Drivers of change and pressures on aquatic ecosystems

168 Pages·2017·3.47 MB·English

Drivers of change and
pressures on aquatic
ecosystems
Guidance on indicators and methods to assess
drivers and pressures

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under grant agreement No 642317.
Authors
Florian Pletterbauer, Andrea Funk, Thomas Hein (BOKU)

Leonie Robinson, Fiona Culhane (ULIV)
Gonzalo Delacámara (IMDEA) , Carlos M. Gómez (UAH)
D
Helen Klimmek (IUCN)
Helen Klim
Gonzalo
GerJan Piet, Jacqueline Tamis (IMARES)
IMARES
Maja Schlüter, Romina Martin (SRC)

With thanks to:

Daniel Hering (UNIDE; AQUACROSS Science-Policy-Business Think Tank);
Manuel Lago, Katrina Abhold and Lina Roeschel (ECOLOGIC)

Project coordination and editing provided by Ecologic Institute.

Manuscript completed in November, 2016, revised version January, 2017

Document title Guidance on indicators and methods to assess drivers and pressures
Work Package WP 4
Document Type Deliverable
Date 13th January 2017

Acknowledgments & Disclaimer
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and
innovation programme under grant agreement No 642317.
Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is
responsible for the use which might be made of the following information. The views
expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the European Commission.
Reproduction and translation for non-commercial purposes are authorised, provided the
source is acknowledged and the publisher is given prior notice and sent a copy.
Citation: Pletterbauer, F., Funk, A., Hein, A., Robinson, L., Culhane, F., Delacámara,G.,
Gómez, C.M., Klimmek, H., Piet, G., Tamis, J., Schlüter, M., Martin, R., 2016. “Drivers of
change and pressures on aquatic ecosystems: AQUACROSS Deliverable 4.1”, European
Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Grant Agreement
No. 642317.
Table of Contents
About AQUACROSS 2
1 Background and Objectives 3
2 Introduction 5
2.1 Conceptual framework: DPSIR and beyond 6
2.2 Definitions and constraints on the expanded D-P-S part of
AQUACROSS 10
2.3 Summary 13
3 Drivers and Pressures Along the Freshwater-marine Continuum 14
3.1 Drivers and pressures from the policy perspective 14
3.2 The drivers of change in ecosystems 20
3.2.1 Newly emerging drivers 25
3.2.2 Summary 26
3.3 Pressures and the primary activities that introduce them 27
3.3.1 Common typologies of pressures and primary activities 28
3.3.2 Representing and quantifying pressure effects 32
3.3.3 Summary 32
3.4 A framework approach to linking drivers and pressures, ecosystem
states (and services) across aquatic realms 33
3.4.1 Uses of the linkage frameworks developed 34
3.4.2 Potential for extension of the linkage framework developed 36
3.4.3 Summary 36
4 Approaches to Investigate Drivers and Resulting Pressures 38
4.1 Social and economic analysis for the assessment of drivers 39
4.2 Quantitative approaches to assess the links between drivers,
pressures and ecosystem components 40
4.3 Meta-analysis of strategies for quantitative model fitting 47
4.4 Model validation 49
4.5 Comparison of quantitative models 49
4.5.1 Methods 49
4.5.2 Results 51
4.5.3 Discussion 52
4.5.3.1 Quantitative, qualitative or both 53
4.6 Summary 55
5 Pressure-sensitive Indicators 57
5.1 Characteristics of indicators 57
5.1.1 Uncertainty associated with indicators 59
5.2 Identification of currently used and cost-effective indicators 59
5.2.1 Indicators related to biodiversity 60
5.2.2 Indicators related to the Water Framework Directive 62
5.2.3 Indicators related to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive 64
5.2.4 Further examples of indicators in use for the marine environment 67
5.3 Integrative indicators 68
5.3.1 Integrative indicators for primary activities, pressures and ecosystem
components 68
6 Conclusion 82
6.1.1 Guidance to identify drivers of change 82
6.1.2 Guidance to identify pressures 83
6.1.3 Guidance on linkage framework 83
6.1.4 Guidance on modeling approaches 84
6.1.5 Guidance on indicators 85
6.1.6 Final thoughts 86
7 References 87
8 Annexes 110
List of Tables
Table 1: Pressure categories and single pressures listed in the MSFD 17
Table 2: Pressures according to the WFD 19
Table 3: Proposed Aquacross Activity types and (non-exhaustive) examples of more
specific primary activities within those types, that co-produce nature based goods
and services, which can directly cause pressures in the ecosystem. 29
Table 4: Proposed Aquacross Pressures categories relevant to aquatic realms
identified from the alignment of threats and pressures from the HD, MSFD, WFD 31
Table 5: Description of available quantitative methods (alphabetical order) with
references for method details and examples for D-P-S application. 43
Table 6: Correlation analysis between relative performance of nine models 50
Table 8: Overview of the biodiversity-related indicators per sector 60
Table 9: Position in the DSPIR cycle of the 37 EEA core set indicators 61
Table 10: Overview of WFD state indicators 63
Table 11: Percentage of metric types used in freshwater bio-assessment 64
Table 12: Overview of the MSFD descriptors 66
Table 13: Proposed set of integrative indicators describing activities 70
Table 14: Proposed set of integrative indicators describing pressures. 73
Table 15: Proposed set on integrative indicators describing state/ecosystem
components. 80
List of Figures
Figure 1: The AQUACROSS Architecture 4
Figure 2: The DPSIR (Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response) cycle 7
Figure 3: DPSIR adapted to Driver-Pressure-State(change)-Welfare(change)-
Response (DPSWR) 8
Figure 4: A further iteration of DPSIR to DAPSI(W)R(M) 9
Figure 6: Single relational chain from a social process through human activities to
pressures that lead to a change in ecosystem state. 10
Figure 7: The six targets of the Biodiversity Strategy 15
Figure 8 Share of pressure types in freshwater ecosystems based on Stendera et al
(2012); N=353 28
Figure 9 Multiple impact chains 35
Figure 11: Relative performance of ten statistical model types 51
Figure 12: Relative performance of the three model types data-driven, expert-based
and combined. 55
Figure 14: Relative portion of the SEBI 2010 indicators in the DPSIR categories. 62
Figure 15: Comparison of status assessment between WFD and MSFD 65

List of Boxes
Box 1: Definition of Indicators, Index, Metric and Measure in the context of
AQUACROSS 58
List of Annexes
Annex 1: Studies included in the meta-analysis on quantitative and qualitative
model applications 110
Annex 2: List of all biodiversity-related indicators (EEA, 2003b) 112
Annex 3: The Streamlining European Biodiversity Indicators 2010 with focal
areas of the Convention on Biological Diversity plus an assignment of the
position in the DPSIR cycle 144
Annex 4: Marine Strategy Framework Directive indicators (S=state, I=impact,
P=pressure) (EC, 2011b) 146
Annex 5 Integration table, linking state characteristics to pressures through
impacts (EC, 2011b) 150
Annex 6: United Kingdom pressure benchmarks (from Tillin and Tyler-Walters,
2015) 151
Annex 7: Common indicators of OSPAR 154
Annex 8: Additional OSPAR common indicators for Regions 155
Annex 9: Pressure indicators of the MARMONI project (Martin et al. 2014) 156
List of Abbreviations
AF Assessment Framework
AIC Akaike Information Criterion
BBN Bayesion Belief Network
BD Birds Directive
BIC Bayesian Information Criterion
CART Classification and regression tree
CBD Convention on Biological Diversity
CICES Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services
D-P-S Driver-Pressure-State
DPSIR Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response
EBM Ecosystem Based Management
EC European Commission
EEA European Environment Agency
EU European Union
GBM Generalised boosting method
HD Habitats Directive
MARS Multivariate adaptive regression spline model
MSFD Marine Strategy Framework
NACE Statistical classification of economic activities in the European
Community
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
RBMP River Basin Management Plan
RF Random forest
RMSE Root-mean-squared error
SDM Species distribution modeling
SEBI Streamlining European Biodiversity Indicators
SEM Structural equation modeling
SVM Support vector machines
WFD Water Framework Directive
WP Work Package