Introducing Global Biodiversity and Conservation Hexagons

[LisaBerry]

Achieving the conservation targets of 30×30 is an ambitious goal, and one that needs to be guided by data and stakeholder input. The Living Atlas is a great place to start that process with contributions from organizations like the U.N. World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Conservation International, and iNaturalist that can inform biodiversity and conservation planning.

And now that process is a bit easier.

Esri is applying a geographic approach to some key biodiversity and conservation data and information that were contributed to the Living Atlas by the GIS community.  Over 20 of the datasets are now summarized into 55 fields using multiscale, nested H3 hexagons. This StoryMap provides some more detail on them.

H3, developed by Uber, is a standard for mapping information, as it provides consistent and repeatable geographic units at multiple scales. Seven hexagons nest into the next largest level, and Esri processed 4 scale levels of summary information on these geographic units.

The Global Hexagons for Biodiversity and Conservation group layer provides data at levels 2-5, which range from ~87,000 to 250 sq km. What datasets were used for the summaries?

World Database of Protected Areas	SBTN Conservation Hotspots
Ocean Conservation Priorities	Biodiversity Hotspots
Biodiversity Intactness	IUCN Red List
iNaturalist Observations	Esri Sentinel-2 Land Use/Land Cover
World Seafloor Geomorphology	World Terrestrial Ecosystems
Land Cover Vulnerability to Change 2050	Tree Canopy Height
Irrecoverable Carbon	Above and Below Ground Carbon Biomass
Terrain – Elevation, Slope, Roughness	Global Fishing Watch
Global Forest Watch	WorldPop Population

For the full blog by @DanPisut and @KeithVanGraafeiland, visit this link.