Freshwater Biodiversity Observation Network (FWBON)

FW BON Purpose and Proposed Activities for 2017-19 7 June 2017

Freshwater Biodiversity Observation Network (FWBON) Built on existing regional and global networks, Freshwater Biodiversity Observation Network (FWBON) will be an important mechanism to collect, standardize and distill freshwater biological and ecosystem data and information into products that will improve the observation, reporting and protection of freshwater biodiversity. It will enable the global scientific community to describe the relationships between biodiversity, organism abundance, ecosystem structure and function, and ecosystem services. Why is it needed? Increased human water and land use, and anthropogenic climate change are placing unprecedented stresses on freshwater biodiversity globally. An integrated picture of what is happening to freshwater biodiversity (i.e. status and trends) enhances the ability of policymakers and natural resource managers to devise effective strategies to address threats to ecosystems from land and water use changes, pollution, overharvesting, climate change and other stressors. FWBON is being proposed to integrate a set of existing monitoring programs as well as assisting in developing new ones, as a stepping-stone toward globallyintegrated observations and assessments of freshwater biodiversity. FWBON will also contribute to the integration of freshwater biodiversity priorities with those of other biodiversity observation priorities to ensure that conservation and management is crosscutting and landscape scale, and hence effective. A successful FWBON is fundamental to (1) provide current benchmarks of biodiversity status and trends at the local to global scales that are useful to users in science, industry, policy and management, and (2) to improve each country’s capacity to detect, forecast and respond to impacts due to human activities, climate change, invasive species, and other stressors on ecosystem services. What will FWBON do? FW BON will promote the establishment of best practices for global freshwater biodiversity observations by: (1) improving the collection of harmonized data, (2) developing data standards and methodologies for data management and dissemination, (3) facilitating data sharing without compromising national concerns, (4) integrating biodiversity

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FW BON Purpose and Proposed Activities for 2017-19, Draft 15 Dec 2016

information with physical and chemical data, (5) producing products useful for sound management of rivers and their catchments, lakes, wetlands and subterranean aquatic ecosystems, and (6) better integration and harmonization of freshwater science and practice with terrestrial and coastal objectives. FW BON seeks to integrate independent historical and current biological/ecological surveys and databases and fill gaps with new observations that incorporate: new remote sensing methods; novel molecular (eDNA) technologies; traditional biodiversity and environmental research tools; citizen science and community based monitoring activities facilitated by advances in information and communication technologies; coordinated experiments and process studies. It will support modelling efforts aimed at estimating current, as well as future distribution and populations of freshwater biodiversity to support decision making by various stakeholders at various levels. FW BON will also develop the framework for integrating biodiversity with other essential environmental variables (Essential Water Variables) and databases by working with GEO Water, GEO Wetlands, GWOS, and other national and international groups. FWBON will contribute to the development and measurement of Essential Biodiversity Variables in freshwater environments and contribute methods and tools for BON in a Box, and thereby contribute to the further establishment of national FWBON programs.

Main activities of FWBON for 2017-19 1. Operationalise FW BON, ensuring that it quickly delivers outputs that improve the observation, reporting and protection of global freshwater biodiversity. Specifically: 

Activate the group immediately with: 85 founding members; 2-3 Interim Regional Coordinators from each continent; Interim Global Coordinator; and Interim Advisory Board of 5 members. The Interim Coordination Committee will act as the governing body of FW BON and currently has 17 members including 16 Interim Regional Coordinators and the Interim Global Coordinator.

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Liaise with key partner organisations and potential users of freshwater biodiversity information including GEO-Wetlands, GEO Water, GEO Ecosystems, Global Lake Observation Network (GLEON), GBIF, Freshwater Information Platform (FIP), Ramsar, IUCN, CBD, IPBES, Satellite Based

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Wetland Observatory Service (SWOS) and the Sustainable Water Futures Project (SWFP) with two main objectives: 1) to inform them of the formation of FWBON and 2) to explore how we can work together on matters concerning freshwater biodiversity and in particular what steps can be taken to raise the profile of freshwater biodiversity among global communities of experts, practitioners, and policy-makers in both the biodiversity and water and wetland management fields. 

Lodge an application with GEOBON for endorsement as a thematic BON.

2. Compile, integrate and synthesise available information about freshwater biodiversity observations across the globe and communicate this widely in an efficient manner to the scientific community. Specifically: a. Publish a Special Issue of a high-profile journal containing 12 or more papers. This would include 6-8 papers examining freshwater biodiversity monitoring in a major region of the world, evaluating its adequacy to measure progress towards 2020 CBD targets and SDG goals and with explicit linkages to water stress, and resilience in the face of climate change. b. Organise a technical workshop on species distribution models for freshwater species. c. Develop summary materials for lay-people, decision- and policy-makers, based on the results of 1 and 2a and 2b. d. Dissemination of activities at various conferences dealing with freshwater science through participating members, either with posters or talks. Potential target events include: 28th ICCB, July Cartagena, Colombia; INTECOL, Beijing August 2017; ESA Conference, August 2017 Portland, Oregon, USA; World Water Week, Stockholm, Sweden, August 2017; 34th Congress of the International Society of Limnology, Nanjing, China, August 2018; SEFS 2018, Olomouc, Czech Republic, July 2017; Macrolatin@s Conference 2018, Quito, Ecuador, 3. Produce material on freshwater biodiversity for the BON in a Box toolkit, including globally standardised protocols for community composition e.g. fish, mammals, macroinvertebrates, algae, fungi. 4. Develop specific strategies to evaluate status and trends in global freshwater biodiversity in terms of resilience to climate change impacts, as defined by the 3


Hawaii Commitments Statement produced from the IUCN World Conservation Congress in 2016. Hence FW BON can play a role is assisting IUCN meet its goal of supporting freshwater ecosystem health and meeting ‘the major global challenges of species loss, ecosystem decline and climate change with their profound impacts on human life and wellbeing’ https://portals.iucn.org/congress/hawaii-commitments 5. Coordinate the development of species distribution models for freshwater species and their integration into indicators of the species distribution EBV to support the GEOBON Species Distribution EBV Working Group. 6. Incorporate into FW BON the GEO Ecosystems (GI-14) activity to develop methods, data, maps, publications, and web-based apps for a new set of standardized, rigorous, and practical global ecological freshwater units (EFUs) as a synthesis of existing global freshwater ecosystems resources. This effort would represent a collaboration between the U.S. Geological Survey and Esri, advised by an experts steering committee comprised of FW BON members, and would produce open data resources intended to support global freshwater ecosystem distribution, condition, and valuation assessments. The EFUs would be developed in parallel to the development of a set of global ecological coastal units (ECUs), in association with Marine BON (MBON) 7. Plan joint initiatives between Future Earth’s SWFP (Sustainable Water Futures Project) Freshwater Biodiversity Group and the FW BON through Ian Harrison, Simon Linke and Ben Stewart-Koster . 8. Support the Work Plan of the GEOBON Ecosystem Function EBV Working group, including the development of conceptual process models for freshwater ecosystems across world. 9. Continue collaborations with Marine BON (MBON) including joint meetings and engagement with the AquaWatch community of practice. 10. Establish a link to the Freshwater Information Platform as a central hub for compiling and integrating species distribution data, exploring possibilities for exchanging and publishing data from freshwater observatories and monitoring institutes. Specifically: a. Establish best practices for publishing and integrating data and information on freshwater biodiversity (cfr. 2)

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b. Establish a FIP Advisory Board to decide on both scientific and technical direction of the Freshwater Information Platform developments involving representatives of among others GEO BON and GBIF. c. Work out joint dissemination strategies for both reaching the freshwater community and raising the profile of freshwater biodiversity

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Freshwater Biodiversity Observation Network (FW BON) governance Interim co-chairs Eren Turak NSW Office of Environment and Heritage & The Australian Museum, Australia Aaike De Wever Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences Jeanne Nel, Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands &Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University South Africa

Interim Regional Coordinators Europe Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber, Institute of Hydrobiology and Aquatic Ecosystem Management Adrian Strauch, Bonn University Africa Mike Murray-Hudson, University of Botswana, Botswana John Simaika, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa South America Mathias Kuemmerlen, Senckenberg Research Institute, Germany Andrea Encalada, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador North America Erin Hestir, North Carolina State University, USA Alex Bush, University of New Brunswick, Canada Jennifer Lento Canadian Rivers Institute, Canada Asia-Pacific Shin-Ichi Nakano, Kyoto University, Japan Cathy Yule, Monash University Malaysia, Malaysia Lu Cai, Beijing University of Forestry, China Oceania Simon Linke, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia Bindiya Rashni, University Of South Pacific, Fiji

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FW BON Interim Advisory Board Robin Abell, The Nature Conservancy, USA Ian Harrison, Conservation International, USA Carmen Revenga, The Nature Conservancy, USA David Dudgeon, Hong Kong University, China Jorg Freyhof, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology Germany

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