Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: MA Biodiversity

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: MA Biodiversity data set provides data and information on amphibians, disease agents (extent and distribution of infectious and parasitic diseases), drylands (cattle, pasture and shoats), Islands (fishing pressure, sewage pollution index and tourism), loss of natural land cover (biomes and realms), polar population, species distribution models, and terrestrial ecoregions and realms. Biodiversity is defined as the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part of. The original information was received from multiple sources that include the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE) of Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument onboard NASA satellites Terra and Aqua. Through the Convention on Biological Diversity and other international conventions (the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and the Convention on Migratory Species), the data were also designed to meet the needs of other stakeholders, including business, civil society, and native populations.