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What: EC, FP-V Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) project Question: How have past land cover and use changes affected Biodiversity ? Why: Legislative imperative to protect the environment. How (1): Measuring land cover change by manual interpretation of aerial photos (1950, 1990, 2000) for 59 (2km x 15 km) transects and 70 (30 x 30 km) windows Pressure – State – Impact models How to translate land cover change into pressures on biodiversity France Gerard (Coordinator), et al * * et al. : Smith G., Brems E., Bugar G., Gregor M., Hazeu G., Kohler R., Kolar J., Luque S., Manchester S., Mucher S., Olschofsky K., Oszlanyi J., Petit S., Pino J., Pons X., Roscher M., Sustera J., Thomson A., Tuominen S., Halada L., Hresko J., Wachowicz M., Wadsworth R., Wyatt B., Ziese H. Contact: [email protected] http://www.creaf.uab.es/biopress/ CORINE LC Aerial photos Aerial photos F r o m To Land cover Conversionmatrix HumanPopulationCensus Statisticsonagriculture Transport Data Etc… RegionSpecificPressures • Abandonm ent •Intensification •etc… Cause & Effect Pressures Zone Stratification Biodiversity Semi quantitative Pressure–state model 1950 Phase I Phase II 1990 EO CORINE LC 2000 Aerial photos EO 2000+ The key steps of the project 1 2 3 4 5 Land cover change information – example transect in Finland: Peatbogs are converted into arable. 1950’ies 2000 1 Pressures: How can Indicators quantify them ? There are issues of • Spatial Configuration • Semantic Composition • Temporal Distribution • Urbanisation • Deforestation • Afforestation • Land Abandonment • Intensificatio n A first step is the land cover to pressures conversion matrix 2 Select indicators (not land cover) that can be used in the short term (even when imperfect) • Identify indicators by pressure, spatial configuration, semantic composition, and temporal distribution. • Weighting indicators using a space-time assessment Priority, ranking, or value of indicators 3 Integrate land cover change and selected indicators: Bottom-up approach & use of analytical zoning • Suitable spatial scales to tackle habitat information range from 1:5,000 to 1:100,000 and landscape maps are required as input to compute indicators with a spatial component. • Suitable temporal scales are not that clear yet. 4 Extrapolat ion: Pixel value = similarity in CORINE land cover class proportion s present in area around pixel with those found in NL6 transect. Zonation: Lanmap2 is the newly developed landscape map of Europe from ALTERRA Such maps will form the basis for extrapolating land cover change acquired from windows and transects. IMPACT TABLES WP4400 Ecological interpretation of land cover change: Loss of high value habitats? Threats on existing habitats? Fragmentation of high value habitats? Landscape structure? BIODIVERSITY IMPACT LAND COVER CHANGE PRESSURE WP4300 Link a specific pressure to an amount of land cover change: Change in indicator of pressure? Change in land cover? Relationship? Finally, describe and predict the consequences (impact) of the observed land cover changes (state) and quantified pressures on biodiversity 5
