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Due Diversity II: Supporting the Convention on Biological Diversity

Due Diversity II: Supporting the Convention on Biological Diversity

Ecosystem functioning is known to be of major importance for the well-being of humans and the conservation of biological diversity is one key element in maintaining ecosystems in good condition and is central to main objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In order to meet the CBD’s objectives the contributing parties have agreed on a Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011 – 2012. The plan is constructed around 20 headline targets, also called the Aichi Biodiversity Targets1.

With the Diversity II Project the European Space Agency (ESA) aims at contributing to the implementation of the Strategic Plan by exploiting currently available Earth Observation (EO) data and by preparing for the use of future satellite’s data for two important ecosystems: Drylands and Inland waters.

The ultimate goal of the Diversity II Project is to support the implementation of the new 2011-2020 biodiversity strategic plan of the Convention of Biological Diversity, and more specifically, to contribute to the assessment and monitoring of the Aichi 2020 Biodiversity Targets of the CBD.

In order to meet this goal, the specific Objectives of the Diversity II Project are to provide for selected key parameters, status maps, associated change maps, status indicators and trend indicators aggregated at different administrative and biome level. These key parameters are:
- For Inland Waters: availability of freshwater; quality of freshwater, reflected in its water constituents such as chlorophyll-a and/ or suspended matter concentration, as well as by its temperature; The products shall be provided on a global scale by producing results for at least 300 large perennial inland waters and covering a time range from 2002 to 2012.
- For Drylands and sub-humid lands, on a global scale: Net Primary Productivity (NPP), and/ or related indices on the vegetative/ biomass productivity; Rain use efficiency and/ or related indices on the land/ vegetation conditions (status and degradation).

The primary data source for the Diversity II Project shall be Earth Observation data from the ESA ENVISAT satellite, specifically from the MERIS, AATSR, RA-2 and ASAR instruments. Among these, the MERIS Full Resolution data will be the most important dataset. However, the project will also pave the way for a future sustainable provision of information using future satellites, such as the Sentinel-3 and Proba-V. The Diversity II Project has therefore two central technical objectives in order to transform MERIS, OLCI and other sensors observation into information required to support the Strategic Plan:
To develop/ refine a suite of algorithms that can be applied to MERIS and later to the Sentinel-3 OLCI satellite sensor, with the goal to efficiently and accurately retrieve water-quality related information, at a moderate resolution, for large perennial inland waters and biodiversity related data over Drylands;
- To define and develop a number of indicators, which can be derived from moderate and coarse spatial resolution EO data, for showing the status and trends of biological diversity in inland waters and in Drylands

Team
Principal Investigator
José Carlos Brito

José Carlos Brito

Position: Principal Researcher
Group:
BIODESERTS
View
State
Concluded
Proponent Institution
CIBIO
Funded by
ESA – European Space Agency
Dates
2012 (Duration: 2 years)
Reference
Due Diversity II
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