Land Use Intensity-Specific Global Characterization Factors to Assess Product Biodiversity Footprints

The
UNEP-SETAC life cycle initiative recently recommended use of
the countryside species–area relationship (SAR) model to calculate
the characterization factors (CFs; potential species loss per m2) for projecting the biodiversity impact of land use associated
with a products’ life cycle. However, CFs based on this approach
are to date available for only six broad land use types without differentiating
between their management intensities and have large uncertainties
that limit their practical applicability. Here we derive updated CFs
for projecting potential species losses of five taxa resulting from
five broad land use types (managed forests, plantations, pasture,
cropland, urban) under three intensity levels (minimal, light, and
intense use) in each of the 804 terrestrial ecoregions. We utilize
recent global land use intensity maps and International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) habitat classification scheme to parametrize
the SAR model. As a case study, we compare the biodiversity impacts
of 1 m3 of wood produced under four different forest management
regimes in India and demonstrate that the new land use intensity-specific
CFs have smaller uncertainty intervals and are able to discern the
impacts of intensively managed land uses from the low intensity regimes,
which has not been possible through previous CFs.