Social equity shapes zone-selection: Balancing aquatic biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services delivery in the transboundary Danube River Basin

An assessment of the state of conservation planning in Europe

Expanding and managing current habitat and species protection measures is at the heart of the European biodiversity strategy. A structured approach is needed to gain insights into such issues is systematic conservation planning, which uses techniques from decision theory to identify places and actions that contribute most effectively to policy objectives given a set of constraints. Yet culturally and historically determined European landscapes make the implementation of any conservation plans challenging, requiring an analysis of synergies and trade-offs before implementation. In this work, we review the scientific literature for evidence of previous conservation planning approaches, highlighting recent advances and success stories. We find that the conceptual characteristics of European conservation planning studies likely reduced their potential in contributing to better-informed decisions. We outline pathways towards improving the uptake of decision theory and multi-criteria conservation planning at various scales, particularly highlighting the need for (a) open data and intuitive tools, (b) the integration of biodiversity-focused conservation planning with multiple objectives, (c) accounting of dynamic ecological processes and functions, and (d) better facilitation of entry-points and co-design practices of conservation planning scenarios with stakeholders. By adopting and improving these practices, European conservation planning might become more actionable and adaptable towards implementable policy outcomes. This article is part of the theme issue 'Ecological novelty and planetary stewardship: biodiversity dynamics in a transforming biosphere'.

Potential habitat areas and priority protected areas of Tilia amurensis Rupr in China under the context of climate change

Introduction

Tilia amurensis Rupr (T. amurensis) is one endangered and national class II key protected wild plant in China. It has ornamental, material, economic, edible and medicinal values. At present, the resources of T. amurensis are decreasing, and the prediction of the distribution of its potential habitat in China can provide a theoretical basis for the cultivation and rational management of this species.

Methods

In this study, the R language was used to evaluate 358 distribution records and 38 environment variables. The MaxEnt model was used to predict the potential distribution areas of T. amurensis under the current and future climate scenarios. The dominant environmental factors affecting the distribution of T. amurensis were analyzed and the Marxan model was used to plan the priority protected areas of this species.

Results

The results showed that Bio18, Slope, Elev, Bio1, Bio9 and Bio2 were the dominant environmental factors affecting the distribution of T. amurensis. Under the future climatic scenarios, the potential suitable areas for T. amurensis will mainly distribute in the Northeast China, the total suitable area will reduce compared with the current climate scenarios, and the general trend of the centroid of suitable habitat will be towards higher latitudes. The SPF value of the best plan obtained from the priority conservation area planning was 1.1, the BLM value was 127,616, and the priority conservation area was about 57.61×104 km2. The results suggested that climate, soil and topographic factors jointly affected the potential geographical distribution of T. amurensis, and climate and topographic factors had greater influence than soil factors.

Discussion

The total suitable area of T. amurensis in China under different climate scenarios in the future will decrease, so more effective protection should be actively adopted.

Assessing the effects of topographic gradients on landscape patterns: The study case of Tingjiang river basin, China

With the progress of urbanization, the natural geographical characteristics of different river basins have also undergone tremendous changes, and bring many environmental and social issues. It is of great significance to the sustainable development of river basins to reveal the relationship between topographic and landscape patterns. Therefore, we selected Tingjiang river basin, utilizing remote sensing images from 1991, 2004, and 2017, as well as the digital elevation model (DEM) data, we computed a topographic classification system consisting of four levels (Low level, Low-medium level, Medium-high level, High level). This approach enables us to study the gradient impact of topography and investigate the mechanism influencing the landscape pattern. The results show: (1) Low-medium and medium-high topographic levels are dominant in the research sites, accounting 49.35% and 38.47%, respectively. (2) Bare land showed a significant decrease while construction, cultivated, and forest land increased from 1991 to 2017. (3) Forest land is mainly concentrated in the middle-high and high-topographic levels whereas construction land, cultivated land, water area and bare land are mainly concentrated in the middle-low and low-topographic level. (4) The landscape pattern significantly varies with the topographic gradient, where the conversion to construction land is widespread in the low-topographic area, while alternation between cultivated land and forest land mainly occurs in the medium-low and medium-high topographic areas. Consequently, these findings provide insights into the impact of topography on river basin landscape pattern, which could guide sustainable development in the future.

Preparing GIS data for analysis of stream monitoring data: The R package openSTARS

Stream monitoring data provides insights into the biological, chemical and physical status of running waters. Additionally, it can be used to identify drivers of chemical or ecological water quality, to inform related management actions, and to forecast future conditions under land use and global change scenarios. Measurements from sites along the same stream may not be statistically independent, and the R package SSN provides a way to describe spatial autocorrelation when modelling relationships between measured variables and potential drivers. However, SSN requires the user to provide the stream network and sampling locations in a certain format. Likewise, other applications require catchment delineation and intersection of different spatial data. We developed the R package openSTARS that provides the functionality to derive stream networks from a digital elevation model, delineate stream catchments and intersect them with land use or other GIS data as potential predictors. Additionally, locations for model predictions can be generated automatically along the stream network. We present an example workflow of all data preparation steps. In a case study using data from water monitoring sites in Southern Germany, the resulting stream network and derived site characteristics matched those constructed using STARS, an ArcGIS custom toolbox. An advantage of openSTARS is that it relies on free and open-source GRASS GIS and R functions, unlike the original STARS toolbox which depends on proprietary ArcGIS. openSTARS also comes without a graphical user interface, to enhance reproducibility and reusability of the workflow, thereby harmonizing and simplifying the data pre-processing prior to statistical modelling. Overall, openSTARS facilitates the use of spatial regression and other applications on stream networks and contributes to reproducible science with applications in hydrology, environmental sciences and ecology.

The potential of ecosystem-based management to integrate biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision in aquatic ecosystems

Global aquatic biodiversity keeps declining rapidly, despite international efforts providing a variety of policies and legislations that identify goals for, and give directions to protecting the world's aquatic fauna and flora. With the H2020 project AQUACROSS, we have made an unprecedented effort to unify policy strategies, knowledge, and management concepts of freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems to support the achievement of the targets set by the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. AQUACROSS has embraced the concept of ecosystem-based management (EBM), which approaches environmental management from a social-ecological system perspective to protect biodiversity and to sustainably harvest ecosystem services. This special issue includes contributions resulting from AQUACROSS, which either tackle selected EBM challenges from a theoretical point of view or apply EBM in one of the selected case studies across Europe. In this article, we introduce relevant topics, address the most important lessons learnt, and suggest where research should go with aquatic EBM. We hope that this special issue will foster and facilitate the uptake of EBM in aquatic ecosystems and, therewith, provide the on-ground applications needed for evaluating EBM's utility to safeguard aquatic biodiversity.