ALARM - Assessing large scale risks for biodiversity with tested methods

Based on a better understanding of terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem functioning ALARM will develop and test methods and protocols for the assessment of large-scale environmental risks in order to minimise negative direct and indirect human impacts.

Implementation

Ecosystem management
Policy reform

Methods

Risk assessment

Topics

Alien invasive species
Biodiversity
Climate change
Land management
Policy

Constraints

Product requirements

Research will focus on assessment and forecast of changes in biodiversity and in structure, function, and dynamics of ecosystems. This relates to ecosystem services and includes the relationship between society, economy and biodiversity. In particular, risks arising from climate change, environmental chemicals, biological invasions and pollinator loss in the context of current and future European land use patterns will be assessed.

Advantages

Risk assessments in ALARM will be hierarchical and examine a range of organisational (genes, species, ecosystems), temporal (seasonal, annual, decadal) and spatial scales (habitat, region, continent) determined by the appropriate resolution of current case studies and databases.
Socio-economics as a cross-cutting theme will contribute to the integration of driver-specific risk assessment tools and methods and will develop instruments to communicate risks to biodiversity to end users, and indicate policy options to mitigate such risks.

Links

http://www.alarmproject.net/alarm/summary.php

Contact details

Dr. Stefan Klotz

Department of Community Ecology UFZ Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig-Halle Theodor-Lieser-Straße 4 06120 Halle/Saale Germany Tel. ++49(0)345-558-5302 Fax ++49(0)345-558-5329

stefan.klotz@ufz.de

ALARM - Assessing large scale risks for biodiversity with tested methods

Associated Oppla members