Freshwater biodiversity and poverty in eastern Africa
Other maps from this report
Red areas where high percentage of children with stunted growth - used as a proxy for poverty - coincide with a high freshwater biodiversity index - a proxy for biodiversity - likely indicate areas in which poor people have no other choice than to unsustainably extract resources, in turn threatening biodiversity.
The biodiversity proxy is a composite index based on freshwater species data (e.g., molluscs, fish, odonata and crabs) in which averaged normalized freshwater species density grids were used. Biodiversity data were further classified as very high (0.4 - 0.7) and high (0.1 - 0.4) (IUCN Freshwater Biodiversity Assessment Programme, 2004). The poverty proxy calculates very high (50-74%) and high (40-50%) percentage of children with stunted growth.
For references, please see the paper, linked in the sidebar.
