Building a global observing system for biodiversity

Scholes, Robert J.; Walters, Michéle; Turak, Eren; Saarenmaa, Hannu; Heip, C.H.R.; Tuama, Éamonn Ó; Faith, Daniel P.; Mooney, Harold A.; Ferrier, Simon; Jongman, R.H.G.; Harrison, Ian; Yahara, Tetsukazu; Pereira, Henrique M.; Larigauderie, Anne; Geller, Gary N.

doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2011.12.005

Cited by 134 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Although numerous existing systems were identified, developing and funding them is needed to achieve global targets. Acknowledging the lack (Pereira et al 2012) and envisaging the development of a global harmonized system to observe biodiversity (Scholes et al 2012), a set of candidate EBVs were suggested (Pereira et al 2013). They aim at defining a minimum set of essential measurements and acting as an intermediate layer between primary observations (e.g.…”

Section: Earth Observation For Biodiversity Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Remote sensing for biodiversity monitoring: a review of methods for biodiversity indicator extraction and assessment of progress towards international targets

2015

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Recognizing the imperative need for biodiversity protection, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has recently established new targets towards 2020, the so-called Aichi targets, and updated proposed sets of indicators to quantitatively monitor the progress towards these targets. Remote sensing has been increasingly contributing to timely, accurate, and cost-effective assessment of biodiversity-related characteristics and functions during the last years. However, most relevant studies constitute individual research efforts, rarely related with the extraction of widely adopted CBD biodiversity indicators. Furthermore, systematic operational use of remote sensing data by managing authorities has still been limited. In this study, the Aichi targets and the related CBD indicators whose monitoring can be facilitated by remote sensing are identified. For each headline indicator a number of recent remote sensing approaches able for the extraction of related properties are reviewed. Methods cover a wide range of fields, including: habitat extent and condition monitoring; species distribution; pressures from unsustainable management, pollution and climate change; ecosystem service monitoring; and conservation status assessment of protected areas. The advantages and limitations of different remote sensing data and algorithms are discussed. Sorting of the methods based on their reported accuracies is attempted, when possible. The extensive literature survey aims at reviewing highly performing methods that can be used for large-area, effective, and timely biodiversity assessment, to encourage the more systematic use of remote sensing solutions in monitoring progress towards the Aichi targets, and to decrease the gaps between the remote sensing and management communities.

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Section: Earth Observation For Biodiversity Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Remote sensing for biodiversity monitoring: a review of methods for biodiversity indicator extraction and assessment of progress towards international targets

2015

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“…The vision for a future network extends work done earlier by GEO BON (Scholes et al 2012), and includes ideas about the generic use cases that it should support. This is summarised largely in the GEO BON Manifesto 33 (Hugo et al 2013 highlights a set of functions that are expected to be available.…”

Section: A Vision For Future Data and Servicesmentioning

confidence: 84%

Global Infrastructures for Biodiversity Data and Services

Hugo

Hobern

Kõljalg

et al. 2016

The GEO Handbook on Biodiversity Observation Networks

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GEO BON regards development of a global infrastructure in support of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) as one of its main objectives. To realise the goal, an understanding of the context within which such an infrastructure needs to operate is important (for instance, it is part of a larger drive towards research data infrastructures in support of open science?) and the information technology applicable to such infrastructures needs to be considered. The EBVs are likely to require very specific implementation guidelines once the community has defined them in detail. In the interim it is possible to anticipate the likely architecture for a GEO BON infrastructure, and to provide guidance to individual researchers, institutions, and regional or global initiatives in respect of best practice. The best practice guidelines cover general aspects applicable to all research infrastructures, the use of persistent identifiers, interoperability guidelines in respect of vocabularies, data services and meta-data management, and advice on the use of global infrastructure services and/or federated, standards-based implementations. It has been widely accepted that the future usability and availability of research outputs, and specifically data, will be enhanced by proper description of these outputs using standardised metadata schemes, supplemented by deposit of the data in trusted repositories. Despite this, such outputs continue to be poorly described in practice. In addition, it is also commonly reported that the data supporting scholarly publication quickly becomes inaccessible or lost (Vines et al. 2014;Goddard et al. 2011). This disparity between what is seen as desirable behaviour, and reality is about to change, due to three significant drivers: Keywords• Data publication and citation is gaining momentum (Chavan and Penev 2011). For a comprehensive review, see the report by a CoDATA 1 Task Group (Socha 2013).• Funders are increasingly demanding the preservation of and continued open access to tax-funded research outputs.2,3,4• Controversy in respect of reproducibility of scientific claims 5 have led to insistence by journals 6 that the data underpinning articles should be made available.We believe these drivers will rapidly increase the availability of well-described, well-preserved, and sometimes standardised data services in the future. Research InfrastructuresThe drive towards data publication and citation requires support, hence the growth and proliferation of Research Data Infrastructures. These are supplemented strongly by voluntary, community-driven initiatives, and by member-funded bodies that support standardisation and interoperability.Infrastructure operates on several levels: it provides governance and collaboration infrastructure (for example, the Belmont Lifewatch,19 and others). It is worth noting that one of the motivations for the Research Data Alliance is to provide a cross-disciplinary, global exchange to minimise duplication of effort and divergence. Hence the landscape is at once chara...

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“…Habitat maps can be derived from land cover maps based on RS data along with ancillary geographic information (e.g., soil maps) and other data derived from remote sensing data, e.g., Digital Elevation Models (Mücher 2011). Where more than one system is used, the relationships between the components of these systems need to be made explicit (Scholes et al 2012). Additionally, the harmonisation of land cover maps and habitat maps is very important, as habitats have strong associations with floristic and faunal taxa and are therefore considered significant as indicators of biodiversity (Bunce et al 2013).…”

Section: Relating Rs and In Situ Observations: Lccs And Ghcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Terrestrial Ecosystem Observations: Why, Where, What and How?

Jongman

Skidmore

Mücher

et al. 2016

The GEO Handbook on Biodiversity Observation Networks

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This chapter covers the questions of ecosystem definition and the organisation of a monitoring system. It treats where and how ecosystems should be measured and the integration between in situ and RS observations. Ecosystems are characterised by composition, function and structure. The ecosystem level is an essential link in biodiversity surveillance and monitoring between species and populations on the one hand and land use and landscapes on the other. Ecosystem monitoring requires a clear conceptual model that incorporates key factors influencing ecosystem dynamics to base the variables on that have to be monitored as well as data collection methods and statistics. Choices have to be made on the scale at which monitoring should be carried out and eco-regionalisation or ecological stratification are approaches for identification of the units to be sampled. This can be done on expert judgement but nowadays also on stratifications derived from multivariate statistical clustering. Data should also be included from individual research sites over the entire world and from organically grown networks covering many countries.

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Building a global observing system for biodiversity

Cited by 134 publications

References 22 publications

Remote sensing for biodiversity monitoring: a review of methods for biodiversity indicator extraction and assessment of progress towards international targets

Remote sensing for biodiversity monitoring: a review of methods for biodiversity indicator extraction and assessment of progress towards international targets

Global Infrastructures for Biodiversity Data and Services

Global Terrestrial Ecosystem Observations: Why, Where, What and How?

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