Context
The KBA Canada Coalition needed spatially consistent measures of ecological integrity to inform the selection of Key Biodiversity Areas in Canada.
Confluvio’s role
Confluvio produced connectivity-based ecological integrity metrics to inform the selection of Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) in Canada, supporting the KBA Canada Coalition. The work was carried out in 2020.
Methods and data
The analysis applied the Connectivity Status Index (Grill et al. 2019), aggregated from river reaches to catchments. The index describes connectivity and human pressures for each river reach before the scores are rolled up to the catchment level. A Python model automated the aggregation across HydroBASINS levels, covering every sub-catchment in Canada at levels 1 to 12, from continental basins to the finest sub-catchment resolution.
Results
The project delivered a set of ecological integrity metrics for every sub-catchment in Canada, allowing freshwater candidate sites to be assessed consistently across the country for Key Biodiversity Areas.