Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area

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Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area

Box 7.4 GLOBIO3: Assessing biodiversity in the Barents Region GLOBIO3 was developed by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) for assessing global and regional biodiversity. GLOBIO3 has been successfully used in several integrated assessments at global, regional, national and sub-national level. It is well known for its application in global biodiversity assessments such as the Global Biodiversity Outlooks (GBOs) of the Convention on Biological Diversity, UNEP’s Global Environment Outlooks (GEOs) and the OECD’s Environmental Outlooks. It has also been applied for sub-national assessments in several temperate and tropical countries. GLOBIO3 uses a Mean Species Abundance (MSA) indicator in which the species abundance of a disturbed ecosystem is compared with that of a reference state ecosystem. The MSA of originally occurring species is defined as the average abundance of originally occurring species relative to their abundance in the original or reference state. The model does not provide detailed information at individual species level.The impact of each

pressure is expressed as a value between 1 (undisturbed, green on the output map) and 0 (completely disturbed, red on the output map). In general, the reference state refers to primary or untouched ecosystems with ‘natural intactness’, but the model can also be used to assess impacts on older cultural ecosystems such as heathland, semi-natural grasslands and grazed tundra. GLOBIO3 is built on simple cause-effect relationships between pressures and biodiversity impacts derived from available literature, using meta-analysis for comparable ecosystems. The quality of the model output can be improved using local data, traditional knowledge and expert knowledge. GIS maps are used as the primary input from these cause- effect relationships. Scenario information is used to estimate the impact of pressures in the future.The model output comprises a remaining intactness map (measured by MSA), plus maps that display the contribution of each of the different pressures. The model is designed as a decision-support tool for illustrating impacts on biodiversity, making it easier to understand the drivers

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MSA

<0.5 0.5 - 0.6 0.6 - 0.7 0.7 - 0.8 0.8 - 0.95 0.95 - 1

Figure 7.4 Trend in mean species abundance (MSA) in the Arctic for the baseline scenario of the Rethinking Study (based on data from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2010).