An online
repository of maps has been launched to make information on freshwater
biodiversity available on
a common platform for use by scientists, policymakers, conservationists and
NGOs. The Global Freshwater Biodiversity Atlas will help
developing countries identify biodiversity-rich areas for conservation. It was
launched last month (29 January), as part of an EU-funded project called
BioFresh, with the aim of putting together published maps and sharing them
under a creative commons license.
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Experts say it could help developing nations
better manage their biodiversity and meet targets, for example by identifying
the areas where conservation can be most effective.
Vanessa Bremerich, the technical editor of the
atlas who is based at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland
Fisheries, in Germany, says that in contrast to maps published in scientific
papers — which are scattered across different journals and are often hard to
access — the atlas will be an “an open platform that presents all the research
results and data in one place.”
The atlas contains maps on the global distribution
of freshwater-dependent species including amphibians, birds, fish, mammals and
reptiles. Maps predicting the effects of climate change and the introduction of invasive
species on native populations are also present.
“The idea formerly was to have the atlas as a
[printed] book but then we decided that it would make more sense to have it as
an online tool because that would allow us to update and enhance it any time we
come across an interesting map,” says Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber, editor of the
atlas and an ecologist at the University of Natural Resources and Life
Sciences in Vienna, Austria.
Each map in the atlas is accompanied by a short
description and citations to original sources and institutions. The developers
also say they have plans to include older maps, for example from a century or
more ago, so as to compare species diversity over time. Contributions of old
maps are being sought from the scientific community.
“We are working
together with several institutes and partners; one of them is the Global Water
Systems Project and from them we will have maps on groundwater resources,” says Schmidt-Kloiber.
“The focus will be to fill in the gaps and try to
find as many maps as possible,” says David Strayer, researcher at the
Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in the United States.
Read more at
ENN affiliate SciDevNet.
Atlas
image via Shutterstock.