	10
Floodplain forests	48	6	34	2	10

Figure 5.  

Forest categories condition mapping based on the EEA 10 km grid cell analysis: (a) Temperate mountainous coniferous forests, (b) Temperate deciduous forests, (c) Mediterranean deciduous forests, (d) Mediterranean sclerophyllous forests, (e) Mediterranean coniferous forests and (f) Floodplain forests.

Pressures assessment at forest ecosystems

Pressures' analysis provided information on the intensity and type of human impacts on forest ecosystem categories. This analysis revealed that grazing is the predominant pressure of high intensity in all forest categories, except (a) the temperate deciduous forests, where no high pressures have been recorded (forest clearance is the predominant pressure of medium intensity) and (b) the floodplain forests, where cultivation performance dominates. The pressures spectrum at floodplain forests is secondarily dominated by grazing, presence of invasive non-native species, water resources degradation and road network fragmentation (Fig. 6).

Figure 6.  

Schematic representation of the contribution (%) of pressures of medium and high intensity recorded at the forest categories: (a) Temperate mountainous coniferous forests, (b) Temperate deciduous forests, (c) Mediterranean deciduous forests, (d) Mediterranean sclerophyllous forests, (e) Mediterranean coniferous forests and (f) Floodplain forests.

Shannon/index heatmaps

From the heat-map per forest category (Fig. 7) based on Shannon's Shannon/index value, the geographical areas of Greece with high typical species diversity are highlighted. The highest typical species diversity is observed and spatially arranged per forest category, as follows: (a) Temperate mountainous coniferous forests: mountains of north, north-eastern Greece and Peloponnese; (b) Temperate deciduous forests: northern Greece; (c) Mediterranean deciduous forests: north-central and north-eastern Greece; (d) Mediterranean sclerophyllous forests: Crete; (e) Mediterranean coniferous forests: northern Greece (Chalkidiki), central Greece (Attica) and southeast Aegean (Rhodes); and (f) Floodplain forests: Crete, central Greece and in northern Greece.

Figure 7.  

Heat-maps of Shannon diversity Shannon/index for the forest categories: (a) Temperate mountainous coniferous forests, (b) Temperate deciduous forests, (c) Mediterranean deciduous forests, (d) Mediterranean sclerophyllous forests, (e) Mediterranean coniferous forests and (f) Floodplain forests.

The ecosystem services' approach via the MAES implementation in Greece is highly prioritised in the policy- and descion-makers' agenda for the environment [e.g. LifeIP4Natura*4, lake Stymfalia ES project*5, Natura 2000 value Crete Life project*6, Technical guide for MAES implementation in Greece (Dimopoulos et al. 2017a), workshops on ES organised by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy*7 etc.]. Additionally and within the last four years (since September 2014 when Greece nominated its MAES national representative), Greece achieved the status of being amongstthe countries with the highest progress in MAES implementation (ESMERALDA Project MAES barometer*8). However, the lack of knowledge on ecosystems' condition under the proposed framework by EU (Maes et al. 2018) postpones the implementation actions.

The methodology proposed in the present study provides the advantage of a rapid assessment approach exploiting available datasets of high quality, to set an assessment baseline and trigger more detailed and disciplined specific studies on ecosystem condition indicators (e.g. for water resources, soil and air quality etc.). The results of the ecosystem types condition prioritise future ecosystem condition studies for freshwater ecosystems, since wetlands, rivers and lakes are highlighted as the most degraded; this should include local-scale assessments and the usage of indicators which can provide detailed and quantified results at a very large scale to diagnose synergies and trade-offs. Based on the outcomes of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment*9, the good and excellent condition of the majority of the ecosystem types highlights areas with an increased capacity to provide ES and, by this, can be characterised as ES hot-spots.

Synergies, overlaps and trade-offs at forests

Recent achievements and the road ahead

The present study provides a rapid, national scale assessment on the condition of the ecosystems in Greece and revealed that the majority of ecosystems are at above-adequate condition (wetlands are mostly in adequate condition); mapping of ecosystem condition highlights potential hot-spots of ES supply. The pressures' analysis within each forest ecosystem type revealed the main drivers of change in the forest categories, while the typical species richness assessment highlighted the need for a more detailed analysis based on more integrated aspects of diversity (e.g. total species richness assessments). Regarding policy- and decision-making support, this study, complementary to the study by Kokkoris et al. (2018), provides one of the initial steps needed for the kick-off actions of the MAES implementation in Greece; moreover, it revealed that the available data from the Natura 2000 database of Greece could be used for framework assessments and produce cornerstone results guiding future studies and ES research.