IPBES core glossary

The places where eroded soils are deposited.

refers to change that goes beyond addressing the symptoms of environmental change or their proximate drivers, such as new technologies, incentive systems or protected areas, to include changes to underlying drivers, including consumption preferences, beliefs, ideologies and social inequalities.

see exploratory scenarios.

Desertification means land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. Desertification does not refer to the natural expansion of existing deserts.

Land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities.

Land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. Desertification does not refer to the natural expansion of existing deserts.

Plausible future options either arising from or forming scenario assessments, often presented as narratives that explore or articulate possibilities for human economic development.

See driver.

Drivers (both natural and anthropogenic) that operate directly on nature (sometimes also called pressures).

Direct drivers are those natural and anthropogenic factors that affect biodiversity directly. Anthropogenic direct drivers can be conceptualized as the set of activities performed by humans that result in biodiversity loss (e.g. land clearance, intensific.

Natural direct drivers are those that are not the result of human activities and are beyond human control (e.g. natural climate and weather patterns, geological events). Anthropogenic direct drivers result from human decisions.

One DALY can be thought of as one lost year of healthy life. The sum of these DALYs across the population, or the burden of disease, can be thought of as a measurement of the gap between current health status and an ideal health situation where the entire population lives to an advanced age, free of disease and disability.

The concept and practice of reducing disaster risks through systematic efforts to analyze and manage the causal factors of disasters, including through reduced exposure to hazards, lessened vulnerability of people and property, wise management of land and the environment, and improved preparedness for adverse events.

Movement of individuals (and in some species, their gametes) that has the potential for moving genes through space.

Allocation of costs, benefits, risks and responsibilities as well as of the products of nature requiring the disaggregation of values to highlight who benefits and who loses, and to demonstrate the consequences for those affected.

Focuses on the allocation among stakeholders of costs and benefits, include intergenerational and intragenerational justice.

Diverse values arise from the different lenses through which people interpret human-nature relationships (i.e. worldviews), and as a result, diverse values have had different meanings across disciplines, knowledge systems, cultures, languages and social-ecological contexts. This assessment focuses on the diverse values of nature which emerge from the different ways in which people perceive nature and build their relations with it.

Any system that uses a mix of crops, trees, livestock and fish to ensure variety of food, fodder and fibre sources and complementary use of natural resources. The diversity of crops and animals helps to achieve stability of production and stability of ecosystem processes.

Emphasizes use of a suite of farming practices that promote agro-biodiversity across scales (from within the farm to the surrounding landscape), leading to the generation and regeneration of key ecosystem services (soil fertility, water use efficiency, pest and disease control, pollination, climate resilience, and others) and reducing the need for off-farm inputs.

The condition of having or comprising differing elements or qualities (peoples, organisms, methodologies, organisations, viewpoints, etc.).

a commonly used molecular method (e.g., for detection of species, revealing species interactions and assessment of diversity of community assemblages) that involves the amplification of a short section of DNA from a specific gene or genes. Recent advances have extended the application of this approach from the identification of individual specimens to identification of multiple specimens within mixed samples through DNA metabarcoding

A specified sphere of activity or knowledge.

Species in which the evolutionary process has been influenced by humans to meet their needs.

Evolutionary process driven by human (whether conscious or unconscious) selection but also involving natural processes applied to wild plants or animals and leading to adaptation to cultivation and consumption or utilization. Domestication can be complete, whereby organisms become entirely dependent on humans for their continued existence or can be partial or incipient, whereby they still reproduce independently of human intervention (Gepts, 2014). In traditional systems, farmer practices still shape the genetic structure of crops and their evolution (Vigouroux et al., 2011).

Refer to measures taken to give global agreement the power and the force of national legal systems and regulations to enable and facilitate their applicability in the national context while ensuring full compliance with international commitments.

Evolutionary process driven by human (whether conscious or unconscious) selection but also involving natural processes applied to wild plants or animals and leading to adaptation to cultivation and consumption or utilization. Domestication can be complete, whereby organisms become entirely dependent on humans for their continued existence or can be partial or incipient, whereby they still reproduce independently of human intervention (Gepts, 2014). In traditional systems, farmer practices still shape the genetic structure of crops and their evolution.

Erroneously including the same ecosystem service more than once in an economic analysis.

The transformation of information from coarser to finer spatial scales through statistical modelling or spatially nested linkage of structural models.

In the context of IPBES, drivers of change are all the factors that, directly or indirectly, cause changes in nature, anthropogenic assets, nature’s contributions to people and a good quality of life. Direct drivers of change can be both natural and anthropogenic. Direct drivers have direct physical (mechanical, chemical, noise, light etc.) and psychological (disturbance etc.) impacts on nature and its functioning, and on people and their interaction. Direct drivers unequivocally influence biodiversity and ecosystem processes. They are also referred to as ‘pressures’. Direct drivers include, inter alia, climate change, pollution, land use change, invasive alien species and zoonoses, including their effects across regions. Indirect drivers are drivers that operate diffusely by altering and influencing direct drivers as well as other indirect drivers (also referred to as ‘underlying causes’). Interactions between indirect and direct drivers create different chains of relationship, attribution, and impacts, which may vary according to type, intensity, duration, and distance. These relationships can also lead to different types of spill-over effects. Global indirect drivers include economic, demographic, governance, technological and cultural ones, among others. Special attention is given, among indirect drivers, to the role of institutions (both formal and informal) and impacts of the patterns of production, supply and consumption on nature, nature’s contributions to people and good quality of life.

Drivers, both non human-induced and anthropogenic, that affect nature directly. Direct anthropogenic drivers are those that flow from human institutions and governance systems and other indirect drivers. They include positive and negative effects, such as habitat conversion, human-caused climate change, or species introductions. Direct non human-induced drivers can directly affect anthropogenic assets and quality of life (e.g. a volcanic eruption can destroy roads and cause human deaths), but these impacts are not the main focus of IPBES. See chapter 1 and chapter 2 (Drivers) for a detailed typology of drivers.

Human actions and decisions that affect nature diffusely by altering and influencing direct drivers as well as other indirect drivers. They do not physically impact nature or its contributions to people. Indirect drivers include economic, demographic, governance, technological and cultural ones, among others. See chapter 1 and chapter 2 (Drivers) for a detailed typology of drivers.

All the external factors that cause change in nature, anthropogenic assets, nature's benefits to people and a good quality of life. They include institutions and governance systems and other indirect drivers, and direct drivers (both natural and anthropogenic).

All those external factors (i.e. generated outside the conceptual framework element in question) that affect nature, anthropogenic assets, nature's benefits to people and quality of life. Drivers of change include institutions and governance systems and other indirect drivers, and direct drivers - both natural and anthropogenic.direct drivers result from human decisions.

Drivers of change refer to all those external factors that affect nature, and, as a consequence, also affect the supply of nature's contributions to people. The IPBES conceptual framework includes drivers of change as two of its main elements: indirect drivers, which are all anthropogenic, and direct drivers, both natural and anthropogenic. See chapter 1 and chapter 2 (Drivers) for a detailed typology of drivers.

Drivers of change refer to all those external factors that affect nature, and, as a consequence, also affect the supply of Nature's contributions to people. The IPBES conceptual framework includes drivers of change as two of its main elements: indirect drivers, which are all anthropogenic, and direct drivers, both natural and anthropogenic.

Those that are the result of human decisions and actions, namely, of institutions and governance systems and other indirect drivers (e.g. land degradation and restoration, freshwater pollution, ocean acidification, climate change produced by anthropogenic carbon emissions, species introductions). Some of these drivers, such as pollution, can have negative impacts on nature; others, as in the case of habitat restoration, can have positive effects.