Method for assessing and certifying the biodiversity benefits of coastal salt marsh restoration projects

Abstract

The application discloses a coastal salt marsh restoration project biodiversity benefit evaluation and label authentication method, and belongs to the technical field of ecological restoration and ecological value evaluation, and the method comprises the following steps: project applicability judgment; obtaining water bird species composition and population quantity monitoring data; screening evaluation species meeting the conditions; respectively determining endangered species indexes and habitat importance indexes of the species; calculating single-species protection importance values and total biodiversity protection importance values of the project; obtaining project biodiversity protection importance value indexes through reference value standardization; completing grading authentication according to the indexes and granting corresponding labels; the application realizes quantitative evaluation, standardized expression and grading authentication of the biodiversity benefits of the coastal salt marsh restoration project, the evaluation results are scientific and internationally comparable, and can be directly applied to blue carbon project biodiversity gain identification and ecological product value realization, thereby providing a technical basis for environmental premium in blue carbon trading.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention belongs to the field of ecological restoration and ecological value assessment technology, specifically involving a method for assessing and labeling the biodiversity benefits of coastal salt marsh restoration projects. Background Technology

[0002] Coastal salt marsh ecosystems possess productivity and carbon sequestration capabilities, playing crucial ecosystem service functions in maintaining biodiversity, regulating climate, purifying water bodies, and fixing and silting up sand. With the advancement of protection and restoration actions such as returning fishponds to wetlands, reclaiming wetlands for restoration, and managing invasive alien species, the number of coastal salt marsh restoration projects continues to grow, making them an important target for blue carbon trading and creating conditions for enhancing ecosystem service functions such as biodiversity.

[0003] Existing blue carbon project assessment systems primarily focus on carbon sink gains, lacking unified, quantitative, and comparable assessment and grading methods for biodiversity benefits. In blue carbon trading scenarios, the biodiversity contributions of projects beyond carbon sink value are difficult to quantify and identify, and cannot be expressed through standardized labels, making it difficult for projects to generate environmental premiums and differentiate themselves. Furthermore, current biodiversity benefit assessments generally suffer from inconsistent assessment objects, incomparable indicators, difficulty in recalculating results, and insufficient integration with project monitoring data. For coastal salt marsh restoration projects, there is a lack of standardized technical methods that focus on indicator groups, consider both species conservation value and habitat importance, and can output label-level certification results. Summary of the Invention

[0004] To address the aforementioned issues, this invention proposes a method for assessing and labeling the biodiversity benefits of coastal salt marsh restoration projects. This method can standardize the project design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation processes, establish a unified indicator system and certification rules, provide biodiversity labeling criteria for blue carbon sink trading projects, and realize the value transformation and market incentives of ecological benefits.

[0005] To achieve the above objectives, the present invention adopts the following technical solution: A methodology for assessing and labeling the biodiversity benefits of coastal salt marsh restoration projects includes the following steps: S1. Make an applicability assessment of the project to be evaluated to determine whether the project meets the applicable conditions. Projects that meet the applicable conditions will proceed to the subsequent evaluation and certification steps. S2. Obtain monitoring data of waterbirds in the project area during the assessment period; S3. Taking coastal salt marsh wetland waterbirds as the assessment object, waterbird species that meet the assessment conditions will be included in the assessment. S4. For each species included in the assessment, an endangered index is determined based on the endangered level on the IUCN Red List. S5. For each species included in the assessment, habitat importance indicators are determined based on the number of individuals in the species population in the project area and its proportion of the global population. S6. Calculate the conservation importance value for each species included in the assessment. The calculation formula is as follows: , in, For the first The conservation importance value of each species included in the assessment; Number the species included in the assessment; For the first Endangeredness indicators for each species included in the assessment; For the first Habitat importance indicators for each species included in the assessment; S7. Calculate the total biodiversity conservation importance value of the project. The calculation formula is as follows: , in, The total biodiversity conservation importance value for the project is represented by ; n represents the total number of species included in the assessment. S8. Standardize the total biodiversity conservation importance value of the project to obtain the biodiversity conservation importance value index of the project; S9. Classify and certify the biodiversity benefits of the project based on the biodiversity conservation importance index and award the corresponding level of biodiversity label.

[0006] Preferably, in step S1, the applicable conditions include: The project aims primarily at the restoration of coastal salt marsh ecosystems, habitat restoration, or enhancement of ecological functions, including vegetation restoration, habitat restoration, restoration of degraded salt marshes, and habitat reconstruction after invasive species control; it does not include projects whose main purpose is simply infrastructure construction, landscape creation, tourism development, or shoreline engineering. The project entity must have legal, clear, and verifiable grounds for implementation in the project area, including land or sea area use rights, management authorization, and written implementation permits; if the project involves nature reserves, community land, or village collective land, corresponding authorization documents are required. The project has clear and verifiable spatial and temporal boundaries. The spatial boundaries are determined by geographic coordinates, inflection point coordinates, or vector boundary maps, while the temporal boundaries are based on the verifiable time point at which the restoration activities are first actually implemented. Project activities must not violate laws and regulations, and must not cause new ecological damage, net loss of important habitats, or damage to protected objects.

[0007] Preferably, in step S2, the monitoring data includes species composition and population size; the assessment period includes one or more complete monitoring years; the complete monitoring year is a monitoring year that covers the main ecological periods of waterbirds using salt marsh habitats and meets the monitoring comparability requirements; the main ecological periods include one or more of the migratory stopover period, wintering period and breeding period.

[0008] Preferably, in step S3, the evaluation condition is any one of the following: The species is listed on the IUCN Red List and is classified as critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, or near endangered. The number of individuals in the species population in the project area accounts for more than 1% of the global population. The population size of the species in the project area has reached 20,000 individuals.

[0009] Preferably, in step S4, the assignment rules for the endangerment index are as follows: critically endangered is assigned a value of 5, endangered is assigned a value of 4, vulnerable is assigned a value of 3, near endangered is assigned a value of 2, and least endangered is assigned a value of 1.

[0010] Preferably, in step S5, the basic assignment rule for the habitat importance index is as follows: ≥75%, =5; 50%≤ <75%, =4; 25%≤ <50%, =3; 1%≤ <25%, =2; <1%, =1; where, For the project area The number of individuals in each species population included in the assessment; The world's number one The number of individuals in each species population included in the assessment. Sourced from the IUCN Red List database; when the project area is... Number of individuals in the species population included in the assessment When the number of animals is ≥20,000, the importance of habitat indicators Add 2 to the base value.

[0011] Preferably, in step S8, the formula for calculating the biodiversity conservation importance index of the project is: , in, The biodiversity conservation importance index for the project; For reference only.

[0012] Preferably, in step S9, the rule for hierarchical authentication is: when When the biodiversity score is ≥75, it is certified as a Category I biodiversity project; when the score is ≤50, it is certified as a Category I biodiversity project. When the biodiversity index is less than 75, it is certified as a Category II biodiversity project; when the index is less than or equal to 25, it is certified as a Category II biodiversity project. When <50, it is certified as a Category III biodiversity project; when If the score is less than 25, it will be certified as a Category IV biodiversity project.

[0013] Preferably, the biodiversity category I projects represent projects that play a decisive role in the protection of global migratory waterbirds and the restoration of key habitats; the biodiversity category II projects represent projects that play a key supporting role in major species or habitats; the biodiversity category III projects represent projects that provide benefits in species protection and habitat restoration; and the biodiversity category IV projects represent projects that maintain regional biodiversity only to a certain extent.

[0014] By adopting the above technical solution, the present invention has the following beneficial effects: 1. This invention adopts the internationally recognized International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List and selects waterbirds with clear ecological indicator roles and mature monitoring technologies as the core assessment objects, so that the assessment results have clear ecological significance and international comparability.

[0015] 2. This invention constructs a complete closed-loop process from project suitability assessment to label certification. Through clear indicator grading rules and mathematical calculation formulas, it achieves accurate quantitative representation of biodiversity benefits, significantly improves the consistency and comparability of assessment results among different projects, and realizes the standardization and quantification of the assessment process.

[0016] 3. The indicator data required by this invention can all be obtained through conventional biodiversity monitoring. The calculation method is clear and intuitive, which lowers the technical threshold and makes it easy for project owners, assessment agencies and regulatory departments to quickly master and implement it. It has high operability and application convenience.

[0017] 4. This invention "productizes" and "values" biodiversity benefits through a graded labeling mechanism, providing a credible technical basis and differentiated competitive tool for blue carbon projects to obtain environmental premiums in the carbon market. It effectively incentivizes project owners to increase comprehensive investment in biodiversity conservation and realizes the transformation of ecological benefits into value. Attached Figure Description

[0018] Figure 1 This is a flowchart of the method of the present invention. Detailed Implementation

[0019] To make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of this invention clearer, the invention will be further described in detail below with reference to embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative and not intended to limit the invention.

[0020] like Figure 1 As shown, the biodiversity benefit assessment and labeling certification method for coastal salt marsh restoration projects includes the following steps: S1. Make an applicability assessment of the project to be evaluated to determine whether the project meets the applicable conditions. Projects that meet the applicable conditions will proceed to the subsequent evaluation and certification steps. In step S1, the applicable conditions include: The project aims primarily at the restoration of coastal salt marsh ecosystems, habitat restoration, or enhancement of ecological functions, including vegetation restoration, habitat restoration, restoration of degraded salt marshes, and habitat reconstruction after invasive species control; it does not include projects whose main purpose is simply infrastructure construction, landscape creation, tourism development, or shoreline engineering. The project entity must have legal, clear, and verifiable grounds for implementation in the project area, including land or sea area use rights, management authorization, and written implementation permits; if the project involves nature reserves, community land, or village collective land, corresponding authorization documents are required. The project has clear and verifiable spatial and temporal boundaries. The spatial boundaries are determined by geographic coordinates, inflection point coordinates, or vector boundary maps, while the temporal boundaries are based on the verifiable time point at which the restoration activities are first actually implemented. Project activities must not violate laws and regulations, and must not cause new ecological damage, net loss of important habitats, or damage to protected objects; S2. Obtain monitoring data of waterbirds in the project area during the assessment period; In step S2, the monitoring data includes species composition and population size; the assessment period includes one or more complete monitoring years; the complete monitoring year is a monitoring year that covers the main ecological periods of waterbirds using salt marsh habitats and meets the monitoring comparability requirements; the main ecological periods include one or more of the migratory stopover period, wintering period, and breeding period; S3. Taking coastal salt marsh wetland waterbirds as the assessment object, waterbird species that meet the assessment conditions will be included in the assessment. In step S3, the evaluation condition is any one of the following: The species is listed on the IUCN Red List and is classified as critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, or near endangered. The number of individuals in the species population in the project area accounts for more than 1% of the global population. The population size of the species in the project area has reached 20,000 individuals; S4. For each species included in the assessment, an endangered index is determined based on the endangered level on the IUCN Red List. In step S4, the assignment rules for the endangered index are as follows: critically endangered is assigned a value of 5, endangered is assigned a value of 4, vulnerable is assigned a value of 3, near endangered is assigned a value of 2, and least endangered is assigned a value of 1. S5. For each species included in the assessment, habitat importance indicators are determined based on the number of individuals in the species population in the project area and its proportion of the global population. In step S5, the basic assignment rule for the habitat importance index is as follows: ≥75%, =5; 50%≤ <75%, =4; 25%≤ <50%, =3; 1%≤ <25%, =2; <1%, =1; where, For the project area The number of individuals in each species population included in the assessment; The world's number one The number of individuals in each species population included in the assessment. Sourced from the IUCN Red List database; when the project area is... Number of individuals in the species population included in the assessment When the number of animals is ≥20,000, the importance of habitat indicators Add 2 to the base value; S6. Calculate the conservation importance value for each species included in the assessment. The calculation formula is as follows: , in, For the first The conservation importance value of each species included in the assessment; Number the species included in the assessment; For the first Endangeredness indicators for each species included in the assessment; For the first Habitat importance indicators for each species included in the assessment; S7. Calculate the total biodiversity conservation importance value of the project. The calculation formula is as follows: , in, The total biodiversity conservation importance value for the project is represented by ; n represents the total number of species included in the assessment. S8. Standardize the total biodiversity conservation importance value of the project to obtain the biodiversity conservation importance value index of the project; In step S8, the formula for calculating the biodiversity conservation importance index of the project is as follows: , in, The biodiversity conservation importance index for the project; For reference only; S9. Classify and certify the biodiversity benefits of the project based on the biodiversity conservation importance index and award the corresponding level of biodiversity label; In step S9, the rule for hierarchical authentication is: when When the biodiversity score is ≥75, it is certified as a Category I biodiversity project; when the score is ≤50, it is certified as a Category I biodiversity project. When the biodiversity index is less than 75, it is certified as a Category II biodiversity project; when the index is less than or equal to 25, it is certified as a Category II biodiversity project. When <50, it is certified as a Category III biodiversity project; when If the score is less than 25, it will be certified as a Category IV biodiversity project; The Biodiversity Category I projects represent projects that play a decisive role in the protection of global migratory waterbirds and the restoration of key habitats; the Biodiversity Category II projects represent projects that play a key supporting role in the protection of major species or habitats; the Biodiversity Category III projects represent projects that provide benefits in species protection and habitat restoration; and the Biodiversity Category IV projects represent projects that maintain regional biodiversity only to a certain extent.

[0021] The above description is merely a preferred embodiment of the present invention, but the scope of protection of the present invention is not limited thereto. Any variations or substitutions that can be easily conceived by those skilled in the art within the technical scope disclosed in the present invention should be included within the scope of protection of the present invention. Therefore, the scope of protection of the present invention should be determined by the scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method for assessing and labeling the biodiversity benefits of coastal salt marsh restoration projects, characterized in that... Includes the following steps: S1. Make an applicability assessment of the project to be evaluated to determine whether the project meets the applicable conditions. Projects that meet the applicable conditions will proceed to the subsequent evaluation and certification steps. S2. Obtain monitoring data of waterbirds in the project area during the assessment period; S3. Taking coastal salt marsh wetland waterbirds as the assessment object, waterbird species that meet the assessment conditions will be included in the assessment. S4. For each species included in the assessment, an endangered index is determined based on the endangered level on the IUCN Red List. S5. For each species included in the assessment, habitat importance indicators are determined based on the number of individuals in the species population in the project area and its proportion of the global population. S6. Calculate the conservation importance value for each species included in the assessment. The calculation formula is as follows: ， in, For the first The conservation importance values ​​of the species included in the assessment; Number the species included in the assessment; For the first Endangeredness indicators for each species included in the assessment; For the first Habitat importance indicators for each species included in the assessment; S7. Calculate the total biodiversity conservation importance value of the project. The calculation formula is as follows: ， in, The total biodiversity conservation importance value for the project is represented by ; n represents the total number of species included in the assessment. S8. Standardize the total biodiversity conservation importance value of the project to obtain the biodiversity conservation importance value index of the project; S9. Classify and certify the biodiversity benefits of the project based on the biodiversity conservation importance index and award the corresponding level of biodiversity label.

2. The method for assessing and labeling the biodiversity benefits of coastal salt marsh restoration projects as described in claim 1, characterized in that, In step S1, the applicable conditions include: The project aims primarily at the restoration of coastal salt marsh ecosystems, habitat restoration, or enhancement of ecological functions, including vegetation restoration, habitat restoration, restoration of degraded salt marshes, and habitat reconstruction after invasive species control; it does not include projects whose main purpose is simply infrastructure construction, landscape creation, tourism development, or shoreline engineering. The project entity must have legal, clear, and verifiable grounds for implementation in the project area, including land or sea area use rights, management authorization, and written implementation permits; if the project involves nature reserves, community land, or village collective land, corresponding authorization documents are required. The project has clear and verifiable spatial and temporal boundaries. The spatial boundaries are determined by geographic coordinates, inflection point coordinates, or vector boundary maps, while the temporal boundaries are based on the verifiable time point at which the restoration activities are first actually implemented. Project activities must not violate laws and regulations, and must not cause new ecological damage, net loss of important habitats, or damage to protected objects.

3. The biodiversity benefit assessment and labeling certification method for coastal salt marsh restoration projects as described in claim 1, characterized in that: In step S2, the monitoring data includes species composition and population size; the assessment period includes one or more complete monitoring years; the complete monitoring year is a monitoring year that covers the main ecological periods of waterbirds using salt marsh habitats and meets the monitoring comparability requirements; the main ecological periods include one or more of the migratory stopover period, wintering period and breeding period.

4. The method for assessing and labeling the biodiversity benefits of coastal salt marsh restoration projects as described in claim 1, characterized in that, In step S3, the evaluation condition is any one of the following: The species is listed on the IUCN Red List and is classified as critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, or near endangered. The number of individuals in the species population in the project area accounts for more than 1% of its global population. The population size of the species in the project area has reached 20,000 individuals.

5. The method for assessing and labeling the biodiversity benefits of coastal salt marsh restoration projects as described in claim 1, characterized in that, In step S4, the assignment rules for the endangerment index are as follows: critically endangered is assigned a value of 5, endangered is assigned a value of 4, vulnerable is assigned a value of 3, near endangered is assigned a value of 2, and least endangered is assigned a value of 1.

6. The method for assessing and labeling the biodiversity benefits of coastal salt marsh restoration projects as described in claim 1, characterized in that, In step S5, the basic assignment rule for the habitat importance index is as follows: ≥75%, =5; 50%≤ <75%, =4; 25%≤ <50%, =3; 1%≤ <25%, =2; <1%, =1; where, For the project area The number of individuals in each species population included in the assessment; The world's number one The number of individuals in each species population included in the assessment. Sourced from the IUCN Red List database; when the project area is... Number of individuals in the species population included in the assessment When the number of animals is ≥20,000, the importance of habitat indicators Add 2 to the base value.

7. The method for assessing and labeling the biodiversity benefits of coastal salt marsh restoration projects as described in claim 1, characterized in that, In step S8, the formula for calculating the biodiversity conservation importance index of the project is as follows: ， in, The biodiversity conservation importance index for the project; For reference only.

8. The method for assessing and labeling the biodiversity benefits of coastal salt marsh restoration projects as described in claim 7, characterized in that, In step S9, the rule for hierarchical authentication is: when When the biodiversity score is ≥75, it is certified as a Category I biodiversity project; when the score is ≤50, it is certified as a Category I biodiversity project. When the biodiversity index is less than 75, it is certified as a Category II biodiversity project; when the index is less than or equal to 25, it is certified as a Category II biodiversity project. When <50, it is certified as a Category III biodiversity project; when If the score is less than 25, it will be certified as a Category IV biodiversity project.

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