Geodiversity meanings in global geoparks: an empirical study

Geodiversity is a complex environmental idea describing a spectrum of geological (together with some other natural) phenomena on a given territory. Experts have offered several opinions on what is geodiversity, and, expectedly, this multiple vision of the same idea has become challenging for practitioners, including those involved in the international geopark movement. The content of the official descriptions of 140 UNESCO global geoparks is analyzed to establish the context, in which the term “geodiversity” is used. It is established that official descriptions of only 41 of geoparks use this term. It is established that many geopark practitioners prefer to treat geodiversity either as a kind of equivalent of geological heritage (41%) or as the entity of types of unique geological phenomena (59%). In many geoparks, geodiversity is judged locally. These findings imply the existence of a gap between conceptual and practical meanings of geodiversity. Interestingly, a “simplistic” treatment of geodiversity is typical for geoparks of Europe. It is recommended to executive bodies of geopark networks and other international and national organizations to facilitate a broad vision of geodiversity in geoparks. Similarly important is to avoid full replacement of approaches for (semi-)quantitative assessment of geodiversity with general models putting geodiversity into the context of environmental philosophy.