Bibliometric Review of Biodiversity Offsetting During 1992-2019

Biodiversity offsetting plays a crucial role in managing the impacts of development on natural habitats. Developers, conservation groups, governments and financial institutions have used biodiversity offsetting to design measurable conservation actions to compensate for significant residual adverse biodiversity impacts arising from development. However, the concepts and methodologies of biodiversity offsetting have rarely been systematically reviewed, and best practices are still lacking. This hinders the development and applications of this field, and makes it difficult for new researchers to learn, develop, and apply biodiversity offsetting. This paper aims to review research progress on biodiversity offsetting during the period of 1992 to 2019. We mainly used bibliometric analysis and social network analysis methods to expose the topic diversity, development and promotion of this research field, and assess collaboration among biodiversity offsetting scholars. Our research identified 1190 records, and revealed that the total number of publications increased rapidly since 2002. The most productive journal, country, and author were Biological Conservation, USA, and Dr. Maron M of University of Queensland, respectively. Co-author analysis identified that the 23 authors most relevant to biodiversity offsetting were involved in a collaboration network. And they were mainly from 30 countries in a collaboration network, and the authors from USA, Australia and the United Kingdom have the most cooperation, which mainly driven by policy related to biodiversity offsetting. Our review shows that biodiversity offsetting research is at an early stage of rapid development with topically diverse and collaborative science domains. The majority of studies focus on terrestrial environments, which makes the implementation of aquatic ecosystem is more difficult. Theoretical problems and the implications of research evolution and social network in biodiversity offsetting are discussed, and further development of the theory and methodologies of biodiversity offsetting and management was recommend.

A Critical Analysis of Methodologies Evaluating Biodiversity in Offset Banking

The assessment of ecological impacts represents a key element of biodiversity offsetting success. After briefly introducing the main controversies arisen on biodiversity monetization and defining biodiversity banking schemes, discussions will be focused on evaluation methods mobilized in the context ofbiodiversity offset banking. Although there is currently no fixed framework assessing environment due resolutely to the specific nature of biodiversity, evaluation methods are analyzed through a review of the academic and empirical literature. This step allows to select few methods justifying these choices and presenting their pros and cons by keeping the aim to contribute to the debates. Thus, ecological assessments （service-to-service and resource-to-resource） and economic valuations （value-to-value and value-to-cost） carried out in biodiversity banking schemes will be distinguished. Finally, this paper will emphasize the inherent differences of the two evaluating forms and their specificities on the one hand, and highlight their opportunities and risks from methodological perspective on the other hand.