Quoted from: https://www.globio.info/what-is-globio

GLOBIO-Aquatic quantifies freshwater biodiversity intactness, expressed by the mean species abundance (MSA) indicator, as a function of various key human pressures on freshwater systems. In addition, the model calculates the occurrence of harmful algal blooms in lakes, as an indicator of water quality. Currently GLOBIO-Aquatic includes the following pressures: land use in the upstream catchment, streamflow alteration (due to dams and climate change), eutrophication from agricultural and urban sources and water temperature (as influenced by climate change). Pressure-impact relationships are quantified based on extensive literature review.

GLOBIO-Aquatic covers different freshwater systems: flowing water (rivers, streams), lakes and wetlands. Losses in MSA are calculated per freshwater system type, using specific pressure-impact relationships and pressure input data retrieved from various sources, including the IMAGE model, the Global Nutrient Model, global hydrological models (PCR-GLOBWB or LPJmL) and datasets on current and planned dams. GLOBIO-Aquatic follows a catchment approach: impacts on a certain water body depend on the land-use and/or the accumulated nutrients aggregated over the upstream part of the corresponding catchment. After calculating the MSA per freshwater type per grid cell, the MSA values can be aggregated across different freshwater types and/or to larger (user-defined) regions. Similar to the GLOBIO model for terrestrial biodiversity intactness, the contribution of each pressure to the MSA loss in a region can also be calculated.

To the GLOBIO-Aquatic paper

To the GLOBIO-Aquatic technical model description