The aim of UNESCO Global Geoparks (UGGs) is to protect globally significant geoheritage and geodiversity, but quantitative evidence on the global representativeness of geodiversity components (i.e. geology, soils, geomorphology and hydrology) in these geoparks is in short supply. Here, we provide a first assessment by deriving a global map of geodiversity to test whether the presence of geodiversity components in UGGs is representative for the global availability and distribution of geodiversity. Using openly accessible global datasets and a newly developed workflow, we have calculated metrics for each geodiversity component and a global geodiversity index; we then quantified whether UGGs represent global geodiversity and then compared their components to a randomized spatial distribution of geoparks. Our results show that lithological and topographical diversity are more represented in UGGs than outside these sites, while soil type and hydrological diversity are not significantly different. Furthermore, individual soil types and lithological classes are under-represented and unevenly distributed in Asian and European UGGs. This is probably caused by the concentration of geoparks in Asian and European mountains. To better conserve geodiversity, we suggest an initiative to consider the protection and representation of all geodiversity components in their global context. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Geodiversity for science and society’.

中文翻译：

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全球地质多样性成分在教科文组织世界地质公园中的代表性并不相同

联合国教科文组织世界地质公园（UGG）的目标是保护全球重要的地质遗产和地质多样性，但这些地质公园地质多样性组成部分（即地质、土壤、地貌和水文）的全球代表性的定量证据却很缺乏。在这里，我们通过绘制全球地质多样性地图来提供首次评估，以测试地下地质储层中地质多样性成分的存在是否能够代表全球地质多样性的可用性和分布。使用可公开访问的全球数据集和新开发的工作流程，我们计算了每个地理多样性组成部分和全球地理多样性指数的指标；然后，我们量化了 UGG 是否代表全球地质多样性，然后将其组成部分与地质公园的随机空间分布进行比较。我们的结果表明，与这些地点之外相比，UGG 中的岩性和地形多样性更具有代表性，而土壤类型和水文多样性没有显着差异。此外，在亚洲和欧洲的 UGG 中，个别土壤类型和岩性类别的代表性不足且分布不均匀。这可能是由于地质公园集中在亚洲和欧洲山区造成的。为了更好地保护地理多样性，我们建议采取一项举措，考虑在全球背景下保护和代表所有地理多样性组成部分。本文是西奥·墨菲会议问题“科学与社会的地理多样性”的一部分。