Description
The Biodiversity Intactness dataset shows global estimates of how land use pressures have affected biodiversity. Biodiversity intactness is estimated as a combination of two metrics: Abundance (the quantity of individuals) and Compositional Similarity (how similar the composition of species is to an intact baseline). The Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) estimates how the average abundance of native terrestrial species in a region compares with their abundances before pronounced human impacts. These layers contain the area-weighted mean Biodiversity Intactness Index for watershed regions at different HUC levels.
Technical Description
The Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) measures biodiversity change using abundance data on plants, fungi and animals worldwide. The Index shows how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human pressures such as land use change and intensification. Generated by Impact Observatory, in collaboration with Vizzuality, these datasets estimate terrestrial Biodiversity Intactness as 100-meter gridded maps for the years 2017-2020. Biodiversity Intactness data is based on the PREDICTS database of spatially referenced observations of biodiversity across 32,000 sites from over 750 studies.
Biodiversity intactness is estimated as a combination of two metrics: Abundance, the quantity of individuals, and Compositional Similarity, how similar the composition of species is to an intact baseline. Linear mixed effects models are fit to estimate the predictive capacity of spatial datasets of human pressures on each of these metrics and project results spatially across the globe. These methods, as well as comparisons to other leading datasets and guidance on interpreting results, are further explained in a methods white paper entitled “Global 100m Projections of Biodiversity Intactness for the years 2017-2020.” authored by Francis Gassert, Joe Mazzarello, Sam Hyde.
This Collection holds the area-weighted mean BII for watershed regions at different HUC levels. Lake
watersheds are removed prior to calculation of the weighted averages. For more
information on the BII itself, see the STAC Collection spatiafi-biodiversity-intactness-index-v1.0.
This dataset contains the following fields:
- weighted_average_biointactness: The area-weighted mean BII value for the watershed region at the specified HUC level.