Climate change is one of the main threats for biodiversity. As it affects the ecological and economic system, conservation costs and impacts may change in a heterogeneous manner. This implies that cost-effective conservation sites and measures may no longer be so in the future. We investigate spatial flexibility (to adapt the location of conservation sites) and management flexibility (to adapt the conservation measures on those sites) as novel criteria for analysing the cost-effectiveness of policy instruments to conserve biodiversity under climate change. We develop a generic climate-ecological-economic modelling approach that captures the role of spatial and management flexibility to assess the cost-effectiveness of policy instruments. We apply the modelling approach to the conservation of an indicator species in agricultural grasslands in a case study area in Northern Germany, and compare the cost-effectiveness of the policy instruments of land purchase (low spatial flexibility, high management flexibility) and long-term individual conservation contracts (medium spatial and management flexibility) considering a period from 2020 to 2079. We find that both spatial and management flexibility matter in the case study and discuss their broader relevance for conservation in a changing climate.

中文翻译：

---

气候变化下具有成本效益的生物多样性保护政策工具 – 灵活性的必要性


气候变化是生物多样性面临的主要威胁之一。由于它影响到生态和经济系统，因此保护成本和影响可能会以不同的方式发生变化。这意味着具有成本效益的保护地点和措施在未来可能不再如此。我们研究了空间灵活性（以适应保护区的位置）和管理灵活性（调整这些地点的保护措施）作为分析政策工具在气候变化下保护生物多样性的成本效益的新标准。我们开发了一种通用的气候-生态-经济建模方法，该方法捕捉了空间和管理灵活性的作用，以评估政策工具的成本效益。我们在德国北部的一个案例研究区将建模方法应用于农业草原中指示物种的保护，并比较了考虑 2020 年至 2079 年期间的土地购买政策工具（低空间灵活性、高管理灵活性）和长期个人保护合同（中等空间和管理灵活性）的成本效益。我们发现空间和管理灵活性在案例研究中都很重要，并讨论了它们与不断变化的气候中保护的更广泛相关性。