The Norwegian Nature Index – conceptual framework and methodology

Biodiversity and ecosystem services: The Nature Index for Norway

“…The Nature Index was established in an extensive scientific cooperation, where about 125 leading experts from research institutions with different scientific traditions and approaches reached agreement on a common framework for measuring biodiversity (Nybø, 2010;Certain and Skarpaas et al, 2011;Nybø et al, 2012;Skarpaas et al, 2012;Pedersen et al, 2014). The Nature Index gives a comprehensive overview of the state and development of more than 300 biodiversity indicators, representing biodiversity in 9 major marine and terrestrial ecosystems (biomes): ocean bottom, ocean pelagic, coast bottom, coast pelagic, open lowland (the cultural landscape of extensively used agricultural areas), mires and wetlands, freshwater, forest, and mountain.…”

“…Specifically, we discuss relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem services in the context of the Nature Index for Norway, recently developed as a framework for integrated biodiversity measurement (Nybø, 2010;Certain and Skarpaas et al, 2011;Nybø et al, 2012;Skarpaas et al, 2012). The article focuses on the use of biophysical indicators as both an alternative and a complementary approach to economic valuation, in order to express the importance of biodiversity for the provision of ecosystem services, arguing that other policy responses than monetary valuation and commodification of ecosystem services are required.…”

System of Environmental-Economic Accounting 2012

“…A4.21 Biodiversity indices are more complicated, but, usually, area (extent) is one component. Further, ensuring that each trophic level maintains equal weights implies that all parts of the ecosystem are appropriately represented (Skarpaas, Certain and Nybø, 2012). A4.22 Changes in a total biodiversity index may be explained through a disaggregation into different thematic indices.…”

The Nordic Aichi restoration project

“…Theoretically such stages/levels can be mapped on any scale and further used to calculate progress of restoration, but this requires large resources and most likely only relevant for specific purposes (like for specific nature types, restricted geographic areas or specific restoration priorities). The "Nature Index" (NI) is a different approach to describe levels of disturbance (Nybø et al 2011, Skarpaas et al 2012. The NI is an aggregated measure put together from more than 300 biodiversity indicators to reflect the state of terrestrial and marine ecosystems.…”

“…Remaining countries have not done so, but Norway and Iceland seem to have systems that can be adopted or transformed into the 4-level model. The Nature Index may be used for the Norwegian habitats (Skarpaas et al 2012), while for Iceland the classification of eroded land ) and some inventories can be used together with experts' knowledge. For countries with an established or a suggested definition of levels the definitions and transitions between levels are in general treated quite similar for each habitat.…”