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Monitoring the stability of mine structures, such as tailing ponds and open-pits, is crucial for ensuring the safety of personnel on-site and for preventing environmental accidents. This must be done, not only during the active operation of a mine, but also during possible reuse phases, and even after closure. Currently, monitoring the structural stability of the mining area relies heavily on manually conducted RTK-GNSS-based measurements of established control points. While this is a precise and relatively simple technique, it does pose a limit to how many control points can feasibly be monitored, as using tens or even hundreds of control points is time-intensive and laborious. Consequently, monitoring larger areas and areas requiring frequent measuring can be challenging. A remote monitoring option would also remove the element of danger that comes from having to reach control points in possibly unstable areas. InSAR appears to be an alternative for measuring terrain displacements in large, mining areas. Some limitations remain, as terrain coverage and weather conditions in northern latitudes can hinder InSAR analysis. The Callio Lab research centre at the Pyhäsalmi mine in Finland has been chosen as a test site for InSAR measurements conducted during the EU H2020-funded GoldenEye project. InSAR is used to measure terrain displacement as a result of geomorphologic changes during the summer and autumn of 2022. Additionally, InSAR analysis will be carried out using a network of corner reflectors during winter 2023. InSAR measurements will be evaluated and compared to drone imagery-based photogrammetric Digital Elevation Models (DEM) and field observations. Supplementary RTK-GNSS measurements are planned to be used to control the stability of selected control points. Results will provide valuable insight about InSAR usability for long-term monitoring in northern latitudes in mine environments, as well as, knowledge related to weather and terrain conditions required for obtaining reliable InSAR. Results will also touch on the main challenges faced when using InSAR in such an environment. This work has been supported by project Earth observation and Earth GNSS data acquisition and processing platform for safe, sustainable and cost-efficient mining operations (Goldeneye) ID: 869398, Horizon 2020.

The genomic landscape of Stone Age Europe was shaped by multiple migratory waves and population replacements, but different regions do not all show the same patterns. To refine our understanding of the population dynamics before and after the dawn of the Neolithic, we generated and analyzed genomic sequence data from human remains of 56 individuals from the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Eneolithic across Central and Eastern Europe. We found that Mesolithic European populations formed a geographically widespread isolation-by-distance zone ranging from Central Europe to Siberia, which was already established 10 000 years ago. We also found contrasting patterns of population continuity during the Neolithic transition: people around the lower Dnipro Valley region, Ukraine, showed continuity over 4 000 years, from the Mesolithic to the end of Neolithic, in contrast to almost all other parts of Europe where population turnover drove this cultural change, including vast areas of Central Europe and around the Danube River.

Our existence on Earth is founded on a vital nature, which supports human physical and mental health. However, nature is often depicted only through biodiversity, whereas geodiversity-the diversity of non-living nature-has so far been neglected. Geodiversity consists of assemblages, structures, and systems of geological, geomorphological, soil, and hydrological components that fundamentally underlie biodiversity. Biodiversity can support overall human health only with the foundation of geodiversity. Landscape characteristics, such as varying topography or bodies of water, promote aesthetic and sensory experiences and are also a product of geodiversity. In this Personal View, we introduce the concept of geodiversity as a driver for planetary health, describe its functions and services, and outline the intricate relationships between geodiversity, biodiversity, and human health. We also propose an agenda for acknowledging the importance of geodiversity in health-related research and decision making. Geodiversity is an emerging topic with untapped potential for ensuring ecosystem functionality and good living conditions for people in a time of changing environments.

Väitöstilaisuuden Lectio Praecursoria Oulun yliopisto 21.8.2020

Mapping of ecosystem services (ESs) provide valuable information on the geographical variation of ESs and their relation to overall diversity. Although the relationship between biodiversity and ESs has been intensively explored, little is known how geodiversity (i.e., variety of geological, geomorphological and soil features) is associated with different ESs. We studied 1) the spatial variation of geodiversity and biodiversity in relation to six ESs (i.e., forest carbon budget, potential supply of groundwater, milk and meat production, crop production, amount of free-time residences and nationally valuable landscapes) using variation partitioning (VP), and 2) the spatial overlap between geodiversity and biodiversity and ESs using generalized additive models (GAM) in 1006 intensively surveyed grid cells of 100 km2 located across Finland. In the VP, biodiversity independently explained more of the variation than geodiversity for majority of the ESs. However, shared explanation ability of biodiversity and geodiversity was considerable for majority of ESs (forest carbon budget: 41.3%, crop production: 15.0%, free-time residences: 15.2% and valuable landscapes: 7.3%), often exceeding that of both independent contributions. GAMs indicated that increase in both biodiversity and geodiversity enhances forest carbon budget (D2 = 66.8% and 12.4%, respectively), potential production of groundwater (8.3% and 0.1%), crop production (35.7% and 8.9%), free-time residences (40.0% and 7.9%) and valuable landscapes (11.6% and 6.9%). However, the positive relationship between diversity and ESs levelled off for many of the ESs. Our findings suggest that geodiversity is an important complementing factor in explaining spatial variation of the ESs in high-latitude regions. We also found dominantly synergic effects between abiotic diversity and ESs. Thus, our study results highlight the need to more deeply incorporate abiotic diversity into ESs research. Environmental conservation and management would benefit from the more comprehensive integration of geodiversity to ESs research along with the changing environmental conditions of future decades.

Context: ‘Conserving Nature’s stage’ has been advanced as an important conservation principle because of known links between biodiversity and abiotic environmental diversity, especially in sensitive high-latitude environments and at the landscape scale. However these links have not been examined across gradients of human impact on the landscape. Objectives: To (1) analyze the relationships between land-use intensity and both landscape-scale biodiversity and geodiversity, and (2) assess the contributions of geodiversity, climate and spatial variables to explaining vascular plant species richness in landscapes of low, moderate and high human impact. Methods: We used generalized additive models (GAMs) to analyze relationships between land-use intensity and both geodiversity (geological, geomorphological and hydrological richness) and plant species richness in 6191 1-km² grid squares across Finland. We used linear regression-based variation partitioning (VP) to assess contributions of climate, geodiversity and spatial variable groups to accounting for spatial variation in species richness. Results: In GAMs, geodiversity correlated negatively, and plant species richness positively, with land-use intensity. Both relationships were non-linear. In VP, geodiversity best accounted for species richness in areas of moderate to high human impact. These overall contributions were mainly due to variation explained jointly with climate, which dominated the models. Independent geodiversity contributions were highest in pristine environments, but low throughout. Conclusions: Human action increases biodiversity but may reduce geodiversity, at landscape scale in high-latitude environments. Better understanding of the connections between biodiversity and abiotic environment along changing land-use gradients is essential in developing sustainable measures to conserve biodiversity under global change.

Ecosystem services are fundamental to the well-being and health of people. Despite the growing awareness of the positive impacts of ecosystem services on human health, researchers have often ignored many ecosystem functions that are disadvantageous to humans. These negative facets of ecosystems are called ecosystem disservices. The central focus of this study was to test the applicability of Geographic Information Systems-based spatial accessibility analysis in mapping the potential risk of ecosystem disservice at a national scale. We used tick exposure as an example of a disservice. Worldwide, ticks (genus Ixodes) are the primary vectors of several dangerous diseases which pose threats to people. As the probability of encountering infectious ticks has increased during the last decades, new spatial information on high-risk tick exposure areas are needed. To evaluate exposure risk, we developed a tick probability map based on tick observations and environmental variables in Finland. First, we analyzed what kind of threat ticks pose to populations in residential areas and around free-time residences. Second, we studied if the movement of people (here school children) in the everyday environment increased tick exposure risk. We calculated the shortest school route for all children by using spatial accessibility analysis. Our results showed that taking the movement of people into consideration through the accessibility analysis, we can get a more realistic picture of tick exposure risk. Further, we gained a better overview of the number of children at higher exposure risk. This kind of information is crucial for pre-assessment and identification of public health strategies for control and minimizing tick-borne diseases. In general, the accessibility approach provided a good overview of areas where the greatest tick exposure was present and produced valuable information to support decision-making. The method enabled new insights into the assessment of exposure to ecosystem disservices.

Human welfare is dependent on the availability of ecosystem services (ESs). There is an urgent need to explore the balance between ES production and consumption areas to ensure the sustainable use of the natural capital. Here, we present a spatial accessibility analysis to explicitly evaluate the balance between ES supply and demand across Europe. We used a central food product (crop) as an example of provisioning ES, where transportation is required to satisfy the demand. Our results show large differences in a country’s ability to produce food in relation to its demand, leading to significant risks of over- and underproduction on a regional scale. An ecosystem’s capacity to provide services exceeded especially in the middle of Europe. The majority of the countries would benefit significantly by balancing the supply and demand at international level, even at close distances. Our results demonstrate how the situation in Europe can change if the international distribution of the food ES is prevented. By using a state-of-the-art accessibility method instead of commonly used overlay analysis, it is possible to identify where to invest in transportation and enhance natural capacity to respond to the possible changes in food production or the growing demand of food energy.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the study of the spatial link between service providing areas (SPA) and service benefiting areas (SBA). Understanding the spatial link between SPAs and SBAs is essential when studying the ecosystem service delivery and the fulfilment of ecosystem service demand. However, far too little attention has been paid to the user movement related ecosystem services and where people should be geographically situated in order to benefit from these services. In the movement related services, benefiting areas are equal to providing areas and the spatial link from residential area to SPA is important. The spatial link is addressed through the concept of accessibility which determines the opportunity to move from the area where beneficiaries are located to areas where ecosystem services are produced. This study presents an accessibility approach to the ecosystem services research. Accessibility analyses offer an opportunity to identify the gap between the ecosystems’ potential to produce services and the actual usage possibilities of such services. We demonstrate the suitability of the method by using outdoor recreation and cultural heritage as examples of cultural ecosystem services that people actively want to reach. Accessibility was calculated using a geographical information system-based least-cost path analysis, which measures travel time by car between residential location and the nearest SPA via road network. The examples highlight that accessibility varies according to the ecosystem service and depends mostly on population distribution and travel possibilities. Our results demonstrate that the density of the analysed ecosystem service opportunities is higher near urban areas than elsewhere. The accessibility of different ecosystem services also depends on how much time people are willing to spend for reaching these services. Our study emphasised that, from a population perspective, accessibility analyses provide a powerful tool for illustrating the utilisation possibilities of spatially distributed ecosystem services. The accessibility approach offers great potential to assess the potential use of SPAs and respond to the need to develop a practical tool for ecosystem service research. It effectively shows, for example, the areas where the risk of overuse of ecosystem services is increased. Knowing about the regional differences in ecosystem service usage also gives background information for the decision-makers for drawing conclusions about how much and where it is sensible to invest in the maintenance of ecosystem services.