Beard, Thomas (Doug): USGS (Project Lead)
Project Funding:
2016 - 2018
NRA: 2015 NASA: Biodiversity
Funded by NASA
Abstract:
Many of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets are not on track to meet the 2020 goal stated in
the Strategic Plan on Biodiversity 2011-2020, threatening global biodiversity
conservation, monitoring, and sustainable use. The consequences of not meeting these
targets will have impacts on ecosystem services provided by global biodiversity,
including food security, income generation, and ecosystem function. In addition, the
recently agreed-upon summary on scenarios and modeling from the Intergovernmental
Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) identifies needs for global
ecosystem and biodiversity models that will be required for the first IPBES global
biodiversity assessment. Integration of global ecosystem models, including terrestrial,
freshwater, and marine ecosystems, under future climate scenarios, will inform the
IPBES global assessment and help countries’ ability to monitor their progress toward
Aichi Biodiversity Targets and will assist the broader scientific community in projecting
general ecosystem models under future climate scenarios. Furthermore, the incorporation of finer scale habitat changes and ecological and evolutionary processes through using NASA remote sensing products will increase the accuracy of multi-ecosystem (e.g., marine, terrestrial, and freshwater) models under projected climate scenarios. The United States Geological Survey National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center is uniquely positioned to engage the relevant groups of scientists (i.e., climate modelers, ecologists, and biodiversity and ecosystems modelers) outlined in the solicitation for proposals to identify lessons learned from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change general circulation models and apply these lessons learned to advancing General Ecosystem Models and global biodiversity models. To be successful, we propose bringing together ecosystem and climate modelers via a series of in-person and virtual workshops to 1) identify lessons learned from climate models to be applied to large-scale ecosystem-based models that includes marine, terrestrial, and freshwater ecosytems, 2) to identify NASA and other remote sensing products to assist in the integration of
existing global biodiversity, climate, and future analysis models and 3) to begin to address and build on gaps and data needs (e.g., finer scale ecological and evolutionary processes) previously identified by IPBES necessary to inform the IPBES global assessment and provide insight into progress towards reaching Aichi Biodiversity Targets and sustainable development goals. These lessons learned and outlined steps forward will inform the development of general ecosystem and global biodiversity models for terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems that could help to inform NASA’s biodiversity program and will provide important information to the broader international policy discussions on biodiversity.
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):
