iDiv Annual Conference 2026

From ecosystem service dependencies to spatial biodiversity impact hotspots in food supply chains

Not scheduled

20m

Talk Transdisciplinarity for biodiversity science and governance

Speaker

Jan Kalusche (German Centre for Integrative Biodaiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig (iDiv), Helmholtz Centre for environmental research (UFZ))

Description

Assessing dependencies on ecosystem services and impacts on biodiversity along food supply chains is difficult because company data on raw materials differ in specificity, traceability, and spatial resolution. This is particularly relevant for globally traded agricultural commodities, for which companies may know quantities and countries of origin, but not exact production locations within countries. In the Business for Biodiversity (B4B) project, we develop a spatially explicit workflow linking ecosystem service dependency assessment with subnational modelling of biodiversity impacts.
Potential ecosystem service dependencies are identified by linking raw materials and value-chain activities to literature-based and ENCORE-informed dependency categories and, where available, refining these assessments with company input. To assess biodiversity impacts, sourcing volumes are allocated from reported countries of origin to subnational administrative units using national production statistics and crop-specific gridded production distributions when exact production locations are unknown. This produces probable sourcing hotspots and estimated land requirements for individual raw materials. The resulting allocations are then linked to spatial biodiversity information at the same scale to estimate biodiversity impact hotspots along the supply chain.
First applications show that inferred impact patterns depend strongly on data traceability and on the production geography of individual commodities. Country-level sourcing data can conceal marked within-country heterogeneity, whereas more specific origin information improves ecological interpretation. The workflow provides a transparent basis for comparing raw materials, identifying priority sourcing regions and value-chain stages, and discussing key assumptions and uncertainties in biodiversity assessments of food supply chains.