To Measure the Unmeasurable Evaluation of biodiversity and ecosystem services indicators for land use impact accounting
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Industrial ecology (MPTSE), MSc
Publicerad
2020
Författare
Wang, Allan
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
In recent centuries, the magnitude of stress humans have put on biodiversity and ecosystems has
reached an unprecedented level. Several internationally coordinated environmental efforts have
attempted to reduce anthropogenic impacts by setting up common targets and trajectories for
achieving them. In order to assess progress towards these targets as well as the efficacy of our
policies, methods are needed for quantifying the human impact on the environment.
Currently, in the context of measuring anthropogenic impact in land use, the quantification efforts
are limited to inventories of greenhouse gases. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to develop
a proof-of-concept framework for quantifying biodiversity and ecosystem services in land use. The
main research question involved finding and evaluating suitable indicators for this framework. The
research began by identifying five essential criteria for evaluating potential biodiversity and
ecosystem service indicators in the context of land use accounting: 1) land use appropriateness, 2)
relevance, 3) spatial scale and scalability, 4) site-specificity, and 5) practicality and affordability.
Then, by conducting a literature review, 117 unique indicators were identified from 34 studies,
which were categorised into indicators of biodiversity or 24 different ecosystem services. The
indicators were then ranked by scores based on these five criteria.
The results include sorted lists of indicators based on their suitability in the context of land use.
This serves as a starting point for testing and further sophistication of land use indicators that
account for biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Kyoto Protocol , Land use , land-use change and forestry (LULUCF); , Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) , Sustainable Development Goal (SGD) , Inventory report , Proof of concept , Mitigation and , Land management , Impact assessment