Nicola Arndt und Matthias Pohl - Neobiota

the boundaries of current land use still capture much of the extend and location of the previous natural
vegetation units, especially where these are determined by geo-morphological characteristics and/or
water bodies.
4.4. Extended version of the European Landscape Map: LANMAP 2
LANMAP 1 had been considered as a prototype for initial testing and method development. Therefore
an extended version covering pan-Europe has been realised in 2004 and is still further developed. The
resulting European Landscape Map is presented in Map 11. In order to manage the extended data base,
the three input data layers had to be further aggregated. However, initial comparisons between
LANMAP 1 and LANMAP 2 showed that the changes with regard to the original landscape unit
borders (LANMAP 1) can be considered as being within a tolerable range. The new approach includes
reference to Alterrra’s Environmental Map of Europe that is largely based on climate assessment (see
MÜCHER et al. 2003). LANMAP 2 (landscapemap_v12.shp) is an Arcview shape file with 14.000
landscape mapping polygons. Each of the 376 landscape types has a unique code and the landscape
type itself is the LCC code. The LCC code is based on the climate zone, the dominant altitude class,
parent material class and land cover class (see Figure 4). LANMAP 2 is currently being revised as part
of the EU project “European Landscape Character Assessment Initiative”(ELCAI, WASCHER 2003).
5 Conclusions and Recommendations
5.1 General conclusions
With regard to landscapes, we can conclude that natural vegetation provides not only insights on
climax plant communities (in Europe mainly forest communities) as a measurement of naturally open
versus naturally closed landscapes types, but also on a whole series of other natural parameters that are
relevant at the landscape level, namely:
� Geology, soils ;
� Morphology and exposition;
� Hydrology;
� Climate; and
� Phytogeography and Biodiversity.
Since the development of plant communities is a direct function of the bio-physical processes that
occur in and between soil, water and air – natural vegetation types can be considered as an aggregate
indicator of the main environmental media and systems.
Beyond the indicative qualities – especially in hemerobie assessments – the section on biogeographic
concepts has also demonstrated that natural vegetation is a key component in the identification of large
and coherent holistic life-forms or biomes. The biogeographic dimension of Europe’s natural
vegetation as manifested in the map-project coordinated by the Bundesamt für Naturschutz has already
played a substantial role in identifying European Ecological Regions.
With regard to the actual situation on the ground, namely today’s land cover, any brief interpretation
of natural vegetation data will prove the obvious, namely that human land use history has had such a
profound impact on Europe’s surface that there is for many parts of Europe hardly any resemblance to
be found when comparing natural with real vegetation. And there are other problems. As VAN GILS
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