Biodiversity, or renewable natural capital, forms thebasis of social development. The idea that environmental
concerns can be subordinated to economic growth
disregards this fact. The Land Health Index (LHI) is being
developed as a tool to facilitate understanding by every
member of society on the changes in the state ofbiodiversity, and the measures required to ensuresustainability. The LHI will be used to gauge the level ofactions for conservation of biodiversity and ecosystemservices from the perspective of sustainable use. Our
approach follows that of the Ocean Health Index (Halpern
et al., 2012), in which ideal sustainable states for multiple
public goals are defined and models for quantitativeevaluation of their status are provided. The LHI isintendedforsite‐levelapplications

interrestrial

environments, and the unit of analysis in this pilot study
is the Key Biodiversity Area (KBA). KBAs are globally
important sites for the conservation of biodiversity, and

The Land Health Index

in the case of Japan, 18% of the land area can beclassified under this category (Natori et al., 2011). Of theJapanese KBAs, approximately half are found outside ofDeveloping a tool for gauging
positive actions for biodiversity andecosystem services

protected areas, and range from pristine natural
ecosystems to human‐influenced areas with highsocio‐economic value. The pilot study focuses on theseareas to demonstrate the diversity of ecosystem services

Yoji Natori1, Tetsu Hattori2, Sana Okayasu3, Kei Kabaya3,
Motoshi Tomita6, Tsubasa Iwabuchi4, Chiho Kamiyama5,
Masaki Tsuda6
12

they provide beyond their conservation value, so that
their proper management can be prioritised in planningand decision making processes.

3

Conservation International Japan, CEPA Japan, Institute for Global
4

Environmental Strategies, Faculty of Life Sciences, Toyo University,
5

6

United Nations University ‐ Institute for Sustainability and Peace, PEM

Network

1

Methodology
This study aims to build on the approach of the Ocean
Health Index 1 (OHI) and to apply it to terrestrial
ecosystems in order to highlight the roles of ecosystemservices as well as the sustainability of their use. The pilot
study attempts to apply this framework to the Key
Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) of Japan2.
The approach thus incorporated into the Land HealthIndex (LHI) consists in: (1) Identifying the diverse benefits
people obtain from the ecosystems, (2) Setting the “ideal”
state of sustainable use, or the reference, at a score of 100
and the complete collapse of the ecosystem at a score of 0,and (3) Assessing the current state between 100 and 0.
The sustainable state is not set at pristine conditions, as
the index aims to capture human activities and toencourage actions to make them more sustainable in awide range of settings.
For the evaluation of the LHI, the following nine types of
ecosystem services, or “goals”, have been considered.










The methodologies to assess and to score the current
status of each goal under the LHI are described in thesubsequent sections, followed by the methods to assess
the resilience and pressure factors.
Agriculture
Agriculture is set as one of the goals of the LHI as foodproduction counts among the provisioning services of theecosystem. Modern day agriculture has reached highproduction rates thanks to chemical fertilizers andpesticides, but the excessive input of these substances
cause serious environmental impacts. This goal evaluates
the health of agricultural production based on whether it
is likely to cause excessive soil degradation. The healthy
state would be when high yields are achieved based on
appropriate chemical inputs. Here, assessments focus onrice production, which is a major agricultural product inJapan. The reference point is set at the maximum amountof rice harvest expected from paddies with soil content ofphosphorus pentoxide (P2O5) below the limit of 20
mg/100g dry soil as set by expert consultations on soil
management held in 2008.
The healthof the target area is assessed
differently depending on whether the soil content
of
P2O5 is below or over the reference amountof 20
mg/100g dry soil. When the soil content exceeds thereference:

Agriculture (provisioning service)
Forestry (provisioning service)
Inland fisheries (provisioning service)
Freshwater (provisioning and regulating services)
Soil stabilization (regulating service)
Air quality (regulating service)
Recreation (cultural service for visitors)
Sense of place (cultural service for residents)
Biodiversity (supporting service)

Scores are given to each goal i based on the current
state of use of the target ecosystem service, in comparison
to the “ideal” sustainable state worth a score of 100. The
future projection is also scored based on the past trends,
and existing factors that would either improve(resilience ) or degrade (pressure ) the status. The
average between the current score Χ and the future
projection Χ , constitutes the score of a given goal i. The
final index is obtained by averaging the scores of all goals.
Χ

1

Χ,
2

Χ,

1

0.67

0.33

When the soil content is below the reference:Χ1
represents the rice harvest of the target area (kg/a)
according to government statistics. The reference harvest
represents the average harvest of rice when thepaddies are at the reference soil content
of P2O5, andamounts to 550kg/a.
Forestry
Forest stock is the conventional measure of the health of aforest. For this goal the status of forest resources will bemeasured from the two perspectives of per hectare stock,1

Halpern, B.S. et al., 2012. An index to assess the health and benefits of the
global ocean. Nature, 488(7413), p.615‐620.
2
Natori, Y. et al., 2012. Key Biodiversity Areas identification in Japan Hotspot.
Journal of Threatened Taxa, 4(8), p.2797‐2805.

2

when a target area includes water bodies that were
included in the national fisheries census. Furthermore,
although inland fisheries include rivers, due to the factthat they consist mainly of leisure fishing, and that data
are scarce, this assessment currently only focuses on
fisheries in lakes and ponds. As most inland fisheries
conducted in Japan consist of fish farming in tanks withregulated water flows, the direct impacts on thesurrounding ecosystem is considered minimal. Therefore
the assessment under this goal is limited to fisheries inlakes and ponds located within the target areas (KBAs).
This goal compares the Maximum Sustainable Yield() for each fish species
with the actual catch data.
The
has been estimated with the Fox Model(Sparre and Venema 1998) using the yield and fishingeffort. The assessment is based on the multispecies
maximum sustainable yield (mMSY). The status score ( )of each species is obtained by comparing the(75%of, taking into account the uncertainty of the MSY
estimate), and the actual yield.

and tree diversity. Needle‐leaved species constitute themain forest resources used for construction materials, butthere are other species used for woodchips, pulp,
mushroom beds, firewood, furniture, and handicraft. This
goal assesses forest stock for the three components ofconstruction materials, woodchips, and mushroom
beds/firewood for which statistics are available. For theestimation of forest stock per hectare, data fromgovernment forest surveys have been applied. Forest
surveys have been conducted by the forestry agency tomonitor national forest resources since 2000 and havemeasured trees every 5 years in selected plots. The data
has been used to estimate the average stock per ha foreach land use/land cover (LULC) type.
The score of this goal is based on estimates of per
hectare stock of construction, woodchip, andfirewood/mushroom bed materials available within thetarget area. The timber resources in the target area arecalculated as the average stock per mesh per LULC type.
The stock per hectare for each plot was fit into thefollowing equation.

1is the yield variation over the past four years, andvaries as shown.

Hereis the ID of the mesh, the LULC type, andthe plot, and,represent the IDs of the meshand LULC type of plot k.
,,
represent theparameters and,have been modelled as
random effects. Parameter estimates were obtained using
the MCMC method of Stan 0.9.0, and used to estimate theper hectare stockfor each target area k.
The per hectare stock for each target area is applied to
the following equation to calculate the per hectare stock
U for each type of use.
⋅0|

The final scoreas the mean of .

,

0.25

,

max U

0.25

,

max U

|
|

0.05

for the target area is calculated

For fish species recorded to have been harvested within
the past 20 years, but which are not harvested today, thescore was considered as zero.

⋅The
indicates the type of use (construction materials,
woodchips,, , or firewood/mushroom beds
, ).
The harvest rate is represented as p and the demandrate as p and have been estimated separately.
The scores per target area are calculated by attributing
the reference score (of 1) to the area with the maximum
stock per hectare per type of use out of all KBAs. The
scores thus obtained for each of the three types of use arethen weighted and averaged to calculate the aggregate
score
for this goal. Construction materials areweighted at 0.5, and woodchips and firewood/mushroom
beds at 0.25 each.
max U

if |
if |
if otherwise

∑

∈

0.5

|

FreshwaterThis goal assesses the health of freshwater systems fromthe two perspectives of quantity and quality. Regarding
the assessment of the quantity of water provided, theconventional method would be to compare the amount ofwater supply and demand by watershed. However, thisassessment is limited to the supply due to the fact that thewater cycle is not restricted to the target areas (KBAs). For
the assessment of water quality, although the purely
ecological value of freshwater may not be constrained byits quality, the goal focuses on human use, and thus
applies the water quality standards as a measure of thehealth of the ecosystem service.
The scoreof this goal is the average of thewater quantity score
and the water quality score.

100

Inland fisheriesThis goal assesses the sustainability of inland fisheries.
Due to data limitations, this goal would only be included

2
3

The water quantity scoreis calculated based on theestimate of yearly per unit area water intake(mm). Thenational average water intake
during a set reference
year is given a score of 50, and a linear function is appliedso that when the intake in the target area is above thevalue of average+2(standard deviation) the score becomes
100, and when the intake in the target area is below
average‐2(standard deviation) the score becomes 0.
50
2(USLE) and compares results to the soil loss tolerance
defined by the US Natural Resource Conservation Service(NRCS). The USLE is expressed as follows.
E＝R K LS C P
E is the yearly amount of soil loss (t/ha/year), R is therainfall and runoff factor (tf×m2/ha×h), K is the soil
erodibility factor (h/m2), LS is the slope length‐gradientfactor, C is the crop/vegetation and management factor,
and P is the support practice factor.
To calculate the score of this goal, the following function
is applied to the average soil loss of the target area, so thatwhen there is no loss, the score becomes 100, and when it
is above 22.4, the score approaches 0.

50

is the estimate of the per unit area yearly water
intake (in cm), andandare the national averagewater intake and standard deviation of the reference year.
The yearly water intake in the target area can beobtained by subtracting the yearly evapotranspiration(cm) from the yearly precipitation
(cm).

LHI

.

Air quality
Ecosystems have the ability to absorb pollutants such assulphur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) present in
the atmosphere. This goal considers the air pollutants
sulfur dioxide (SO2), suspended particulate matter (SPM),
nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and photochemical oxidants (Ox),to assess the healthy state based on air quality standards.

is the average precipitation of the grids
corresponding to the target area taken from the GIS data
provided in the National Land Numerical Information
database. The evapotranspiration
is estimated using
the model of Sanford & Selnick (2013) based on datacollected in the US on daily average, maximum andminimum temperatures, yearly precipitation, area of open
surface, area of forest, scrubland, grassland, farmland, andwetland. For climate data the average grid data for thetarget area was used from the National Land Numerical
Information database.
For the water quality score
Water quality scores
governmental
data
Rank
Water quality
measured in public waterscore SQ
sources were used to attributeAA100
the scores. The scores wereA
80
given depending on whichB
60
rank the measurements ofC
40
Biochemical Oxygen DemandD
20(BOD) and Suspended Solids
E0(SS) corresponded to. The
average of these two scores was considered as the water
quality score. When the target area had multiple
measurement points, the average of their scores wereapplied.
Soil stabilization

100e

100

100
0,
,

0
0
∑
4

is the score for pollutant ,the pollutant
concentration,
the weight attributed to each pollutant,andthe air pollution standard. Based on this function,for SO2 the score will become 0 when the concentration isequal to the standard value. For SPM and NO2, the scorewill become 0 when the measured concentration is the
double of the standard value, and for Ox the score will
become 0 when the concentration is four times that of thestandard (score of 75 when equal to the standard). The
score of this goal is obtained by averaging the scores forthe four pollutant types.
Recreation

Soil loss tolerance

Recreational services are considered here as part of thecultural services provided by the ecosystem. The healthy
state is considered as one in which the people living
outside of the target area appreciate its natural assets andare motivated to contribute to its conservation. This isassessed on whether people visit the target area at aconstant rate and recognize the value of its unique natural
assets such as ecosystems or species.

Soil erosion Potential soil loss
class
(t/ha/year)
Very low<6.7
Low
6.7 ‐ 11.2
Moderate
11.2 ‐ 22.4
High
22.4 ‐ 33.6
Severe>33.6
Source: NRCS (1993)

Healthysoil
isindispensable for the
maintenanceofvegetation
andagricultural production.
This goal defines thehealthy state as one inwhich there is no excessive runoff of soils. This goal
assesses soil loss using the Universal Soil Loss Equation

Ρ
Ρ
4

Ν

The score of this goal is estimated from questionnaire
results allowing the identification of the portion Ν ofvisitors for whom natural assets constituted a motive to
visit the target area. To adjust for the scale of humanhabitation within the target area, the number of visitors isdivided by the local population, with Ρ ⁄Ρ
.notexceeding a maximum value of 1. A weighting factor
isapplied depending on the target area.
Tourist numbers are either obtained through official
statistics of municipalities or of local institutions, or
estimated from results of web‐based surveys. For thetarget areas of this pilot study, web‐based surveys wereconducted to identify visitors to specific KBAs as well as
the degree to which they were motivated by natural assets.
The weighting factor
is set at 0.03%, an estimate of the
portion of the local population who directly or indirectly
contribute to the preservation of the local natural assets.

⁄: weighted area of land
:

Ι

area

of

current land use、: area of land use type iin reference year
、 : current area of land

use type i: weight of LULC type i
K: number of LULC types、∙

LULC types and weights
Weight (ForestRice paddy
Farmland
Built land
Other
Inland waters
Barren land
Ocean

)
5
3
2
0
1
4
1
0

assesses the portion of the target area that has aprotected status.
AA

The sense of place is the appreciation of natural assets by
the people residing within or near the target area, and theidentity they attribute to the ecosystems or the species
that are characteristic of the area. It is considered that thehigher the score of this goal, the higher the likelihood of
local inhabitants contributing directly or indirectly to theconservation of the local natural assets.
Ι

weighted∙

LULC type (i)use in reference year

Sense of Place

Ι

、

A

: area of the target area

A : area of the target area that is under protected status

Resilience and Pressure
The LHI, in addition to the assessment of the current state,also takes into account future forecasts based on the pasttrends, the resilience of the target area, and the pressures
it is facing. The Resilience is considered as the social,
institutional, and ecological factors that support theachievement of a healthy state within target areas. The
Pressure is considered as the factors that prevent theachievement of the healthy state through either ecologicalor social influence.
Resilience and pressure factors have been identified in
the following tables, and their level of impact on each of
the goals has been set in relative weights. The weighted
average of the scores for resilience and pressure factors,summed with the past trend, will serve to determine thelikely future status of each goal.
For resilience factors, the existence of nature
restoration plans, environmental regulations, incentive
mechanisms, and climate change adaptation plans havebeen considered in order to account for local efforts toachieve sustainability. Factors such as education, for which
progress is difficult to measure in the short term, have notbeen included.
For pressure factors, the risk of habitat destruction,
disruption by invasive alien species, and loss of traditional
land uses due to rural depopulation have been considered.
Other pressures such as climate change impacts which are
difficult to measure at local scale have been omitted.

ΝΙ is the intensity of the impression people have of thetarget area (rated from 0 to 100), Ι
is the rate ofgood impressions, Ι
the rate of bad impressions, andΝ the portion of responses which are specifically linked to
the natural assets of the area.
The data on people’s impressions are collected though
web‐based questionnaires. When the overall impression
held on the natural assets is negative, the score of the goal
will be 0.
Biodiversity
The biodiversity goal assesses the contribution of thetarget area to the conservation of biodiversity. The
sustainable state is considered as one in which thehabitats within the target area are maintained, thus
contributing not only to endangered species conservation,
but to the conservation of biodiversity in general. The
scoreof this goal is thus obtained as the averageof the changes in habitat extent
and theirconservation status. These are measured from dataon land use and land cover (LULC) of the target areas.
/2
compares the weighted sum of various LULC areas in
the reference year and at the time of assessment. The
reference can be set to that of the LULC of the 1990s.
5

Relative weights of resilience and pressure factors
Resilience
3: strong impact
2: medium impact
1: low impact
Blank: no impact
Agriculture
Inland fisheries
Forestry
Freshwater
Soil stabilization
Air quality
Recreation
Sense of place
Biodiversity

Naturerestoration
plans

Regulations
3
3
2
3
2
3
1

3
1
2
3
2
2
1
3

Pressure

Incentive
mechanisms
3
2
3
3
3

Climate change
adaptation
plans

Habitat
destruction

Alien
speciesRural
depopulation

1

1
3

1
3
1

3

1

1
3
2
3
3

3
3

3

1

3

3

Methods for scoring the resilience and pressure factors

Resilience

FactorScoringNature restoration
plans

Nature restoration plans are adopted and/or nature restoration committees are set up,
ensuring continued efforts for restoration = score 1.0
Nature restoration plans have been adopted = score 0.5
No particular plans or activities = score 0.0

Regulations

Environmental regulations supporting the goals are in place at prefectural level = score 1.0
Environmental guidance or recommendations are published = score 0.5
No particular regulations or guidance = score 0.0

Incentive
mechanisms

Relevant incentives (certification, PES, etc.) are provided = score 1.0
No particular incentive mechanisms = 0.0

Climate change
adaptation plans

Local climate change adaptation plans include measures relevant to the goal = score 1.0
No climate change adaptation plan or no relevant measures = 0.0

Habitat destruction

The portion of designated urbanization areas within the target area

Alien species

Based on the regional distribution of alien species, all regions have been classified into
deciles of alien species richness. Scores from 0.1 to 1.0 have been attributed to eachdecile class. The score of the target area will thus depend on the region in which it issituated.

Rural depopulation

Based on population variation estimates for prefectures across Japan, if the target area islikely to see population increase in the future, the pressure score is 0.0. If the target area
is likely to undergo population decline, the top quartile of the prefectures will score 1.0,
and all others with lower decline rates will score proportionately to the decline rate.

Pressure

Pilot results in Japanese KBAs
Based on the methodologies outlined in this paper, pilot assessments of various KBAs in Japan have been conducted by thestudy group. Five KBAs have been chosen as the first sample, aiming to cover a diverse range of geographical conditions
such as islands, mountains, water bodies, as well as social conditions such as the expected level of public recognition, or
protected status. The scoring of the freshwater goal is in progress, and has therefore not been included in the current
assessment. For many KBAs, inland fisheries were not being conducted and thus have been excluded from the calculationof the index.

6

Scores of LHI trials on KBAs in Japan

66.2

84.4

56.1

38.3

51.2

Discussionsof fishing efforts conventionally uses the number offishermen and the number of days of work as indicators.
However these data were not available for each lake orfish species within the target areas. Therefore this pilot
study uses the only data available, which was that of thenumber of business entities per lake and per fish species,
as a measure of fishing efforts. However, if there is asignificant difference in the number of staff or the numberof fishing days between these business entities, then theaccuracy of the fishing effort estimates would bequestionable.
There is also a need to consider the method of fisheries
being conducted for the scoring of this goal. If fish arebeing raised and then released every year, the relevance ofbasing this assessment on the MSY may be questionable.
In Japan inland fisheries are mostly dominated byaquaculture, but this was not included in the assessmentof the LHI, due to the fact that aquaculture is mostly
conducted in artificial ponds and tanks which have little
direct connection to natural ecosystems. There was also
data shortage on aquaculture production in lakes andponds. On the other hand, aquaculture methods where
juveniles are released into natural water bodies before
being captured again can cause ecosystem disruption, andtherefore require consideration. For species which
undergo this process, cohorts of fry are released on aregular basis regardless of the existing stock or of thecarrying capacity. For these species, it may be possible to

Various challenges have been faced in the development ofdetailed methodologies for the assessment of individual
goals in the current version of the LHI.
Under the goal on Forestry, there is a need for further
consideration on how to include the aspect of sustainable
use within the assessment. The current version only
addresses the stock of forest resources. In Japan, the useof forest resources is very low compared to its stock, andthere is little prospect of degradation due tooverexploitation. Furthermore, although some consider
the low usage of ageing forest plantations as a threat tothe ecosystem health, the probability of immediate
degradation of forest health due to underuse is low.
However, at a smaller scale such as municipalities, theintroduction of new uses such as biomass power
generation could increase the localised pressures on theforest ecosystem. The consideration of both the growthrate and the demand rate of the forest resources may
become essential in the future.
In the current assessment, the forest resources areevaluated based on the stock of resources for various
types of uses, but the data on the actual uses of forest
resources are limited, which means that the measures ofstocks of resources for various use types can only rely on
estimates. Increasing the accuracy of these estimates isalso a challenge.
In assessing the score of inland fisheries, the calculation
7

types within the target area, which in itself constitutes achallenge. The current version of the LHI therefore applies
the latter approach in tracking the changes in LULC.
Another challenge for the scoring of the Biodiversity
goal stems from the fact that KBAs are selected based on
the presence of endangered species. The ideal
composition of LULC types would differ according to thespecies in question, but concrete information on theendangered species presence cannot be disclosed due toconservation interests. Furthermore, as this goal aims to
not only conserve endangered species, but biodiversity ingeneral, a balance needs to be struck in determining the“healthy” distribution of LULC types within the target area.
In terms of accounting for the extent of coverage by
protected areas, the current Biodiversity goal regards all
types of protected areas equally, but their differentiation
through weighting may be effective in reflecting priorities
into the resulting scores.
An issue brought to light during the trial assessment ofpressure and resilience factors was on how to account for
geographical borders, especially when target areas are
straddled across multiple municipalities. Many KBAs arelocated on the border between various administrative
units, and thus when attempting to score the resilience
factors such as environmental regulations, the question
arises on whether it is enough to consider that a certain
level of resilience is ensured as long as one of themunicipalities already has a regulation in place. Although
the current version of the LHI is based on this assumption,
further consideration is required on refining the scoring
system to allow for more scenarios.
Finally, as an overall challenge for the ongoingdevelopment of the LHI, the possible trade‐offs as well as
synergies between the various goals would need to be
discussed in order to achieve a realistic representation of
the sustainability of ecosystem services in target areas.

regard their cultivation as sustainable as long as theoriginal nursery is maintained, and thus using the MSY
may lead to an under estimate of the provisioning servicesof the species. On the other hand the excessive release offry may disrupt the ecosystem and threaten the longer
term survival of the species. Currently these aspects are
not accounted for in the scoring of this goal due to data
limitations, but should be included if appropriate data
were to be found.
With regards to the assessment of scores under theFreshwater goal, the parameters developed based on datacollected in the US have been applied directly to theJapanese case; therefore the accuracy of the estimateswould require further examination. The relationshipbetween climate and evapotranspiration would likely not
differ significantly between the two countries, but thegeneral meteorological patterns may differ and thus
reduce the accuracy of estimates. Regarding theevapotranspiration factors per land use, the differences in
LULC classification between the two countries may entail
discrepancies in estimates, but as evapotranspiration ismostly determined by climate, it is expected that
inaccuracies would not be as significant as with thedifference in climate conditions. In either case, theparameters would require adjustment in the future basedon data collected in Japan.
For the assessment of scores under the Biodiversity goal,
there are two approaches to measuring the changes in
LULC types. By attributing weights to the various kinds ofland use change, these changes could be tracked in a
spatially explicit manner. Otherwise, accounting for the
total area of each LULC type would also allow the trackingof overall LULC changes within the target area. To apply
the former approach, specific weights need to be
attributed to the changes in LULC. However, this would
require a prior setting of the “ideal” proportions of LULC

Next steps

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8