Ecological classification of land and conservation of biodiversity at the national level: The case of Italy
Highlights
► We made an ecological classification of land units of Italy. ► We performed a gap analysis of land units compared with protected areas. ► Conservation status of land units was assessed by the Index of Landscape Conservation. ► Gap analysis highlighted land units that lack protection and those over-represented. ► The ILC yields land units from very low to very high values of conservation status.
Introduction
Ecosystems result from complex interactions between physical and biological factors, and human activities (CBD, 2004, Pickett and Cadenasso, 2002, Tansley, 1935). Given the importance of land management and biodiversity conservation, ecosystems need to be described, characterised and spatially located (Sims et al., 1996). The need to ensure ecosystem diversity at different spatial scales is now fully acknowledged by international strategies for the protection of biodiversity and for sustainable development. The Convention on Biological Diversity (1992), the European Habitats Directive (1992), the Pan European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy (1996), and the European Landscape Convention (2000) have all focused on environmental heterogeneity in terms of ecosystem diversity and/or landscape diversity as a result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors.
Following the boost received from these initiatives, in recent times ecological classifications of land have been receiving an increasing amount of attention. They offer the opportunity to capture ecosystem patterns and associated ecological processes that occur at the landscape scale (Bailey, 1996, McMahon et al., 2004), such as biotic response to climate change (Beier and Brost, 2010), rates of primary production (Dale et al., 2000) and hydrological regimes, (Higgins et al., 2005) as well as to address environmental challenges under an ecosystem management perspective (Hobbs and McIntyre, 2005, Yaffee, 1999). The ecological classification of land identifies land units on the basis of their homogeneity according to physical and biological features at various scales (Bailey, 2004, Cleland et al., 1997, Zonneveld, 1995). Land units provide a geographical framework that can be used to address environmental issues according to ecological boundaries (Gallant et al., 2004, Omernik, 2004) and, more specifically, they represent a surrogate for the manifold aspects of biodiversity that can effectively be used to support conservation policies (Oliver et al., 2004, Pressey et al., 2000, Wessels et al., 1999).
In Italy, the conservation of natural resources and environmental services is based above all on National Protected Areas (NPAs), Sites of Community Interest (SCIs) and Special Protection Areas (SPAs) under the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) as well as on the fulfilment of strategic objectives in the National Biodiversity Strategy (Andreella et al., 2010). In 2005, a project designed to complete and update the environmental information available and to provide a uniform ecological classification of land units at the national level was undertaken by the “Biodiversity, Plant Sociology and Landscape Ecology” Interuniversity Research Center at the Sapienza University of Rome, with the support of the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea Protection. A top-down deductive process (Bailey, 2004, Klijn et al., 1995, Sayre et al., 2009) was adopted to highlight the role of physical determinism in characterising the territory.
The aims of this paper are (i) to describe the land units that emerge from the afore-mentioned project and (ii) to verify whether environmental analyses based on such land units are effective for formulating priority conservation targets in Italy.
Section snippets
Study area
Italy is located in the southern Europe, central Mediterranean basin. It covers approximately 300,000 square kilometres and is particularly heterogeneous in climate, physiography, vegetation cover and land use.
There are two major ranges of mountains (the Alps and the Apennines), extensive hilly zones, wide river valleys (first and foremost the Po plain), many large and small islands, and a long coastline. Land cover is characterised predominantly by agricultural areas (52%), while 42% of the
Hierarchical classification of land in Italy
The land classification process led to the identification and mapping of 3 Land Regions, 24 Land Systems and 149 Land Facets (Fig. 1).
The Mediterranean Land Region covers 25% of the national territory and is characterised by a summer drought lasting longer than two months, a reduced difference between summer and winter temperatures, and precipitation concentrated in the autumn/winter period. The vegetation potential is mainly represented by evergreen sclerophyllous forests or shrub. The
Strength and weakness of the proposed ecological classification of Italian land
This research implements the existing global and European broad-scale projects for the ecological classification of land, which are aimed at establishing spatial reference systems for environmental assessment, protection, management and planning (Bailey, 1995, Mücher et al., 2010, Sayre et al., 2007). Indeed, we used accurate basic maps that allow to represent in detail the biophysical richness and diversity of Italy at the national level.
This improvement allows the Italian Ministry for the
References (57)
- et al.
Important plant areas in Italy: from data to mapping
Biological Conservation
(2011) - et al.
Will climate change reduce the efficacy of protected areas for amphibian conservation in Italy?
Biological Conservation
(2011) - et al.
Gap analysis of terrestrial vertebrates in Italy; priorities for conservation planning in a human dominated landscape
Biological Conservation
(2006) - et al.
A new European Landscape Classification (LANMAP): a transparent, flexible and user-oriented methodology to distinguish landscapes
Ecological Indicators
(2010) - et al.
A gap analysis of terrestrial protected areas in England and its implications for conservation policy
Biological Conservation
(2004) - et al.
Using abiotic data for conservation assessments over extensive regions: quantitative methods applied across New South Wales, Australia
Biological Conservation
(2000) - et al.
Sampling of land types by protected areas: three measures of effectiveness applied to western New South Wales
Biological Conservation
(2001) - et al.
The use of land facets as biodiversity surrogates during reserve selection at a local scale
Biological Conservation
(1999) - Andreella, M., Biliotti, M., Bonella, G., Cinquepalmi, F., Dupré, E., La Posta, A., Luchetti, D., Pettiti, L.,...
- Bailey, R.G., 1995. Ecoregions of the Continents, US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,...
Ecosystem Geography
Identifying ecoregion boundaries
Environmental Management
Use of land facets to plan for climate change: conserving the arenas, not the actors
Conservation Biology
Phytosociology today: methodological and conceptual evolution
Plant Biosystems
The climate of Italy
Defining and mapping typological models at the landscape scale
Plant Biosystems
Ecosystem classification and mapping: a proposal for Italian landscape
Applied Vegetation Science
The concept of land ecological network and its design using a land unit approach
Plant Biosystems
Global biodiversity conservation priorities
Science
National hierarchical framework of ecological units
Ecological principles and guidelines for managing the use of land
Ecological Applications
A hypothetical nine-unit land-surface model
Zeitschrift fur Geomorphologie
Conservation deficits for the continental United States: an ecosystem gap analysis
Conservation Biology
Evaluating landscape quality with vegetation naturalness maps: an index and some inferences
Applied Vegetation Science
Using an Ecoregion Framework to Analyze Land-Cover and Land-Use Dynamics
Environmental Management
Cited by (57)
Prioritizing conservation of terrestrial orchids: A gap analysis for Italy
2024, Biological ConservationA scenario-based approach to tackle trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and land use pressure in Central Italy
2021, Ecological ModellingCitation Excerpt :Particularly, the Mediterranean region is one of the most significantly altered biodiversity hotspots in the world (Falcucci et al., 2007) where LULCC are affecting traditional landscapes and related biodiversity (Camarretta et al., 2018; Malandra et al., 2018). As an example, in Italy, recent investigations showed that the biophysical variability of territories, combined with socioeconomic aspects, strongly affect the spatial location of different LULCC along both latitudinal and altitudinal gradients (Blasi et al., 2017; Capotorti et al., 2012; Marchetti et al., 2017). The high rate of land take (Romano and Zullo, 2014) and agricultural intensification in lowlands and along the coasts are counterbalanced by land abandonment and subsequent forest expansion in the southern part of the peninsula as well as in mountain and economically marginal areas (Malandra et al., 2018).
Impacts of air pollution on human and ecosystem health, and implications for the National Emission Ceilings Directive: Insights from Italy
2019, Environment InternationalCitation Excerpt :In Italy, the Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea - General Directorate for Waste and Pollution (Division on Air, noise and electromagnetic pollution), is responsible for the NECD enforcement and for setting a National Network to monitor air pollution impacts in collaboration with research institutions and local administrations. Italy is an interesting case study for the application of the NECD Article 9, because of the high level of functional biodiversity and the wide variety of environmental, landscape and climatic conditions (Blasi et al., 2008, 2014; Capotorti et al., 2012) that make difficult the selection of representative monitoring sites. Moreover, due to the multi-stress conditions that typically affect Mediterranean ecosystems, the identification of monitoring indicators is a critical issue (Manes et al., 2007; Fusaro et al., 2015; Ochoa-Hueso et al., 2017).