Background & project objective
Main goal of the proposed activity is to create an operational «blueprint» approach for quantitatively linking chemical pollution to different levels of damage on biodiversity.
Focus is on developing a conceptual overview of how to link chemical pollution to damage on biodiversity at different levels, including genetic diversity, species diversity, functional diversity and ecosystem services, and how relevant data and models can be integrated. Quantitative links will be created and metrics defined to translate ecotoxicity effects into biodiversity damage. An illustrative case study will be developed with an operational workflow defined to quantify biodiversity damage, with recommendations how to apply this workflow more broadly.
Project output
Main project output focuses on the three main aspects that are listed in below table.
| Aspect | Output description |
|---|---|
| Impact pathway description | Develop a consistent impact pathway for chemicals and their impact on ecological functions and biodiversity at different levels of damage and clarify how different types of data and modelling steps can be integrated into this impact pathway framework. |
| Biodiversity damage metrics | Define a set of quantitative, complementary biodiversity damage metrics that are suitable for possible implementation in policy frameworks and discuss approaches to translate ecotoxicity impacts to different biodiversity damage levels, building on existing studies and data for species richness, genetic diversity, functional diversity and damage on ecosystem services from public databases. |
| Case study | Execute an illustrative source-to-damage quantification case study, based on good available data , and discuss requirements for expanding to a wide range of chemicals, ecosystems and regions. Initial focus will be on freshwater aquatic biodiversity. |
