The Nature Index: A General Framework for Synthesizing Knowledge on the State of Biodiversity

Abstract

The magnitude and urgency of the biodiversity crisis is widely recognized within scientific and political organizations. However, a lack of integrated measures for biodiversity has greatly constrained the national and international response to the biodiversity crisis. Thus, integrated biodiversity indexes will greatly facilitate information transfer from science toward other areas of human society. The Nature Index framework samples scientific information on biodiversity from a variety of sources, synthesizes this information, and then transmits it in a simplified form to environmental managers, policymakers, and the public. The Nature Index optimizes information use by incorporating expert judgment, monitoring-based estimates, and model-based estimates. The index relies on a network of scientific experts, each of whom is responsible for one or more biodiversity indicators. The resulting set of indicators is supposed to represent the best available knowledge on the state of biodiversity and ecosystems in any given area. The value of each indicator is scaled relative to a reference state, i.e., a predicted value assessed by each expert for a hypothetical undisturbed or sustainably managed ecosystem. Scaled indicator values can be aggregated or disaggregated over different axes representing spatiotemporal dimensions or thematic groups. A range of scaling models can be applied to allow for different ways of interpreting the reference states, e.g., optimal situations or minimum sustainable levels. Statistical testing for differences in space or time can be implemented using Monte-Carlo simulations. This study presents the Nature Index framework and details its implementation in Norway. The results suggest that the framework is a functional, efficient, and pragmatic approach for gathering and synthesizing scientific knowledge on the state of biodiversity in any marine or terrestrial ecosystem and has general applicability worldwide.

Indicator-Based Assessment of Marine Biological Diversity–Lessons from 10 Case Studies across the European Seas

“…Results from the Norwegian part of the Barents sea indicated a general good status, which is in accordance with indicators of fish status on exploited large marine ecosystems (Kleisner et al, 2014;Coll et al, 2015), the report on the Barents Sea management plan (Sunnana et al, 2010) and the work from Certain et al (2011). Nevertheless, several indicators indicated potentially degraded situations both in the coastal area and in the area of seasonal ice presence: (1) Along northern Norway coast, the current extent of kelp forest, an important component of fjords ecosystem and coastal landscape, cannot be considered as good in northern Norway.…”

Re-establishing an ecological discourse in the policy debate over how to value ecosystems and biodiversity

“…This is described as a comprehensive integrated management tool combining 300 biodiversity indicators and aiming to inform management targets (Certain et al, 2011). For each indicator the current state is compared to a reference, representing a given interpretation of intact ecosystems.…”

“…Hence, there is a crucial distinction between a reference value and an environmental management target, aimed at representing an acceptable level of intervention in ecosystems structure and functioning. The Nature Index chose to avoid a single headline number and remain disaggregated at the level of nine major habitats: mountain, forest, mires and wetland, freshwater, open lowland, coast pelagic, coast bottom, ocean pelagic, and ocean bottom (Certain et al, 2011).…”

“…In the natural science tradition, the Nature Index appealed to three information sources namely expert opinion, models and monitoring data (Certain et al, 2011).…”

Why Include Impacts on Biodiversity from Land Use in LCIA and How to Select Useful Indicators?

“…Due to the complexity of biodiversity, it is argued that a universal indicator for biodiversity is not likely to be found [9,[23][24][25], and using the structure from Noss [23], Curran et al [6] show that biodiversity indicators can be divided into 12 categories based on hierarchical components and biological attributes. Still, most proposals for including impacts on biodiversity from LULUC in LCIA try to capture the impact in a single indicator.…”