MSA Land Use - Plants

Biodiversityvv0

Responsible:Niccolò Calandri

MSA Land Use - Plants (MSA_LU_Plants)

Overview

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

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

Values range from 0.0 (total plant biodiversity loss — complete habitat conversion) to 1.0 (intact plant ecosystem — original floristic composition preserved). The separation between flora and fauna highlights differences in ecological response: some land use classes impact plants more (e.g. intensive agriculture) while others affect fauna more.

Calculation Methodology

CLC Classification — The site's CLC layer is retrieved from the database with class composition and areas in hectares
MSA_LU_Plants Assignment — Each CLC class is assigned a plant-specific MSA_LU value from the clc_class_msa table (taxon = plants), derived from the GLOBIO model
Weighted Average — Overall MSA_LU_Plants = area-weighted average:
- MSA_LU_Plants = Σ (MSA_LU_Plants_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_plants`	index (0–1)	[0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100]	No

Level	MSA_LU_Plants Value (%)	Interpretation
A (Excellent)	80 – 100	Near-intact plant ecosystem — low-impact land use
B (Good)	60 – 80	Good floristic diversity — moderate land use
C (Moderate)	40 – 60	Significant impact — agricultural or mixed areas
D (Poor)	20 – 40	Strong impact — intensive agriculture or degraded areas
E (Critical)	0 – 20	Near-total loss of native flora

Technical Notes

MSA_LU_Plants values come from clc_class_msa table (taxon-specific)
Natural forests have MSA_LU_Plants near 1.0; urban areas near 0.0
Forest plantations have intermediate values (biomass present but reduced diversity)
Requires prior computation of the CLC layer (generatable_task id=141)
Values are stored in clc_layer_images with image_type = 'msa_lu_plants'

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_plants

Data Sources & References

Sources

WRD_GLOBX_99

Methodology

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