The world is changing rapidly; climate change, land use change, pollution and natural resource exploitation are creating a global crisis for biodiversity whose magnitude and dynamics are hard to quantify. Decision makers at all levels need uptodate information from which to evaluate policy options. For this reason rapid, reliable, repeatable monitoring of biodiversity data is needed at all scales from local to global. Only by leveraging large volumes of data, advanced modelling techniques and powerful computing tools can we hope to synthesize these data within timescales that are relevant to policy. Data on biodiversity come from a diverse range of sources, citizen scientists, museums, herbaria and researchers are all major contributors, but increasingly new technologies are being deployed, such as automatic sensors, camera traps, eDNA and satellite tracking. Integrating these data is a major challenge, but is necessary if we are to create dependable information on biodiversity change. In this context, the EU-funded B-CUBED will use the concept of data cubes to simplify and standardize access to biodiversity data using the Essential Biodiversity Variables framework. These cubes will be used, in conjunction with other environmental data and scenarios, as the basis for models and indicators of past, current and future biodiversity. The overarching goal of the project is to provide easy access to tools in a cloud computing environment, in real-time and on-demand, with state of the art prediction models of biodiversity, that will output models and indicators of biodiversity status and change. The project envisages a future where primary biodiversity data are seamlessly integrated into monitoring and forecasting such that policy and management can proactively respond to problems while at the same time reduce the costs of monitoring and management, and the negative impacts of biodiversity change.
