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MILJØFORSK-Miljøforskning for en grønn samfunnsomstilling

Modelling Ecological state and Condition Maps to support knowledge-based decision-making in Area management and spatial Planning (ECoMAP)

Alternative title: Tilgjengelig kartfested kunnskap om økologisk tilstand til støtte for en kunnskapsbasert arealforvalning (ECoMAP)

Awarded: NOK 20.4 mill.

The global biodiversity and climate crisis pose major threats to ecosystems and human lives and livelihoods. Despite a solid global consensus that land use and land-use change are major drivers of these dual crises, we are currently failing to halt the loss. We argue that this failure to effectively implement environmental policy goals stems from a lack of relevant knowledge and information at the scale, and in a format, of relevance to the local and regional decision-makers holding the key to land-use transformation. ECoMAP will bridge this knowledge gap by bringing together stakeholders from science, nature management, spatial planning, and the private and public sector to develop a joint cross-disciplinary understanding of the knowledge needed to strengthen the science-policy interface on biodiversity and ecosystems. Informed by these discussions, we will develop methodologies for producing high-resolution maps of a range of biodiversity-derived and ecodiversity-derived variables of relevance for assessing ecological state and condition. We will then develop methodologies for quantifying ecosystem resilience based on these variables in order to understand ecosystem vulnerability to environmental perturbations. Finally, these new mapping approaches and data will be implemented in and communicated through the Ecological Base Map infrastructure, ground-truthed against data from existing research and monitoring data, and calibrated against needs and opportunities identified nationally and internationally. The unique aspect of ECoMAP lies in combining and integrating state-of-the-art applications of biodiversity, ecodiversity, and resilience mapping into a common framework, from which we will develop tools and applications supporting evidence-based nature management to safe-guard biodiversity and ecosystem goods and services.

The global biodiversity and climate crisis pose major threats to ecosystems and human lives and livelihoods. Despite a solid global consensus that land-use and land-use change are major drivers of these dual crises, we are currently failing to halt the loss. We argue that this failure to effectively implement environmental policy goals stems from a lack of relevant knowledge and information at the scale, and in a format, of relevance to the local and regional decision-makers holding the key to land-use transformation. ECoMAP will bridge this knowledge gap by (O1) bringing together stakeholders from science, nature management, spatial planning, and the private and public sector to develop a joint cross-disciplinary understanding of the knowledge needed to strengthen the science-policy interface on biodiversity and ecosystems (WP1). Informed by these discussions, we will (O2) develop methodologies for producing high-resolution maps of a range of biodiversity-derived (WP2) and ecodiversity-derived (WP3) variables of relevance for assessing ecological state and condition. We will then (O3) develop methodologies for quantifying ecosystem resilience based on these variables in order to understand ecosystem vulnerability to environmental perturbations (WP4). Finally, (O4), these new mapping approaches and data will be implemented in and communicated through the Ecological Base Map infrastructure (WP5), ground-truthed against data from existing research and monitoring data, and calibrated against needs and opportunities identified nationally and internationally (WP6). The unique aspect of ECoMAP lies in combining and integrating state-of-the-art applications of biodiversity, ecodiversity, and resilience mapping into a common framework, from which we will develop tools and applications supporting evidence-based nature management to safe-guard biodiversity and ecosystem goods and services.

Publications from Cristin

Funding scheme:

MILJØFORSK-Miljøforskning for en grønn samfunnsomstilling