Changes in land use and land management are key drivers of biodiversity loss at global, national, and local scales. Conducting biodiversity assessments and documenting biodiversity risks and opportunities at a single location or across a corporate portfolio is complex, but critical for reducing impacts to ecosystems and ensuring sustainable land use, development, and restoration projects.

Closing the data gap

With the Americas Biodiversity Metric 1.0, Ramboll’s experts, with support from NatureServe, have developed a tool for evaluating biodiversity value that can be used to inform and enhance decision-making processes for land use planning, design, development siting, and land management. It can also help organisations, businesses, governments, and other land managers quantify and reduce impacts and deliver on no net loss or net gain in biodiversity targets on their land.

This first release of the metric focuses on habitats in the Northeastern US including New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, with the anticipated release later this year of the remaining US and Canadian habitats, as derived from the International Vegetation Classification (IVC), US National Vegetation Classification (USNVC), and Canadian National Vegetation Classification (CNVC) systems. The metric is underpinned by select Ecological Integrity Assessment (EIA) criteria developed by NatureServe, a leading non-profit organization focused on biodiversity in North America.

Assigning biodiversity value to habitats

The metric is adapted from the UK’s Natural England's Biodiversity Metric 4.0, developed over more than a decade, incorporating extensive research and stakeholder engagement, and which has today become the basis for the UK's mandatory biodiversity net gain requirements.