How to improve the distribution maps of habitat types at national scale
- PDF / 2,899,090 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 96 Downloads / 174 Views
How to improve the distribution maps of habitat types at national scale E. Carli1 · M. Massimi1 · P. Angelini2 · L. Casella2 · F. Attorre1 · E. Agrillo3 Received: 5 April 2020 / Accepted: 30 May 2020 © Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2020
Abstract Annex I habitat types are a key factor for biodiversity conservation in Europe and distribution maps are essential for assessing their conservation status. We aim to increase the responsiveness to habitat knowledge needs and to propose the use of data collected at local scale for assessing a key indicator such as the Area of Occupancy (AOO) of habitats. In this paper, starting from the 4th Report of Habitats Directive data, we present a multi-source approach that allows national habitat distribution maps to be refined and their AOO estimated, by combining certified available information on habitat maps and vegetation databases. For the first time a comprehensive up-to-date knowledge on habitat distribution at national scale is now available; our approach will be an essential tool for the implementation of the Habitats Directive and to achieve the goals of EU biodiversity strategy in Italy. Graphic abstract
Keywords Habitats Directive · Forests · Grasslands · Habitat mapping · Area of occupancy · Vegetation databases
1 Introduction
E. Carli and M. Massimi equal contribution. * M. Massimi [email protected] 1
Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, IT‑00185 Rome, Italy
2
Department for Biodiversity Conservation, Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), via Vitaliano Brancati, 48, 00144 Rome, Italy
3
Operational Center for Environmental Monitoring, Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), via Vitaliano Brancati, 48, 00144 Rome, Italy
Habitat types listed in Annex I of the Council Directive 92/43/EEC (Habitats Directive) are a key component of biodiversity (Legg and Nagy 2006; Bunce et al. 2013; Proença et al. 2017) and their conservation is one of the main goals stated in the Biodiversity Strategy of the European Union (Balmford 2005; Gigante et al. 2018; Jongman 2013; https ://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/biodiversity/strategy/ index_en.htm). Habitat occurrence is one of the indicators needed to assess the conservation status of the habitats allowing the estimation of their loss or expansion. To quantify and monitor habitats and their changes in time and space, different criteria are used in conservation assessment at global scale (Lelli et al. 2018;
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Rodwell et al. 2018). Area of Occupancy (AOO) is the reference term for habitat area assessment in the European Red List of Habitats (Janssen et al. 2016) and for the calculation of the Favourable Reference Area (FRA) value in the assessment of conservation status of Annex I habitat types (Bijlsma et al. 2018). In the context of the Habitats Directive two requirements encompass information about habitat occurrence: distribution maps and surface area. For each habitat type, every 6 years maps of d
Data Loading...
