Mapping cumulative impacts on biodiversity in Canada and globally

绘制对加拿大和全球生物多样性的累积影响

• 批准号: RGPIN-2017-06216
• 负责人: Venter, Oscar
• 金额: $ 2.4万
• 依托单位: University of Northern British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=712095
• 关键词: Mapping; cumulative; impacts; biodiversity; Canada

Environmental pressures, such as oil and gas infrastructure, agricultural lands and urban sprawl, are the actions taken by humans with the potential to harm nature. These pressures are changing spatially and temporally, with profound implications for the planet's biodiversity. For instance, environmental pressures are now so ubiquitous that they are precipitating a new epoch, dubbed the Anthropocene, and concurrently a global mass extinction crisis. Through an interdisciplinary project termed the human footprint', colleagues and I have provided the highest resolution and most complete view of how eight in-situ environmental pressures are changing across Earth's land areas. This work has led to a number of important discoveries. For instance, the human footprint is increasing in most places, and 75% of the planet is now experiencing measurable environmental pressures. Moreover, pressures are perversely intense in places that house high concentrations of biodiversity. Conversely, Earth's last wild landscapes are primarily in high latitudes and desert regions, as well as some tropical forest areas. However, this improved understanding of how the human footprint is changing has raised as many questions as it has answered. This Discovery Grant will fund a student-led research program to answer some of the most pressing among these questions. Specifically, we will use spatial analyses and statistical modelling to bring together a range of large data sets with the aim of improving our understanding of how environmental pressures interact to drive biodiversity declines, and whether specific tipping points exist between accumulating pressures and biodiversity declines. Moreover, my students and I will develop new refined maps of cumulative pressures at the Canadian national scale, as the global maps appear to poorly represent pressures in Canada, as well as future projections of these pressures at the global and Canadian scale. In combination, this proposed research program innovates across two major themes relating to the ecology of human-dominated environments. First, this project will present an entirely novel extension to the nascent field of cumulative pressure mapping, substantially improving its ability to relate cumulative environmental pressures to their impacts on biodiversity. Second, this project will develop novel methods for projecting future expansion of the human footprint and contraction in wilderness areas. This will provide crucial information for Canada, where large scale oil and gas developments are underway, and much of the north is becoming increasingly suitable for human uses. Moreover, our maps of habitat disturbance will provide key information for conservation planning in Canada, which has ambitious policy to expand protected areas, helping to minimize future biodiversity declines.

环境压力，例如石油和天然气基础设施，农业用地和城市蔓延，是人类采取的行动，可能损害自然。这些压力在空间和时间上发生变化，对地球的生物多样性产生了深远的影响。例如，现在的环境压力无处不在，以至于它们正在促成一个新的时代，被称为人类世，并同时发生了全球巨大的灭绝危机。 通过一个跨学科项目，我和同事提供了最高的分辨率和最完整的看法，以表明八个现场环境压力如何在地球陆地各地发生变化。这项工作导致了许多重要发现。例如，人类足迹在大多数地方都在增加，而地球的75％现在正遇到可衡量的环境压力。此外，在容纳高浓度的生物多样性的地方，压力会变得巨大。相反，地球的最后一个野生景观主要在高纬度和沙漠地区以及一些热带森林地区。 但是，这种对人足迹如何变化的理解得以提出的回答尽可能多的问题。这项发现赠款将资助由学生主导的研究计划，以回答这些问题中最紧迫的一些。具体而言，我们将使用空间分析和统计建模来汇总一系列大型数据集，以提高我们对环境压力如何相互作用以驱动生物多样性下降的理解，以及在累积压力和生物多样性下降之间是否存在特定的尖端。此外，我和我的学生将在加拿大国家规模上发展新的精制累积压力地图，因为全球地图似乎在加拿大代表了压力，并且在全球和加拿大规模上对这些压力的未来预测。 结合起来，该拟议的研究计划在两个与人类主导环境的生态有关的主要主题上进行了创新。首先，该项目将向累积压力映射的新兴领域提供完全新颖的扩展，从而大大提高了其将累积环境压力与对生物多样性的影响相关联的能力。其次，该项目将开发用于预测荒野地区人足迹和收缩的未来扩展的新方法。这将为加拿大提供至关重要的信息，其中大规模的石油和天然气开发正在进行中，北部的大部分地区都越来越适合人类用途。此外，我们的栖息地障碍地图将为加拿大的保护计划提供关键信息，该计划具有扩大保护区的雄心勃勃的政策，有助于最大程度地减少未来的生物多样性下降。