Description

Ecological Integrity is a holistic measure of ecological value and refers to an ecosystem’s capacity to support and maintain ecological processes and diverse communities of organisms. It is typically quantified in terms of a measure of ‘Intactness (% score or Index).

Ecological integrity is an emerging concept that is in some ways analogous with human health in terms of defining normal boundaries for a ‘healthy’ condition and categorising traits that are ‘desirable’ and ‘sustainable’. However, for the concept of ecological integrity, ‘health’ refers to the complexity of interactions between numerous species, and both living and non-living components of ecosystems, and evaluates them in relation to the state of the ecosystem being considered. This state refers to both the biodiversity value and the ecosystem service provision. As such, this measure brings together several indicators into a single metric in relation to ecosystem ‘health’.

Scale as linked to D2.2 framework

Delete as appropriate:

• National
• City
• Neighborhood 
• Street
• Household
• Object

Data source [ link to data framework]

• Satellite

Data needs

• remotely sensed landscape characteristics such as patch size and surrounding land use
• some abiotic factors such as hydrology, and some attributes of vegetation structure and composition.
• Multiple remote sensed datasets are combined to create an index of ecological integrity. Data sources depend upon methodology. See Faber-Langendoen et al. (2012a; 2012b) for a standard methodology

Expected Outputs

• % score or Index

Calculation methods

• An ecological integrity assessment is a multi-metric index that assigns ranked ecological scores to a variety of spatial and ecological parameters (Brown and Williams 2016). It assesses ecological integrity using data based on remotely sensed landscape characteristics such as patch size and surrounding land use, some abiotic factors such as hydrology, and some attributes of vegetation structure and composition. The methodology relies almost entirely on proxy variables, such as structure of vegetation or the species richness of vascular plants as a proxy for diversity of a range of taxa (Faber-Langendoen et al. 2012a; 2012b).
• Faber-Langendoen et al. (2012a; 2012b) present a comprehensive methodology for ecological integrity assessment. Beyer et al. (2020) also present a method that uses nine categories of intactness to capture global habitat loss, quality and fragmentation patterns at a 1km x 1km resolution.
• Forestry integrity mapping has also been carried out that could be used as a baseline for future evaluation of large scale nature-based solution change in forestry management https://www.forestintegrity.com/. Details of methods used are presented in the Grantham et al. (2020) publication pre-print

Links and references

• Beyer, HL, Venter, O, Grantham, HS and Watson, JEM (2020) Substantial losses in ecoregion intactness highlight urgency of globally coordinated action. Conservation Letters 13(2), e12692, https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12692.
• Brown, E.D., Williams, B.K. (2016) Ecological integrity assessment as a metric of biodiversity: are we measuring what we say we are?. Biodiversity Conservation 25, 1011–1035.
• Faber-Langendoen D, Hedge C, Kost M, Thomas S, Smart L, Smyth R, Drake J, Menard S (2012a) Assessment of wetland ecosystem condition across landscape regions: a multi-metric approach. Part A. Ecological integrity assessment overview and field study in Michigan and Indiana. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report EPA/600/R-12/021a, Washington, DC.
• Faber-Langendoen D, Rocchio J, Thomas S, Kost M, Hedge C, Nichols B, Walz K, Kittel G, Menard S, Drake J, Muldavin E (2012) Assessment of wetland ecosystem condition across landscape regions: a multi-metric approach. Part B. Ecological integrity assessment protocols for rapid field methods (L2). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report EPA/600/R 12/021b, Washington, DC.
• Grantham, HS, Duncan, A, Evans, TD et al. (2020) Modification of forests by people means only 40% of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity. bioRxiv 2020.03.05.978858; Pre print DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.05.978858