Mapping cumulative impacts on biodiversity in Canada and globally

环境压力，如石油和天然气基础设施、农业用地和城市扩张，是人类采取的可能损害自然的行动。这些压力在空间和时间上都在发生变化，对地球的生物多样性产生了深远的影响。例如，环境压力现在无处不在，它们正在促成一个被称为人类世的新时代，同时也是一场全球大规模灭绝危机。通过一个名为“人类足迹”的跨学科项目，我和我的同事提供了关于地球陆地地区八种原位环境压力如何变化的最高分辨率和最完整的视图。这项工作导致了一些重要的发现。例如，人类的足迹在大多数地方都在增加，地球上75%的地方正在承受可测量的环境压力。此外，在生物多样性高度集中的地方，压力一直很大。相反，地球上最后的野生景观主要在高纬度和沙漠地区，以及一些热带森林地区。然而，这种对人类足迹如何变化的更好理解提出了与它回答的问题一样多的问题。这个发现补助金将资助一个学生主导的研究计划，以回答这些问题中最紧迫的一些。具体而言，我们将使用空间分析和统计建模来汇集一系列大型数据集，目的是提高我们对环境压力如何相互作用以推动生物多样性下降的理解，以及在累积压力和生物多样性下降之间是否存在特定的临界点。此外，我的学生和我将开发新的精细地图的累积压力在加拿大全国范围内，因为全球地图似乎并不代表在加拿大的压力，以及这些压力在全球和加拿大的规模未来的预测。结合起来，这个拟议中的研究计划创新在两个主要主题有关的生态人类主导的环境。首先，该项目将为累积压力绘图这一新生领域提供一个全新的扩展，大大提高其将累积环境压力与其对生物多样性的影响联系起来的能力。其次，该项目将开发新的方法来预测未来人类足迹的扩张和荒野地区的收缩。这将为加拿大提供重要信息，加拿大正在进行大规模的石油和天然气开发，北部大部分地区越来越适合人类使用。此外，我们的栖息地干扰地图将为加拿大的保护规划提供关键信息，加拿大有扩大保护区的雄心勃勃的政策，有助于尽量减少未来的生物多样性下降。

Environmental pressures, such as oil and gas infrastructure, agricultural lands and urban sprawl, are the actions taken by humans with the potential to harm nature. These pressures are changing spatially and temporally, with profound implications for the planet's biodiversity. For instance, environmental pressures are now so ubiquitous that they are precipitating a new epoch, dubbed the Anthropocene, and concurrently a global mass extinction crisis. Through an interdisciplinary project termed the human footprint', colleagues and I have provided the highest resolution and most complete view of how eight in-situ environmental pressures are changing across Earth's land areas. This work has led to a number of important discoveries. For instance, the human footprint is increasing in most places, and 75% of the planet is now experiencing measurable environmental pressures. Moreover, pressures are perversely intense in places that house high concentrations of biodiversity. Conversely, Earth's last wild landscapes are primarily in high latitudes and desert regions, as well as some tropical forest areas. However, this improved understanding of how the human footprint is changing has raised as many questions as it has answered. This Discovery Grant will fund a student-led research program to answer some of the most pressing among these questions. Specifically, we will use spatial analyses and statistical modelling to bring together a range of large data sets with the aim of improving our understanding of how environmental pressures interact to drive biodiversity declines, and whether specific tipping points exist between accumulating pressures and biodiversity declines. Moreover, my students and I will develop new refined maps of cumulative pressures at the Canadian national scale, as the global maps appear to poorly represent pressures in Canada, as well as future projections of these pressures at the global and Canadian scale.In combination, this proposed research program innovates across two major themes relating to the ecology of human-dominated environments. First, this project will present an entirely novel extension to the nascent field of cumulative pressure mapping, substantially improving its ability to relate cumulative environmental pressures to their impacts on biodiversity. Second, this project will develop novel methods for projecting future expansion of the human footprint and contraction in wilderness areas. This will provide crucial information for Canada, where large scale oil and gas developments are underway, and much of the north is becoming increasingly suitable for human uses. Moreover, our maps of habitat disturbance will provide key information for conservation planning in Canada, which has ambitious policy to expand protected areas, helping to minimize future biodiversity declines.