MSA Land Use - Animals

Biodiversityv08.00 credits/per_km2

Responsible:Niccolò Calandri

MSA Land Use - Animals (MSA_LU_Animals)

Overview

The MSA Land Use - Animals component (MSA_LU_Animals) quantifies the impact of different land use types on native animal species abundance for each CLC class. It is one of six sub-components of the composite Mean Species Abundance (MSA) indicator.

MSA_LU_Animals is derived from the GLOBIO model (PBL Netherlands) with animal-specific lookup tables from the clc_class_msa table. It estimates how intensive agriculture, urbanisation, deforestation, grazing, and other anthropic land uses reduce the diversity and abundance of native fauna compared to the undisturbed reference ecosystem.

Values range from 0.0 (total animal biodiversity loss — complete habitat conversion) to 1.0 (intact animal ecosystem — original animal community preserved). The separation between flora and fauna highlights that animals respond differently to land use: for example, managed forests may maintain good plant biodiversity but significantly reduce fauna due to disturbance.

Calculation Methodology

CLC Classification — The site's CLC layer is retrieved from the database with class composition and areas in hectares
MSA_LU_Animals Assignment — Each CLC class is assigned an animal-specific MSA_LU value from the clc_class_msa table (taxon = animals), derived from the GLOBIO model
Weighted Average — Overall MSA_LU_Animals = area-weighted average:
- MSA_LU_Animals = Σ (MSA_LU_Animals_class × hectares_class) / Σ total_hectares
Regional Calculation — Computed separately for Context Area (CA) and Region of Interest (ROI)

Range: 0.0 – 1.0 (displayed as percentage: 0 – 100)

Data Sources

Code	Name	Provider	Type	Coverage
`WRD_GLOBX_99`	GLOBIO MSA Model	PBL Netherlands	model	Global
`WRD_CRNLC_99`	Corine Land Cover	Copernicus	map	Europe
`WRD_CLCBB_99`	CLC Backbone	Copernicus	map	Europe

Quality Range and Levels

Indicator	Unit	Range	Inverted
`msa_lu_animals`	index (0–1)	[0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100]	No

Level	MSA_LU_Animals Value (%)	Interpretation
A (Excellent)	80 – 100	Near-intact animal ecosystem — undisturbed habitat
B (Good)	60 – 80	Good faunal diversity — low-impact land use
C (Moderate)	40 – 60	Significant impact — agricultural or mixed areas
D (Poor)	20 – 40	Strong impact — degraded or fragmented habitat
E (Critical)	0 – 20	Near-total loss of native fauna

Technical Notes

MSA_LU_Animals values come from clc_class_msa table (animal-taxon specific)
Undisturbed natural habitats have MSA_LU_Animals near 1.0
Intensive agricultural and urban areas have values near 0.0
Fauna is generally more sensitive to land use than flora
Requires prior computation of the CLC layer (generatable_task id=141)
Values are stored in clc_layer_images with image_type = 'msa_lu_animals'

References

Alkemade, R. et al. (2009). "GLOBIO3: A framework to investigate options for reducing global terrestrial biodiversity loss". Ecosystems, 12, 374-390.
Newbold, T. et al. (2015). "Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity". Nature, 520, 45-50.

Quality Ranges and Levels

msa_lu_animals

Data Sources & References

Sources

WRD_GLOBX_99

Methodology

MSA component for land use impact on animals. The MSA_LU_Animals value for each CLC class is derived from the clc_class_msa table (taxon animals) of the GLOBIO model. The overall value is the area-weighted average. Range: 0.0–1.0. Current version: v0.