Frehwsater deltas, lillustrated by Velse Sølensjøen, have red-listed terrestrial, freshwater and wetland habitat types. Photo credit: Børre K. Dervo /NINA.

Today, the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre (NBIC) launches a new edition of the Norwegian Red List for Ecosystems and Habitat Types. Researchers from a wide range of institutions, including the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), have assessed nearly 900 habitat types.

44 % of these habitat types ended up on the new Red List, meaning they are at risk of being lost. 23 % were placed in the threatened categories, which means they are at significant risk of being lost.

The Red List is an important tool for knowledge-based biodiversity and ecosystem management. It not only identifies which types of habitats are at risk, but also the drivers behind the decline.

Surprising river impacts

“The big surprise for us working with freshwater habitat types is that land-use impacts in river systems were far greater than we expected. This means that both the extent of affected areas and the degree of impact are much higher than anticipated,” says NINA researcher Børre Dervo. He led the group assessing freshwater habitats.

Although the status is somewhat worse than the last time the Red List were published in 2018, there are still few critically endangered or endangered freshwater habitat types on mainland Norway.

Dervo explains that for the roughly 200 freshwater habitat types, the assessments were based on a much better data foundation than in the previous round.

This also applies to the other habitat types in the Red List. The researchers used a larger number of data sources than before, including modelling, remote sensing and new research. The assessments are also more detailed. In the previous edition there were 258 habitat types; now there are nearly three times as many.

Even common habitat types can end up on the Red List

In the previous Red List, the habitat types included often covered very small areas. In this year’s edition, human impact on habitat types has been documented more thoroughly.

"This means that habitat types covering large areas can be red-listed because of high human pressure", explains NINA researcher Ulrika Janssen Asplund.

She has had the main responsibility for forest habitats in the group evaluating terrestrial habitat types. Terrestrial habitats include land habitats that are not permanently waterlogged — that is, excluding freshwater and wetlands.

Billberry spruce forest in lowland areas is an example of a common habitat type that has been placed on the Red List.

“This means we can’t think of red-listed habitats as postage stamps in the landscape—small areas that can simply be fenced off for protection. Instead, it becomes increasingly important to safeguard areas of nature that are still in good condition,” Asplund explains.

Nearly two out of three wetland habitat types are red-listed

Anders Lyngstad, researcher at NINA, led the group assessing wetland habitat types.

“We assessed 61 habitat types. Of these, 42 are included on the Red List, and five are critically endangered. All wetland types that only occur in lowland areas are red-listed,” Lyngstad explains.

The main reasons for red-listing wetland habitat types are reductions in total area and declines in ecological condition.

“Drainage, cultivation and development are the most important pressures affecting these habitat types,” says Lyngstad.

He adds that we now have documentation showing that climate change is beginning to affect wetlands.

“This applies primarily to wetland types with a northern or mountainous distribution,” he says.

In addition to Dervo, Asplund and Lyngstad, Lars Erikstad has contributed to the work from NINA. He was part of the group assessing landforms.

Learn more:

Find the Red List for Ecosystems and Habitat Types here (Norwegian only)

Contact:

Børre K. Dervo (freshwater)
Anders Lyngstad (wetlands)
Ulrika Jansson Asplund (forest)

• 26 November 2025
• Author: Anne Olga Syverhuset
• Number of views: 204