Biodiversity Recovery and Transformation Impacts for Wetland Biodiversity

Life
Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods for land use take both occupation
and transformation impacts into account. However, for wetlands and
impacts from water consumption, it is so far not possible to account
for transformation impacts. It is our goal to close this research
gap, by determining wetland recovery times and developing characterization
factors for transformation. To do this, we conducted a meta-analysis
of 59 studies analyzing biodiversity recovery in wetlands subject
to passive and active restoration. Generalized linear models were
fitted to the biodiversity data and age, along with other wetland
characteristics (such as elevation, latitude, or climate class), and
were used as predictor variables. The results indicate that elevation,
latitude, type of wetland, and restoration method have the strongest
effect on recovery speed. Recovery times vary from less than one year
to a maximum of 107 years with passive restoration and
105 years with active restoration. Corresponding transformation
characterization factors vary between 10–14 and
10–2 species-eq·year2/m3. Finally, recognizing the relevance of this work to real-world policy
issues beyond LCA, we discuss the implications of our estimated restoration
times on the feasibility of “biodiversity offsetting”.
Offsetting utilizes restoration to replace biodiversity value lost
due to development impacts. Our work can help stakeholders make informed
decisions on whether offsetting represents a legitimate policy option
in a particular context.