Assessing Freshwater Biodiversity Risk through Enhancement of Existing Tools

摘要

With growing recognition of the importance of understanding potential impacts of development activities on freshwater biodiversity and ecosystems, approaches for systematically assessing site-level risks at a global level are needed. Chevron and Conservation International (CI) partnered beginning in 2012 to test the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) – with enhancements to functionality – in evaluating site-level freshwater biodiversity risks. The enhanced functionality is a new and innovative way to extract data from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species ? to look systematically at species’ threats at the watershed scale. Outputs from the enhanced functionality were evaluated for general utility as well as applicability as input information for the GEMI Local Water Tool? (LWT). Pilot applications of the enhanced IBAT were conducted at three Chevron locations around the world. The output was applied in the pilots, and refined with each subsequent pilot based on lessons learned. Key findings included: The information derived from the systematic presentation of threat data, in addition to a list of threatened species included in the IUCN Red List, provided important insight on specific watershed-level freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem risks. Supplemental local data and expert opinion is still important in tool application to validate and augment findings regarding potential freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem risks. As a result of this effort, it was concluded that an enhanced IBAT would be useful in identifying specific existing threats to freshwater ecosystems and the information could be used to inform industry decisions. CI and Chevron are currently building enhanced freshwater functionality formally into the tool. Beyond Chevron, the enhanced IBAT will be available to any registered user, including other oil and gas companies, project financiers, and users of the LWT.