Relationships between human activity and biodiversity in Europe at the national scale: Spatial density of human activity as a core driver of biodiversity erosion

Abstract

Many empirical studies have analyzed the relationship between human activity and the environment. Some of these have focused on the potentially negative impacts of human activity on the environment while others have tried to identify the socio-political variables that could be at play in this relationship. Herein, we used well-adapted statistical methods to study the relationship between human activity and biodiversity in Europe at the country level. We worked with classical biodiversity indicators (two state indicators, two pressure indicators and one response indicator) on the one hand, and socio-economic variables on the other hand. We found strong relationships between economic variables and both pressure indicators (related to soil sealing) and state indicators (related to the proportion of extinct and threatened species). However, there was no relationship between economic variables and the response indicator (related to the proportion of protected area). We did find significant relationships between biodiversity and some sociological variables: in particular, interpersonal trust, which is known to favor economic prosperity, improved biodiversity levels. However, the best models all included economic variables. Our results cast a new light on an old issue: first, they reveal that the spatial density of human activity – either through economic growth or population levels – is a key variable that is positively related to land sealing levels and to both past and current biodiversity erosion; they also show that the impact of the spatial density of human activity on biodiversity state indicators tends to decelerate – but not to decrease – as the spatial density of human activity increases. Our results clearly indicate that the spatial density of human activity should be part of any political analyses related to biodiversity – including systems of biodiversity indicators. Our results also reveal the need for further studies involving these metrics. They also emphasize the tension between policy objectives related to economic growth and biodiversity preservation. Yet, they indicate that increasing social trust, which seems to favor both economic growth and biodiversity levels, might provide a solution.