A biodiversity early warning system
... is an integrated, public domain system for evidence-based decisions in real time
about biodiversity and ecosystems.
It draws from diverse, interoperable, sometimes data-rich, sometimes patchy and imperfect datasets from different sources.
These are drawn into the public and policy realms by using clear decision-support tools:
models, trends analyses, risk and uncertainty metrics, top quality graphics, and policy translation.
It's based on a simple, successful, decision-support system we developed in South Africa, fueled by citizen science.
South Africa's system is overviewed here, with links to scientific papers and booklets:
Impact
South Africa's early warning system is robust and impactful, and not yet fully developed. It has been used widely in policy, planning and management by national, provincial and local governments, nonprofit, private and corporate users:
-
the national protected areas expansion strategy
-
red data species account updates
-
municipal, provincial and national strategic land-use planning
-
project-level environmental impact assessments
-
land and marine protected area management
-
climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies
-
184 scientific/semi-popular papers using its bird data alone by 9/2019!
