BioScore 2.0, a species-by-species model to assess anthropogenic impacts on terrestrial biodiversity in Europe
The BioScore 2.0 model analyses impacts of human-induced pressures on European terrestrial biodiversity. The model can be used for scenario analysis and the assessment of policy options. This report…
Trends in Global Vegetation Activity and Climatic Drivers Indicate a Decoupled Response to Climate Change
Detailed understanding of a possible decoupling between climatic drivers of plant productivity and the response of ecosystems vegetation is required. We compared trends in six NDVI metrics (1982–2010)…
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats: A SWOT analysis of the ecosystem services framework
The ecosystem services concept is a cornerstone of contemporary sustainability thought. Challenges with this concept and its applications are well documented, but have not been systematically assessed…
Impacts of European livestock production: nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus and greenhouse gas emissions, land-use, water eutrophication and biodiversity
Livestock production systems currently occupy around 28% of the land surface of the European Union (equivalent to 65% of the agricultural land). In conjunction with other human activities, livestock…
Exploring, exploiting and evolving diversity of aquatic ecosystem models: a community perspective
Here, we present a community perspective on how to explore, exploit and evolve the diversity in aquatic ecosystem models. These models play an important role in understanding the functioning of…
GLOBIO-Aquatic, a global model of human impact on the biodiversity of inland aquatic ecosystems
Biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems is undergoing rapid global decline. Major drivers are land use change, eutrophication, hydrological disturbance, climate change, overexploitation and invasive…
Nitrogen pollution costs the European Union between €70 billion and €320 billion per year. This cost is more than double the value that nitrogen fertilizers are estimated to add to European farm…
For the last five years, scientists across Europe have chronicled the little-known nitrogen dilemma and the threats it poses to our environment and health – as well as how we can solve the problem.
The Common Agricultural Policy: Possible contribution towards achieving biodiversity targets for Dutch agricultural areas
In discussions on reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU, currently, the general opinion is that payments (made to farmers) within the framework of the CAP should be better linked to…
Contribution of the CAP to achieving environmental, nature and landscape policy targets
Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy offers options for remunerating farmers for taking measures that benefit agricultural nature, landscape, water quality, adaptation to climate change, and…