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Understanding drivers of change, their impacts on biodiversity and their relationship to decision making constitutes a major challenge for scientists and policy makers. The challenge is not only related to the context of the analysis, i.e. identification and description of all relevant social-economic-cultural and environmental drivers, but it goes further to the choice of the appropriate dimensions and quantifiable organisation of the analysis, in other words "the scale" of the analysis. This is because drivers of change operate at various temporal and spatial scales, which do not always match the scales that are relevant for organisms or ecosystems functions. In addition, the way drivers operate or appear over multiple scales is non-linear. Indeed, as we move across scales, the intensity as well as the spatial distribution of a particular driver may change.

In the following, we provide an overview on

• how to identify direct and indirect drivers of change and their indicators including
  • a visual representation of the scale sensitivity of drivers of change as a series of maps of drivers at multiple administrative levels
  • a quantification of the scale sensitivity of each driver along two axes of analysis and
  • a typology of drivers according to their scale sensitivity
• how different scales of drivers influence fragmentation
• how climate data as drivers can be downscaled to microclimate

Further information on drivers of change can be found in the SCALESBOOK.

Common indirect and direct drivers of biodiversity change

References