[Taxacom] Cost of databases

Tue Aug 30 16:02:11 CDT 2016

Hi Donald,
Thanks for the comments. I think you might agree that the opening para in this summary/report (http://www.iucnredlist.org/news/paper-reveals-nature-conservation-knowledge-is-a-bargain) of the published paper quite misleadingly and improperly claims that [quote]A new study released today finds that the knowledge databases which underpin nature conservation and environmental decision-making – such as the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ - cost US$ 6.5 million annually to manage, plus the dedication of thousands of volunteers[unquote]. The paper, as you correctly note, "explicitly gives these cost estimates as those for four databases: IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Protected Planet, and the World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas." Surely these 4 cannot be the totality of knowledge databases which "underpin nature conservation and environmental decision-making"? Far from it, I would have thought! However, I think it is fair enough not to include costs of "the associated work of field research, taxonomy, etc. which underlies the work of the expert groups adding entries to these datasets". The relevant cost is not the cost of knowledge generation, but rather the cost of knowledge aggregation into useful database systems. But even then, the quoted costs must be way to low. Surely "nature conservation and environmental decision-making" should take into account all species and the results of all published taxonomy and other information about all species? Such publications are added to every single day, and no existing database has yet achieved a way of keeping the totality of this evolving knowledge updated. In fact, no existing database yet has a comprehensive checklist of all known species names! The costs associated with that pipe dream must be truly astronomical, don't you think? For example, the journal Zootaxa publishes up to 10 papers 5 days a week. Although they preregister all papers on ZooBank, they do not have the resources to register all the new taxa, let alone other taxonomic changes in those papers. Even just trying to keep up with that would be a herculean task!
Cheers,
Stephen

--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 30/8/16, Donald Hobern <dhobern at gbif.org> wrote:

 Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Cost of databases
 To: "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>, "(Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu)" <Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>, "Mary Barkworth" <Mary.Barkworth at usu.edu>
 Received: Tuesday, 30 August, 2016, 7:58 PM

 The paper explicitly
 gives these cost estimates as those for four databases: IUCN
 Red List of Threatened Species, the IUCN Red List of
 Ecosystems, Protected Planet, and the World Database of Key
 Biodiversity Areas.  The estimates do not seem to touch on
 the associated work of field research, taxonomy, etc. which
 underlies the work of the expert groups adding entries to
 these datasets.

 The
 comparison of these expert knowledge datasets with the
 Global Observing System for Climate is far from perfect. 
 That is a globally interconnected network of systems feeding
 a wide-range of continuous data from very large numbers of
 sensors into a complex data management and modelling
 framework.  For conservation databases to carry out a
 similar costing would probably require inclusion of the
 associated field work costs.

 In the case of GBIF, we've been in
 existence for 15 years and run with a core budget of around
 €3 million per year - this covers not only the informatics
 and standards work, but also capacity enhancement activity
 around the world.  At national and institutional levels, a
 vast amount more (I'd estimate another order of
 magnitude at least) is spent on staff time collecting or
 entering data, curating and sharing databases, etc. All of
 this of course then really depends on the much, much larger
 investment over many decades in studying organisms,
 collecting specimens and observations, etc.  

 I see activities like GBIF in
 part as a relatively small additional effort over and above
 the work of researchers to try to ensure that the data they
 collect remains discoverable and useful into the future and
 that it can grow in value through combination with other
 data.

 Donald

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Donald Hobern - GBIF Executive Secretary - dhobern at gbif.org
 Global Biodiversity Information Facility http://www.gbif.org/
 GBIF Secretariat, Universitetsparken 15,
 DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
 Tel: +45 3532
 1471  Mob: +45 2875 1471  Fax: +45 2875 1480
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Stephen Thorpe [mailto:stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz]

 Sent: Monday, 29 August 2016 11:53 PM
 To: (Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu)
 <Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>;
 Mary Barkworth <Mary.Barkworth at usu.edu>
 Cc: Donald Hobern <dhobern at gbif.org>
 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Cost of databases

 Perhaps Donald would like to
 comment on GBIF's annual budget compared with the
 claimed US$114 million to complete "the knowledge
 databases which underpin nature conservation and
 environmental decision-making"?

 Stephen

 --------------------------------------------
 On Tue, 30/8/16, Mary Barkworth <Mary.Barkworth at usu.edu>
 wrote:

  Subject: [Taxacom]
 Cost of databases
  To: "(Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu)"
 <Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
  Received: Tuesday, 30 August, 2016, 9:43 AM

  http://www.iucnredlist.org/news/paper-reveals-nature-conservation-knowledge-is-a-bargain
  (refering to a paper pulished in PLOSOne http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0160640

  The first three paragraphs
 of the commenting paper:

  A new study released
 today finds that the knowledge  databases which underpin
 nature conservation and  environmental decision-making -
 such as the IUCN Red List of  Threatened Species(tm) - cost
 US$ 6.5 million annually to  manage, plus the dedication of
 thousands of volunteers.

 The authors estimated that US$ 160 million plus 293 
 volunteer-years have been invested to date in developing 
 these datasets, and the shortfall to complete the datasets 
 is approximately US$ 114 million.

  "This may sound expensive, but these
 costs are extremely low  when compared with other societal
 expenditures, such as the  Global Observing System for
 Climate, which required US$ 5 -
  7 billion
 to maintain in 2010," says Melanie Heath, Director  of
 Science, Policy and Information at BirdLife  International.
 "To put this in perspective, the annual  consumer
 spending on soft drinks is in the order of US$ 380 
 billion. Investing in these crucial datasets represents a 
 bargain for society - the costs to create and curate them 
 are easily outweighed by the benefits they deliver.
  [emphasis added]

  Now the
 challenge is to convert such information into  support.
 Note: "The motivation for the study came from the 
 private sector," says Diego Juffe-Bignoli, UNEP World 
 Conservation Monitoring Centre, and lead author.
 "Companies  which subscribe to the Integrated
 Biodiversity Assessment  Tool - which provides financial
 support for Protected  Planet, another of the datasets we
 costed in this research -  often ask us how much investment
 would be necessary to  maintain these critical data in
 perpetuity. Now we have an  answer."

  The

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