Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
(Hiraldo & Donázar, 1990; Fargallo, Blanco, & Soto-Largo, 1998; Donázar, Blanco,
Hiraldo, Soto-Largo, & Oria, 2002). The results of this study were used to improve
Black Vulture Monitoring, forest management and the zonation of the National Park.
13.4 Case Study 2 - Forest Re-growth Since 1945 in the Dadia
Forest Nature Reserve
In this study,
2
the focus was drawn on the interpretation of aerial photographs and
satellite images in order to identify land-use patterns in Dadia NP for 1945, 1973 and
2001, and thus to quantify the land-use changes among these years. The landscape
was classified to the three categories forest, openings, and agricultural land, and
the most obvious change was a dramatic decline in forest openings (Table 13.1),
caused mainly by land abandonment and reforestation programs. During a period
of 50 years, the landscape lost part of its characteristic heterogeneity and mosaic-
structured character, landscape qualities that are very important for the maintenance
of biodiversity of several groups of organisms (Atauri & De Lucio, 2001; Torras,
Gil-Tena, & Saura, 2008).
Table 13.1
Land-use change in Dadia National Park from 1945 to 2001
Land use
Zone
1945
1945-1973
1973
1973-2001
2001
[km
2
]
[
2
]
[
2
]
[ ]
[ ]
Forest
Core area
37.7
+33
50.1
+20
60.2
Buffer zone
160.5
+15
183.9
+37
251.2
Total area
198.2
+18
234.0
+33
312.6
Openings
Core area
33.3
-40
20.1
-50
10.1
Buffer zone
119.4
-27
87.0
-67
28.6
Total area
152.7
-30
107.1
-64
38.7
Agricultural land
Core area
1.9
+43
2.7
-40
1.6
Buffer zone
76.4
+12
85.4
-21
67.2
Total area
78.3
+13
88.1
-22
69.0
13.5 Case Study 3 - Towards a Core Set of Landscape Metrics
for Biodiversity Assessments: A Case Study from Dadia
National Park
Landscape metrics in the GIS environment can be used to facilitate the investigation
of the relation between landscape structure and biodiversity (Hill & Curran, 2003;
Honnay, Piessense, & Landuy, 2003). Data reduction analyses have been applied to
tackle the problem of highly correlated indices (Riitters, Neill, & Hunsaker, 1995;
Cushman, McGarigal, & Vell, 2008), but valid landscape predictors for fine-scale
Mediterranean forest-mosaics have been missing. In this study,
4
we used a wide
array of related variables of landscape structure, (1) to investigate correlations and
Search WWH ::
Custom Search