Monitoring woody landscape features in Dutch rural landscapes

• Area of woody landscape features decreased over 2011–2021. • Common Agricultural Policy and 2030 biodiversity strategy targets are not on track. • Ecosystem extent accounts do not capture all woody landscape features. • LiDAR data enhances woody landscape features coverage in ecosystem extent accounts. Woody landscape features (WLF) declined sharply in the Netherlands in the twentieth century, with negative consequences on biodiversity and ecosystem services. EU and national policies aim to reverse this trend. However, recent assessments of WLF in the Netherlands are lacking. Ecosystem Accounts (EA) could support the monitoring of WLF but data on WLF in the Dutch EA is incomplete. Therefore this paper has the dual objective to assess WLF in the Netherlands, and to analyse how WLF can be monitored with EA, complemented with Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data. We used three Dutch rural regions, with different landscape characteristics and WLF densities, as case studies. We assessed the current extent and recent trends of WLF with LiDAR data, and compared the LiDAR based estimates with existing data in the Dutch EA. LiDAR based results indicated a density of WLF about 15% higher than the Dutch EA. However, even the WLF density as measured with LiDAR does not reach the EU and national policy targets for agricultural land in two of the three study areas. Moreover, both LiDAR data and the Dutch EA indicated that the area of WLF decreased over 2011–2021 in all study areas. LiDAR data can be used to enhance the Dutch EA for the purpose of monitoring WLF in rural landscapes, allowing a more complete representation of small features in agricultural fields and surrounding areas, such as farmyards, canals and road verges. Further efforts are needed to monitor and maintain Dutch WLFs.