Mapping critical habitat of waterbirds in the Arctic for risk management in respect of IFC PS6

• Main Authors: Hilarides, Lammert, Langendoen, Tom, Flink, Stephan, van Leeuwen, Merijn, Steen, Bart, Kondratyev, Alexander, Kölzsch, Andrea, Aarvak, Tomas, Kruckenberg, Helmut, Vangeluwe, Didier, Todorov, Emil, Harrison, Anne L., Rees, Eileen, Dokter, Adriaan, Nolet, Bart, Mundkur, Taej
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Arctic; Anser erythropus; Branta bernicla; Brent goose; Cygnus columbianus; lesser white-fronted goose
• Online Access: https://pure.knaw.nl/portal/en/publications/d11c46e4-445f-482e-b11b-6ba8b6dc69d4; https://doi.org/10.1101/206763; https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11755/d11c46e4-445f-482e-b11b-6ba8b6dc69d4; https://pure.knaw.nl/ws/files/5854794/6440_Hilarides.pdf; http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/10/20/206763.abstract

Economic development and energy exploration are increasing in the Arctic. Important breeding habitats for many waterbird species, which have previously been relatively undisturbed, are now being subjected to these anthropogenic pressures. The conservation of the habitats and the species they support is a significant challenge for sustainable development. Even if governments and corporates operating in this fragile environment are committed to sustainable development, there is little information available to avoid, mitigate and manage environmental risk and impacts. Taking a risk management perspective, we followed the International Finance Corporations (IFC) Performance Standard 6 (PS6) criteria on Environmental and Social Sustainability and developed an approach to identify "critical habitat", as defined in IFC PS6, for waterbird species breeding in the Arctic. While the range of these waterbirds is roughly known, more accuracy is needed for proper risk assessment. We have therefore gone a step further by modelling suitable habitat within these ranges. Depending on the relevance of the species for IFC PS6 and the level of certainty we separated the classes likely and potential critical habitat. We tested the approach for Russian breeding populations of five Anatidae species (White-fronted Goose Anser albifrons, Lesser White-fronted Goose Anser erythropus, Brent Goose Branta bernicla, Redbreasted Goose Branta ruficollis and Bewick's Swan Cygnus columbianus bewicki). Likely critical habitats were identified through a review of literature and available data for these waterbird species and multi-species congregations. To address the information gap for most of the Russian Arctic a species distribution modelling approach was used. The outputs of this approach were labelled as potential critical habitat, indicating the lower level of certainty than likely critical habitat. Based on existing information the amount of likely critical habitat is estimated to be at least x,xxx,xxx km2. For the five Anatidae species, ...