The 30x30 Integrated Conservation Priority Assessment Tool was developed to guide the implementation of 30x30 conservation and climate solutions for terrestrial areas. It provides spatially explicit information on areas that (1) have high biodiversity value, (2) have high ecosystem integrity, (3) contain large amounts of carbon in vegetation biomass and soils, and (4) have high potential for facilitating adaptation for nature and people, and thus constitute the highest priorities for conservation action.
The 30x30 Integrated Conservation Priority Assessment Tool allows for interactive visualization of 10 key data layers for all terrestrial land globally. The data layers comprise components of climate stability (which provides climate adaptation benefits), carbon (which provides climate mitigation benefits), biodiversity, and ecosystem integrity (which provides adaptation, mitigation, and biodiversity co-benefits), along with ancillary data on Protected Areas, Other Effective Conservation Measures, and Indigenous lands that provide important context for developing robust spatial plans for 30x30 implementation.
Areas that are projected to experience high rates of climate change are typically more vulnerable because nature and people are adapted to local environmental conditions, including climate. Consequently, areas that have high ‘climate stability’ (i.e., are not projected to experience substantial changes in climate) provide more opportunities for nature and people to persist and adapt in place.
Here, climate stability is defined as areas that are not projected to experience a change in their terrestrial life zone by mid-century across a range of different climate scenarios (Elsen et al. 2021). Terrestrial life zones are distinct biogeographic units like ecosystems that are characterized by different combinations of temperature, precipitation, and aridity. Changes in life zones thus represent large-scale changes in the conditions necessary to support distinct biological communities—life zones that are projected to remain stable should continue to support the biological communities that currently occur there.
Maps of climate stability based on changes in terrestrial life zones are derived from climate projections using an ensemble average of 5 general circulation models (GCMs) and Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 under Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 5 (SSP5-85) for 2041-2070 using downscaled CMIP6 data from CHELSA version 2.1 (Karger et al. 2017).
Ecosystem integrity is typically defined as the ability of an ecological system to support and maintain a community of organisms that has the species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable with those of natural habitats within a region (Parrish et al. 2003). Ecosystem integrity is important for spatial conservation prioritizations because it has been shown to contribute positively to biodiversity, climate mitigation, and both social and ecological adaptation outcomes for a wide range of ecosystems (Elsen et al. 2023).
Cumulative pressure maps that combine remotely sensed data with survey data have been increasingly used to represent ecosystem integrity as a proxy measure and assess the full range of human pressures on land spatially (Watson et al. 2019). Such maps are effective in representing wilderness and high integrity areas (Watson et al. 2018; Allan et al. 2017; Jones et al. 2018), providing reliable measures and estimates of species extinction risk (Di Marco et al. 2018), allowing for broader assessments of human impacts on ecosystems (Beyer et al. 2019) and biodiversity (Jones et al. 2018; Allan et al. 2019; Tucker et al. 2018), and supporting the identification of at-risk protected areas (Jones et al. 2018; Geldmann et al. 2014).
Here, we use the most up-to-date version of the human footprint, a cumulative human pressure map combining eight distinct pressures (built environments, population density, nighttime lights, crop lands, pasture lands, and accessibility via roads, railways, and navigable waterways) circa 2013 (Williams et al. 2013). We followed the precedence of the authors of this dataset to convert the human footprint map into a map of high integrity (represented by pixels with human footprint values < 4) and modified (human footprint values 4) lands. Areas below the threshold are ecosystems that may be subject to some level of human pressure (for example, low-density transitory human populations or pasture lands grazed at a low intensity), but still contain most of their natural habitat and maintain their ecological processes (Jones et al. 2018; Watson et al. 2016). The threshold has been found to be robust from a species conservation perspective because, once surpassed, species extinction risk increases dramatically (Di Marco et al. 2018) and several ecosystem processes are altered (Di Marco 2018; Tucker et al. 2018; Crooks et al. 2017).
Large, high integrity landscapes have been proposed as high priorities for biodiversity conservation because they are more capable of supporting species with large home ranges as well as species that undergo local to longer-distance movements (Potapov et al. 2008; Roberge and Angelstam 2004; Thiollay 1989).
Large High Integrity Stable Areas are defined using the definitions of high integrity (human footprint value < 4) and climate stable (no projected change in life zone) above and that have a minimum contiguous area of 2000 km2, consistent with the threshold used to define Legacy Landscapes under the assumption that this minimum size is necessary to maintain viable ecosystems.
The carbon data in this viewer combine data from estimates of above and belowground biomass and soil carbon densities.
Above and belowground biomass carbon maps were obtained from Spawn et al. (2020). The harmonized biomass carbon maps provide estimates of above and belowground biomass carbon density for 2010 at a spatial resolution of 300 m. The maps integrate remotely sensed above and belowground biomass for a wide range of land cover types using a method that accounts for biomass in woody vegetation, tundra vegetation, grassland, and cropland. Equivalent maps of belowground biomass use the same integration method and vegetation-specific root biomass data derived from allometric relationships. The biomass carbon maps represent a more comprehensive inventory of above and belowground biomass carbon stocks than any previously published map, are temporally consistent, and have been validated at multiple scales.
Soil organic carbon stock estimates were obtained from SoilGrids v2.0 (Poggio et al. 2021). The data from SoilGrids are produced at a 250 m spatial resolution for the globe using a machine learning algorithm trained by relating >250,000 soil profiles and 400 remotely sensed covariate grids. SoilGrids provides accurate depth-specific soil organic carbon estimates. For the purposes of this online data viewer, we used soil organic stock from depths 0-30 cm, the depth at which disturbance effects of typical terrestrial land conversion events are concentrated (Sanderman et al. 2017).
Two data layers are included as important metrics of biodiversity: Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) and Threatened Vertebrate Richness.
KBAs are delineations of some of the most important places in the world for species and their habitats. They fill the urgent need of focusing collective efforts on conserving the places that matter most. The KBA Programme supports the identification, mapping, monitoring and conservation of KBAs to help safeguard the most critical sites for nature on our planet – from rainforests to reefs, mountains to marshes, deserts to grasslands and to the deepest parts of the oceans.
KBAs are home to critical populations of the world’s threatened species. Mapping and protecting KBAs can help ensure the conservation of the largest and most important populations of these species. Identifying KBAs involves taking a global view of species conservation. Many countries identify sites for conservation based on the rarity of species in their own country, even if the species is widespread in other countries. Applying the KBA criteria ensures that the global population of a species is assessed and the most important populations for that species as a whole are identified, including maintaining the genetic variation needed to adapt to a changing planet.
Species at risk include those that are identified as globally threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. These are species with very small, geographically restricted or rapidly declining populations. But the KBA criteria also identify vital sites for species with populations that are confined to small areas or form large aggregations at certain times of the year for breeding, feeding or migrating – since these species are all dependent on the health of a limited number of key habitats.
There are also areas that are hotspots of life, where gatherings of different species exist, particularly those with small ranges, and the loss of these sites would have a disproportionate impact on multiple species. These special sites have their own KBA criteria so that they can be identified. The KBA criteria also allow proposers to assess the genetic variation within a species, where this is known, to identify sites of critical importance for genetic diversity.
The KBA criteria do not just consider populations of species, but also their habitats or ecosystems. Ecosystems are identified by the unique collections of species they sustain, so their conservation helps to ensure the simultaneous survival of many species.
There is also a KBA criterion for sites that are high integrity in terms of their fauna and flora, where there is globally outstanding ecological integrity. These sites are becoming increasingly rare around the world as human impacts spread, with only about 26% of the world showing low human impact. High integritysites boast largely unmodified collections of plants as well as retaining their characteristic animal species – unlike many areas of formerly high integrity forest that appear healthy but their animal population have been depleted by excessive hunting pressures. These high integrity sites provide disproportionally large climate benefits to people and are the last few areas of true wilderness left on earth.
The KBA delineations were provided by Key Biodiversity Areas / Birdlife International and are available at: https://www.keybiodiversityareas.org/kba-data/request
While KBAs capture a broader definition of important sites for biodiversity, a complementary and commonly used metric concerns identifying places with high numbers of vertebrate species threatened with extinction. These data are represented as threatened vertebrate richness layers that provide estimates of the number of threatened vertebrate species (birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles) per grid cell. The data consider species classified by IUCN as Vulnerable (VU), Endangered (EN), or Critically Endangered (CR).
The richness raster is created from the raw IUCN range maps for amphibians, birds, mammals and, reptiles, intersected with a grid of 865 km2 hexagon cells and clipped to the coastline. The data are available from IUCN at: https://www.iucnredlist.org/resources/other-spatial-downloads#SR_2022
Protected areas (PAs) are intended to facilitate the conservation of regions of important biodiversity and cultural significance. The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is the authoritative dataset containing delineations of all forms of PAs contributed by governments, non-governmental organizations, academia, and industry. It is regularly validated and updated with the UN Environment Program Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The PA delineations shown are the most recent version of the WDPA dataset (UNEP-WCMC and IUCN 2023; available at https://www.protectedplanet.net).
OECMs complement protected areas through sustained, positive conservation outcomes, even though they may be managed primarily for other reasons. The CBD defines OECMs as “a geographically defined area other than a Protected Area, which is governed and managed in ways that achieve positive and sustained long-term outcomes for the in situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services and where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio–economic, and other locally relevant values” (CBD 2018). Because the definition was only recently adopted, most countries have not yet provided data to the World Database on OECMs (WDOECMs). Importantly, this does not mean that no OECMs exist in those countries. OECMs will often be pre-existing measures that have not historically been recognized for their conservation values, ranging from Sacred Natural Sites to some military zones. There is an ongoing challenge for governments and other stakeholders to identify OECMs and support them to maintain their conservation benefits in the long term.
The OECM delineations shown are the most recent version of the WDOECM dataset (UNEP-WCMC and IUCN 2023; available at https://www.protectedplanet.net).
The Indigenous lands dataset (Garnett et al. 2018) was collated from open-access published sources of information pertaining to the International Labour Organization’s definition of Indigenous Peoples (International Labour Organization 1989). The information was gathered from peer-reviewed literature, books by academic publishers, and reputable data providers, such as documented on the LandMark Global Platform of Indigenous and Community Lands (LandMark 2018). The data have been resampled to 1 degree resolution to obscure boundaries.
Layers can be added or removed from the map using the check boxes at the right. The transparency can also be adjusted by hovering over the Layers tab at the top right and adjusting the appropriate slider. The base map can be toggled between Grey (default), Map (Google Maps), and Satellite views.
This project is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
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