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Briefing
Adopted in 2013, the EU-wide strategy on GI — — promotes investments in green infrastructure ‘… to maintain, enhance or restore the health of ecosystems, ensure that natural areas remain connected together, and allow species to thrive across their entire natural habitat, so that nature keeps on delivering its many benefits to us’, and to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services.
The Joint Research Centre (JRC), the EEA and the Directorate-General for Environment of the European Commission have published a joint report showing how geospatial methods, data and tools can be used at various geographical scales for strategically deploying GI and ecosystem restoration in the context of ecosystem management and integrated spatial planning.
The report analyses a number of case studies, which show how these multi-source and multi-scale data, methods and tools can be applied. It provides guidance for the strategic design of a well-connected, multifunctional and cross-border GI and identifies knowledge gaps.
The report provides methodological guidance to support strategic policy- and decision-making on GI and further contributes to a core objective of the EU strategy on GI: to ‘review the extent and quality of the technical and spatial data available for decision-makers in relation to GI deployment’.
The report reviews a range of Europe-wide data sets, geospatial methods and tools for GI mapping that follow the three key GI principles of connectivity, multifunctionality and spatial planning. They focus on:
The report showcases how data sets and tools can be used through best-practice cases at European, national, regional and local levels, covering areas such as:
A case study for mainland Spain — providing ecosystem services through Natura 2000 linkages: towards a connected and multi-functional GI — demonstrates how the data and tools are used at a national scale to show:
Based on the work of De la Fuente et al. (2018), Rodríguez et al. (2018) and Maes et al. (2015), a number of maps and spatially explicit products have been produced. Figure 1 shows a map of the four categories of corridors of variable width between the N2000 woodland sites in mainland Spain. The corridors are mapped at a spatial resolution of 100 m to show connectivity with a resistance surface (i.e. one that makes it difficult for forest/woodland mammals to move through different types of land cover). To visualise the connectivity of the N2000 sites, the key corridor sectors outside N2000 areas are shown in Figure 2.
This subset of corridors in Figure 2 corresponds to the 25 % of all corridors that contribute most to connectivity. Together, they provide the majority of connectivity between N2000 woodland sites. The lines along the central axis of the corridors were also considered indicators for evaluating ecosystem service provision.
Figure 1. Map of the corridors of variable width between Natura 2000 woodland sites in mainland Spain
Source: Reprinted from De la Fuente et al, Copyright 2018, with permission from Elsevier.
Map metadata and other formats.
Figure 2 indicates, from red to dark blue, corridors with an increasing number of ecosystem services (i.e. erosion control, crop pollination, water retention and outdoor recreation) above the average seen outside N2000 areas.
Figure 2. Assessment of the delivery of multiple ecosystem services in the corridors between N2000 sites in Spain
Source: Estreguil et al. (2019). Copyright European Union 2019.
Map metadata and other formats.
The main findings of this case study were:
Baranzelli, C., et al., 2014, The reference scenario in the LUISA platform — Updated configuration 2014 — Towards a common baseline scenario for EC impact assessment procedures, EUR 27019 EN Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, doi: 10.2788/85104
De la Fuente, B., et al., 2018, ‘Natura 2000 sites, public forests and riparian corridors: The connectivity backbone of forest green infrastructure’,Land Use Policy 75, pp. 429-441.
EEA, 2014, Spatial analysis of green infrastructure in Europe, EEA Technical Report No 2/2014, European Environment Agency.
EEA, 2015, Exploring nature-based solutions — The role of green infrastructure in mitigating the impacts of weather- and climate change-related natural hazards, EEA Technical Report No 12/2015, European Environment Agency.
Estreguil, C., et al., 2014, ‘A proposal for an integrated modelling framework to characterise habitat pattern’,Environmental Modelling & Software52, pp. 176-191. doi: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2013.10.011.
Estreguil, C., et al., 2016, Enhancing connectivity, improving green infrastructure. Cost-benefit solutions for forest and agri-environment. A pilot study in Lombardy, EUR 28142 EN.Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. doi:10.2788/170924
European Commission, 2014, Mapping and assessment of ecosystems and their services — Indicators for ecosystem assessments under action 5 of the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020.
European Commission, 2018, Mapping and assessment of ecosystems and their services — An analytical framework for mapping and assessment of ecosystem condition in EU.
Forest Europe, 2015, State of Europe’s forests 2015. Status and trends in sustainable forest management in Europe, Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe, Forest Europe Liaison Unit, Madrid. See in particular part II, criterion 4, indicator 4.7.
Liquete, C., et al., 2015, ‘Mapping green infrastructure based on ecosystem services and ecological networks: A pan-European case study’,Environmental Science & Policy54, pp. 268-280.
Maes, J., et al., 2015, Mapping and assessment of ecosystems and their services — Trends in ecosystems and ecosystem services in the European Union between 2000 and 2010, EUR 27143 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, doi: 10.2788/341839
Rodríguez, G., et al., 2018, Wildlife highways: Proposal by WWF Spain for a strategic network of ecological corridors connecting Natura 2000 sites, WWF Spain, Madrid. Further information and maps are available.
Vallecillo, S., et al., 2018, ‘Spatial alternatives for green infrastructure planning across the EU: An ecosystem service perspective’,Landscape and Urban Planning174, pp. 41-54.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/tools-to-support-green-infrastructure/tools-to-support-green-infrastructure or scan the QR code.
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