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This report provides an overview of the approaches and methods of measuring the impact of human activities on biodiversity. Measuring these impact still has numerous challenges. First, biodiversity is hard to capture with one single indicator, because it has many dimensions. Second, monitoring biodiversity is often expensive and remains a challenge. Third, the causal relationships between human activities and biodiversity are often unknown. Thus, the result of current impact models for biodiversity are based on many assumptions. Fourth, there is no consensus on how biodiversity should be included in the decision-making of companies and nations. There are experiments with biodiversity accounting at company and nation level but the methods need to be developed further. This report concludes with a number of recommendations for future research and policy., Dit rapport geeft een overzicht van de aanpakken en methodes waarmee je de impact van menselijk handelen op de biodiversiteit kunt meten. Daarbij zijn nog veel uitdagingen te overwinnen. Ten eerste is biodiversiteit een begrip dat moeilijk te vangen is in één indicator, omdat het een begrip met meerdere dimensies is. Ten tweede is het monitoren van biodiversiteit vaak kostbaar en een uitdaging. Ten derde zijn de causale relaties tussen menselijk handelen en biodiversiteit ook onbekend. Dat heeft invloed op de resultaten van de impactmodellen voor biodiversiteit. Ten vierde is er geen consensus over hoe (de waarde) van biodiversiteit meegenomen zou moeten worden in de besluitvorming van bedrijven of overheden. Met biodiversiteitsaccounting wordt geëxperimenteerd, maar de methodes moeten nog verder ontwikkeld worden om er een gangbare methode van te maken. Dit rapport besluit met een aantal aanbevelingen voor toekomstig onderzoek en beleid.

Wageningen University & Research (WUR) organises the Mansholt lectures to provide inspiration for European policy makers and other stakeholders. This year, we highlight the importance of the power of imagination and we present an initial hopeful perspective of a climate resilient and nature-based future for Europe in 2120. Continuing from the previous Mansholt lecture in 2022, which discussed the food system’s role as a catalyst for developing nature-positive futures, in this lecture we focuson the potential of nature-based solutions as an essentialpart of a cohesive, collaborative approach towards thedevelopment of a climate resilient and nature-based future for Europe. This approach places climate action and biodiversity at the forefront, interlinking these themes across society as a whole and shifting the paradigm from confronting challenges to accepting opportunities.

The implementation of ecosystem-based fisheries management requires knowledge on the ecological impact of fishing activities on species and their habitats – those both targeted and not targeted by fisheries. To identify whichecological impacts are key and what is known about them, SEAwise consulted stakeholders through European Advisory Councils and conducted a systematic review of the scientific literature to map the available knowledge and evidence. Specific reference was given to the bycatch of Protected, Endangered and Threatened (PET) species, benthic habitats, food webs and biodiversity, and impact from fisheries-related litter and ghost nets. At the stakeholder consultations, sharks and/or elasmobranchs, turtles, species interactions, and seals or marine mammals were identified as top ranked in at least three out of the five regions. Other terms identified by at least two Case Study regions were: seabirds, sensitive species, benthic habitats, litter, PET species, invasive species and species interactions.Relevant data were extracted from 549 retained papers. The majority of studies were conducted in the Mediterranean Sea, whereas only few papers reported on fishing impacts in the Baltic Sea (see figure below). Bony fish (teleosts) and benthos were the most studied ecosystem components in all Case Study regions, whereas marine mammals and cartilaginous fish were often studied in relation to bycatch of PET species. Out of the 549 papers, most of them were related to fishing impacts on food webs and biodiversity and benthic habitats, followed bybycatch of PET species and other fishing impact studies (not related to any task). Fewest studies were related to the impact of fisheries-related litter and ghost nets. Demersal trawls were by far the most studied gear in studies on commercial fishing impacts. For recreational fisheries, hooks and lines, in particular angling, was the most studied fishing activity. Among the items identified by the stakeholders, marine ma

Conflicts of interests between economic and nature conservation stakeholders are increasingly common in coastal seas, inducing a growing need for evidence-based marine spatial planning. This requires accurate, high-resolution habitat maps showing the spatial distribution of benthic assemblages and enabling intersections of habitats and anthropogenic activities. However, such detailed maps are often not available because relevant biological data are scarce or poorly integrated. Instead, physiotope maps, solely based on abiotic variables, are now often used in marine spatial planning. Here, we investigated how pointwise, relatively sparse biological data can be integrated with gridded, high-resolution environmental data into informative habitat maps, using the intensively used southern North Sea as a case-study. We first conducted hierarchical clustering to identify discrete biological assemblages for three faunal groups: demersal fish, epifauna, and endobenthos. Using Random Forest models with high-resolution abiotic predictors, we then interpolated the distribution of these assemblages to high resolution grids. Finally, we quantified different anthropogenic pressures for each habitat. Habitat maps comprised a different number of habitats between faunal groups (6, 13, and 10 for demersal fish, epifauna, and endobenthos respectively) but showed similar spatial patterns for each group. Several of these ‘fauna-inclusive’ habitats resembled physiotopes, but substantial differences were also observed, especially when few (6; demersal fish) or most (13; epifauna) physiotopes were delineated. Demersal fishing and offshore wind farms (OWFs) were clearly associated with specific habitats, resulting in unequal anthropogenic pressure between different habitats. Natura-2000 areas were not specifically associated with demersal fishing, but OWFs were situated mostly inside these protected areas. We thus conclude that habitat maps derived from biological datasets that cover rele, Aircraft Noise and Climate Effects

The impacts of fisheries on ocean resources are no longer considered in isolation but should account for broader ecosystem effects. However, ongoing ecosystem-wide changes added to the inherent dynamics of marine ecosystems, create challenges for fisheries and fisheries management by affecting our ability to ensure future fishing opportunities and sustainable use of the seas. By reviewing a corpus of fisheries science literature, we contribute to informing managers and policymakers with considerations of the various threats to fisheries and the marine ecosystems that support them. We identify and describe 25 ecosystem challenges and 7 prominent families of management options to address them. We capture the challenges acting within three broad categories: (i) fishing impacts on the marine environments and future fishing opportunities, (ii) effects of environmental conditions on fish and fishing opportunities, and (iii) effects of context in terms of socioeconomics, fisheries management, and institutional set-up on fisheries. Our review shows that, while most EU fisheries are facing a similar array of challenges, some of them are specific to regions or individual fisheries. This is reflected in selected regional cases taking different perspectives to exemplify the challenges along with fishery-specific cases. These cases include the dramatic situation of the Baltic Sea cod, facing an array of cumulative pressures, the multiple and moving ecosystem interactions that rely on the North Sea forage fish facing climate change, the interaction of fishing and fish stocks in a fluctuating mixed fishery in the Celtic Sea, the bycatch of marine mammals and seabirds and habitat degradation in the Bay of Biscay, and finally the under capacity and lack of fundamental knowledge on some features of the EU Outermost Regions. In addition to these ecoregion specific findings, we discuss the outcomes of our review across the whole of European waters and we conclude by recognizing that th

This dataset consists of five zipped folders: Final_habitatmaps_physiotopes.zip: This folder contains the raster (tif) files in ETRS89 UTM31 projection of the final habitat and physiotope maps as presented in the paper. Final_accuracy_plots.zip: This folder contains the raster (tif) files in ETRS89 UTM31 projection of the final habitat accuracy maps as presented in the paper. Input_abiotic_factors.zip: All the abiotic factor data used to determine the relevant environmental gradients in the study area are included as raster data (tif) in ETRS89 UTM31 projection (supplementary figures B1-22). Most datasets were obtained elsewhere, but all datasets were processed by Karin van der Reijden in R and ArcGIS to have a similar projection, resolution and extent. In addition, the shapefiles (in ETRS89 UTM31 projection) of offshore wind farms, Natura2000-areas and national waters are included. Data-description: An overview of all folders, and of all files included in the abiotic factors folder. Input_environmental_gradients.zip: This folder contains the raster (tif) files in ETRS89 UTM31 projection of the environmental gradients used in the study as input to the Random Forest models and physiotope-delineation. Each gradient is a PCA-component (1-7) summarizing the abiotic factors. Gradients including (FE) and excluding (NF) demersal fishing intensity as abiotic factor are available. Input_biological_cluster_data.zip: This folder contains datafiles (.Rdata and .CSV files) for the three biological datasets (demersal fish, epifauna, endobenthos), that give locations and corresponding biological cluster, as used in the Random Forest habitat maps. The biological datasets used for the determination of biological clusters are not included in this repository. For demersal fish and endobenthos, these datasets can freely be downloaded at the DATRAS-portal on the ICES website (demersal fish) and the EMODnet Biology portal (endobenthos). Link to demersal fish data: https://datras.ices.dk, This dataset consists of five zipped folders: Final_habitatmaps_physiotopes.zip: This folder contains the raster (tif) files in ETRS89 UTM31 projection of the final habitat and physiotope maps as presented in the paper. Final_accuracy_plots.zip: This folder contains the raster (tif) files in ETRS89 UTM31 projection of the final habitat accuracy maps as presented in the paper. Input_abiotic_factors.zip: All the abiotic factor data used to determine the relevant environmental gradients in the study area are included as raster data (tif) in ETRS89 UTM31 projection (supplementary figures B1-22). Most datasets were obtained elsewhere, but all datasets were processed by Karin van der Reijden in R and ArcGIS to have a similar projection, resolution and extent. In addition, the shapefiles (in ETRS89 UTM31 projection) of offshore wind farms, Natura2000-areas and national waters are included. Data-description: An overview of all folders, and of all files included in the abiotic factors folder. Input_environmental_gradients.zip: This folder contains the raster (tif) files in ETRS89 UTM31 projection of the environmental gradients used in the study as input to the Random Forest models and physiotope-delineation. Each gradient is a PCA-component (1-7) summarizing the abiotic factors. Gradients including (FE) and excluding (NF) demersal fishing intensity as abiotic factor are available. Input_biological_cluster_data.zip: This folder contains datafiles (.Rdata and .CSV files) for the three biological datasets (demersal fish, epifauna, endobenthos), that give locations and corresponding biological cluster, as used in the Random Forest habitat maps. The biological datasets used for the determination of biological clusters are not included in this repository. For demersal fish and endobenthos, these datasets can freely be downloaded at the DATRAS-portal on the ICES website (demersal fish) and the EMODnet Biology portal (endobenthos). Link to demersal fish data: https://datras.ices.dk

Currently most Cumulative Impacts Assessments (CIAs) are risk-based approaches that assess the potential impact of human activities and their pressures on the ecosystem thereby compromising the achievement of policy objectives. While some of these CIAs apply actual data (usually spatial distributions) they often have to rely on categorical scores based on expert judgement if they actually assess impact which is often expressed as a relative measure that is difficult to interpret in absolute terms. Here we present a first step-wise approach to conduct a fully quantitative CIA based on the selection and subsequent application of the best information available. This approach systematically disentangles risk into its exposure and effect components that can be quantified using known ecological information, e.g. spatial distribution of pressures or species, pressure-state relationships and population dynamics models with appropriate parametrisation, resulting in well-defined assessment endpoints that are meaningful and can be easily communicated to the recipients of advice. This approach requires that underlying assumptions and methodological considerations are made explicit and translated into a measure of confidence. This transparency helps to identify the possible data-handling or methodological decisions and shows the resulting improvement through its confidence assessment of the applied information and hence the resulting accuracy of the CIA. To illustrate this approach, we applied it in a North Sea CIA focussing on two sectors, i.e. fisheries and offshore windfarms, and how they impact the ecosystem and its components, i.e. seabirds, seabed habitats and marine mammals through various pressures. The results provide a “proof of concept” for this generic approach as well as rigorous definitions of several of the concepts often used as part of risk-based approaches, e.g. exposure, sensitivity, vulnerability, and how these can be estimated using actual data. As such this

Conflicts of interests between economic and nature conservation stakeholders are increasingly common in coastal seas, inducing a growing need for evidence-based marine spatial planning. This requires accurate, high-resolution habitat maps showing the spatial distribution of benthic assemblages and enabling intersections of habitats and anthropogenic activities. However, such detailed maps are often not available because relevant biological data are scarce or poorly integrated. Instead, physiotope maps, solely based on abiotic variables, are now often used in marine spatial planning. Here, we investigated how pointwise, relatively sparse biological data can be integrated with gridded, high-resolution environmental data into informative habitat maps, using the intensively used southern North Sea as a case-study. We first conducted hierarchical clustering to identify discrete biological assemblages for three faunal groups: demersal fish, epifauna, and endobenthos. Using Random Forest models with high-resolution abiotic predictors, we then interpolated the distribution of these assemblages to high resolution grids. Finally, we quantified different anthropogenic pressures for each habitat. Habitat maps comprised a different number of habitats between faunal groups (6, 13, and 10 for demersal fish, epifauna, and endobenthos respectively) but showed similar spatial patterns for each group. Several of these ‘fauna-inclusive’ habitats resembled physiotopes, but substantial differences were also observed, especially when few (6; demersal fish) or most (13; epifauna) physiotopes were delineated. Demersal fishing and offshore wind farms (OWFs) were clearly associated with specific habitats, resulting in unequal anthropogenic pressure between different habitats. Natura-2000 areas were not specifically associated with demersal fishing, but OWFs were situated mostly inside these protected areas. We thus conclude that habitat maps derived from biological datasets that cover relevan

In the Space@Sea project a conceptual study is performed to develop standardized cost efficient floating modular islands with low environmental impact. As these floating modular islands are introduced for a purpose which is likely to determine the environmental impact, possible applications were considered: living, aquaculture, ports and logistics, and energy hub. The aim of this study is to develop a structured approach for Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) of floating modular islands and their applications as these are considered within the Space@Sea project. To contribute to the efficiency and sustainability of future floating island developments, early awareness of the likely environmental consequences is important and requires a solid knowledge base. To that end we recommend a screening approach to identify the main threats to the marine ecosystem and their potential impacts at the earliest (conceptual) stage of development. For each Space@Sea type of application, this screening approach should identify the main threats through an EIA that links critical pressures with sensitive ecosystem components. While conventional impact assessments only consider negative impacts, we also consider potential environmental benefits of floating islands. This not only to enhance more environmental-friendly designs but also to provide a balanced perspective which considers not only threats but also opportunities in future developments and implementation of floating islands and their applications.

Nederland staat voor grote opgaven: de energietransitie, verduurzaming van de landbouw, herstel van de biodiversiteit, verstedelijking en klimaatadaptatie. Al deze opgaven hebben gevolgen voor de ruimtelijke inrichting van ons land. Het is onvermijdelijk dat Nederland er over honderd jaar anders uit zal zien. Grote veranderingen zijn nodig om opgewassen te zijn tegen een stijgende zeespiegel, perioden van extreem weer, een toenemende vraag naar voedselproductie en een noodzaak om de uitstoot van broeikasgassen terug te dringen.Deze opgaven vragen om een nieuw verhaal voor Nederland. Een verhaal waarin dit dichtbevolkte land zich ontwikkelt tot een gidsland waar natuur, duurzame economie, leefbaarheid en veiligheid voorop staan. Een verhaal gebaseerd op ‘nature based solutions’ waarin opgaven voor klimaat en biodiversiteit hand in hand gaan.Wageningen University & Research heeft dit verhaal geschreven gebaseerd op expertkennis: een toekomstvisie voor Nederland in 2120, waarin natuur en natuurlijke processen een hoofdrol spelen. Een visie die bedoeld is om te inspireren. Het schetst een toekomst waarin economische ontwikkeling en een natuur-inclusieve samenleving hand in hand gaan. De toekomstvisie houdt rekening met de bijzondere kenmerken van verschillende deelgebieden in Nederland. Door middel van kaarten en doorsnedes laten we op hoofdlijnen zien wat er per gebied mogelijk is op het gebied van ruimtelijke inrichting. Dit toekomstbeeld schetst een denkrichting gebaseerd op de uitkomsten van diverse ontwerp- en discussiesessies met onderzoekers. Er is behoefte aan nadere uitwerking en onderbouwing. Samen met stakeholders gaan we deze visie verder ontwikkelen, onderbouwen en vertalen naar handelingsperspectief voor het hier en nu.

Aquatic ecosystems are under severe pressure. Human activities introduce an array of pressures that impact ecosystems and their components. In this study we focus on the aquatic domains of fresh, coastal and marine waters, including rivers, lakes and riparian habitats to transitional, coastal as well as shelf and oceanic habitats. In an environmental risk assessment approach, we identified impact chains that link 45 human activities through 31 pressures to 82 ecosystem components. In this linkage framework >22,000 activity-pressure-ecosystem component interactions were found across seven European case studies. We identified the environmental impact risk posed by each impact chain by first categorically weighting the interactions according to five criteria: spatial extent, dispersal potential, frequency of interaction, persistence of pressure and severity of the interaction, where extent, dispersal, frequency and persistence account for the exposure to risk (spatial and temporal), and the severity accounts for the consequence of the risk. After assigning a numerical score to each risk criterion, we came up with an overall environmental impact risk score for each impact chain. This risk score was analysed in terms of (1) the activities and pressures that introduce the greatest risk to European aquatic domains, and (2) the aquatic ecosystem components and realms that are at greatest risk from human activities. Activities related to energy production were relevant across the aquatic domains. Fishing was highly relevant in marine and environmental engineering in fresh waters. Chemical and physical pressures introduced the greatest risk to the aquatic realms. Ecosystem components that can be seen as ecotones between different ecosystems had high impact risk. We show how this information can be used in informing management on trade-offs in freshwater, coastal and marine resource use and aid decision-making

This study provides an integrated perspective to ecosystem based management (EBM) by considering a diverse array of societal goals, i.e. sustainable food supply, clean energy and a healthy marine ecosystem, and a selection of management measures to achieve them. The primary aim of this exercise is to provide guidance for (more) integrated EBM in the North Sea based on an evaluation of the effectiveness of those management measures in contributing to the conservation of marine biodiversity. A secondary aim is to identify the requirements of the knowledge base to guide such future EBM initiatives.Starting from the societal goals we performed a scoping exercise to identify a “focal social-ecological system” which is a subset of the full social-ecological system but considered adequate to guide EBM towards the achievement of those societal goals. A semi-quantitative risk assessment including all the relevant human activities, their pressures and the impacted ecosystem components was then applied to identify the main threats to the North Sea biodiversity and evaluate the effectiveness of the management measures to mitigate those threats.This exercise revealed the need for such risk-based approaches in providing a more integrated perspective but also the trade-off between being comprehensive but qualitative versus quantitative but limited in terms of the “focal” part of the SES that can be covered. The findings in this paper provide direction to the (further) development of EBM and its knowledge base that should ultimately allow an integrated perspective while maintaining its capacity to deliver the accuracy and detail needed for decision-making.