Assessing and designing blue-green conservation strategies for the 21st Century in Switzerland

Many conservation sites exist across the intensely used landscape of Switzerland to preserve the biological diversity from national to local levels. Yet, rarely are they designed to preserve the entire biological diversity of both aquatic and terrestrial systems. And likely none was designed to conserve biological diversity under an increasingly rapidly changing environment. Here, we propose to analyze: (i) to what degree existing conservation sites are capable of conserving aquatic and terrestrial biological diversity jointly under current climate and land/water use, (ii) what modifications of the existing conservation network will allow for better conservation of the biological diversity under current, and (iii) under projected future climate and land/water use conditions in Switzerland. Methods will scale and connectivity aspects and results will be published at international levels and communicated and translated to national and regional stakeholders and conservation agencies.

Project details

Collaborators

Florian Altermatt (Eawag), Jakob Brodersen (Eawag), Anita Narwani (Eawag), Blake Matthews (Eawag), Loïc Pellissier (WSL), Catherine Graham (WSL), Rolf Holderegger (WSL), Martin Gossner (WSL), Kurt Bollmann (WSL), Michael Nobis (WSL), Philipp Brun (WSL)

Project duration

2021 - 2025