With lot of subjectivity on BD and uncertainty associated Impact Assessment methods, is their a 'most credible and reliable' method that can be easily applied for a habitat to quantify BD or perhaps loss of BD?
You are right, there is a lot of subjectivity and BD is often only determined based on loss of species richness due to habitat loss. I found the following information and references:
From the second paper listed below: 'LCA mainly introduces biodiversity as an endpoint category modeled as a loss in species richness due to the conversion and use of land over time and space. The functional and population effects on biodiversity are mostly absent due to the emphasis on species accumulation with limited geographic and taxonomical reach. Current land-use modeling activities that use biodiversity indicators tend to oversimplify the real dynamics and complexity of the interactions of species among each other and with their habitats.'
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, July 2013, Volume 18, Issue 6, pp 1216–1230, Land use impacts on biodiversity in LCA: a global approach.
Assessing biodiversity loss due to land use with Life Cycle Assessment: are we there yet? DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12709.
I hope this helps :)
You may try the indexes likewise Shannon and Jackard ones to assess BD
Thanks Andrew. Let me go through the papers and come back.
Thanks Imadeddin..but can we use these indices in LCA and whether any of these is integrated in the s/w like SimaPro or GaBi? I suppose these are independent field methods to assess BD.
Sorry. I can´t contribute to your investigation. I don´t investigate this issue.
Hi Anju
Biodiversity degradation is usually representated as an "endpoint" indicator as multiple "midpoint" processes (land use, climate change, freshwater ecotoxicity...) contribute to ecosystems degradation. You can have a look at Curran et al. (2011) "Toward Meaningful End Points of Biodiversity in Life Cycle Assessment" that gives a good overview of the different components the concept of biodiversity encompasses and how that are accounted for in LCA.
More practically, I would say that the best method to select really depends on what you intend to do with and what level of data quality/resolution is available to you. Among the most sophisticated methods to model biodiversity loss resulting from land use, you can find de Baan et al. 2013 "Land Use in Life Cycle Assessment: Global Characterization Factors Based on Regional and Global Potential Species Extinction" as well as Chaudhary et al.Quantifying "Land Use Impacts on Biodiversity: Combining Species–Area Models and Vulnerability Indicators" that has been recommended by the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative (Frieschknecht et al. 2016 Global guidance on environmental life cycle impact assessment indicators: Progress and case study).
Like human health, biodiversity integrity is a very integrative issue. An essential question is whether you really need an aggregated metric for biodiversity loss or whether you want an overview of the compatibility of the pressures exerted on biodiversity with ecosystem's capacity to support such pressures on the long term. If the second option sounds more promising to you, I recommend you have a look at Bjorn and Hauschild (2016) "Introducing carrying capacity-based normalisation in LCA: framework and development of references at midpoint level".
Bests,
Anastasia
Dear Anastasia,
Many Thanks for your detailed explanation. As a matter of fact I have read de baan et al and Chaudhary et al. However, I guess I am actually looking for a detailed case study or example which can help me with each step of assessment eg goal, lci and method like a typical lca. Unfortunately, it looks like BD assessment is not as simple as any other lca. Since I have experience in product Lca's its difficult for me to remove the product oriented spectacles and look at studies from a different angle. Unless one practically perform an study or be a part of such project which includes BD assessment, its difficult to learn through papers (exception is when a case study is include.
In the hope that soon I come across the study I am looking for, Iet me continue going through the literature suggested by experts in this forum(currently going through one suggested above by Andrew Paul).
Thanks again.
Thanks Dr. Hiloidhari.
The publications are helpful especially Geyer et al which is exactly what I was looking for. I still need to go through Part-II of the paper, but I got a lot of clarity on the methodology through Part-I.
Thanks again.
Anjuji,
We are using habitat model and risk analysis for BD assessment in EIA. However, quantitative assessment of habitat biodiversity in practices. We use indexes of biodiversity for Species biodiversity and GIS, mathematical modeling for habitat BD. Statistical tools like t test ANNOVA, probability and correlation etc. are best to assess biodiversity
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