Page - 6 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

6 cohesive evidence base for action. Whilst studies investigate the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and on human health, at present there is limited research detailing the inter-relationships of all three topics together. In applied resource man- agement, nature conservation needs to better link to the health sector and vice versa (WHO & CBD 2015). The health sector, whilst it has begun to incorporate the health benefits of climate change adaptation (Watts et  al. 2015), has yet to fully appreciate the influence of biodiversity. Likewise, the nature conservation commu- nity needs to harness synergies with public health and climate change adaptation. The scope of this book is to align these three areas of research and to link to applica- tion in policy and practice. This book brings together experts from transdisciplinary fields in science, policy and practice to provide an overview of the current state of knowledge on biodiver- sity and health relationships in the face of climate change. As such, this book pro- vides a synthesis of the current state of the knowledge drawing from ecology, geography, environmental psychology, public health, medical science and urban planning. Moreover, experts discuss the implications that the health benefits of bio- diversity have for public health, nature conservation and environmental sustainabil- ity. The book also captures in-depth, practical expertise and experience from protected area managers and landscape architects. National and international policy and practice activities regarding biodiversity, health and climate change inter- relationships from health and nature conservation agencies are also detailed. The scope of this book is on biodiversity’s contribution to physical, mental and spiritual health and  well-being in the face of climate change. This makes it unique compared to other books that focus on the effect of biodiversity on human physical health (Morand and Lajaunie 2017, Chivian and Bernstein 2008, Grifo and Rosenthal 1997), the contribution of green spaces to physical and mental health (Nilsson et  al. 2011, Pearlmutter et  al. 2017) or social-environmental equity per- spectives on nature-health relationships (Kopnina and Keune 2010). In addition, the recognition of climate change as an important factor influencing biodiversity as well as health takes up new aspects of the current debate, encouraging new thinking alongside joined-up collaboration and transdisciplinary working. Consequently, some topics of biodiversity and health, such as medicine, food and nutrition, are not covered in this book, as they have already been extensively covered elsewhere (see  Morand and Lajaunie 2017, Chivian and Bernstein 2008, Grifo and Rosenthal 1997). As the book focuses on biodiversity in the natural environment, consider- ation of the human microbiome is also not included here. Many of the topics discussed in this book were intensely discussed at the European conference ‘Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change’ that took place in Bonn, Germany, from 27–29 June 2017 (Marselle et  al. 2018). The conference was organised by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, the Network of European Nature Conservation Agencies (ENCA), and co-sponsored by the WHO Regional Office for Europe. We hope this book contributes to an increased under- M. R. Marselle et al.