Vulnerability of coastal species in Svalbard to selected stressors : sustainable Arctic resource management

• Main Authors: Lahr, Joost, Klostermann, Judith, Smidt, Rob
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Wageningen Environmental Research 2019
• Subjects: Life Science; Arctic; Svalbard
• Online Access: https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/vulnerability-of-coastal-species-in-svalbard-to-selected-stressor; https://doi.org/10.18174/497750

The objective of this project was to use the vulnerability mapping method to assess vulnerability of Arctic species to environmental stressors. The coastal environment of Svalbard served as a study case. The method of creating vulnerability maps combined three kinds of information: information on species, on stressors and geographical information. The result is a list of ranks of 22 characteristic Svalbard bird and mammal species with regard to vulnerability to oil pollution. Brünnich’s guillemot was judged as the most vulnerable of the selected species. We created a series of maps of the distribution of species that are vulnerable to oil. Finally, we compared a map of (touristic) boat landing sites to maps showing the distribution of a few species. The sites where most of these species occur are also visited by tourists. The exercises described in this study showed that a species vulnerability analysis for oil pollution and Svalbard marine birds and mammals can be used with the current level of information and that there is sufficient data on the distribution of these species in Svalbard to create species vulnerability maps.