Nicola Arndt und Matthias Pohl - Neobiota
Nicola Arndt und Matthias Pohl - Neobiota Nicola Arndt und Matthias Pohl - Neobiota
An existing land classification map based on 21 available climatic parameters, was also selected to form the basis for the ecological regions map, because of the great importance of climate in determining environmental conditions. The combination of these two digitised maps, together with the deliberate choice to spread the number of classes from about 50 to 200, are presented as the Digitised Maps of European Ecological Regions and sub-regions, DMEER. The fact that those maps are digital is crucial, as it allows this information to be overlayed with all types of spatial data from the natural environment, thus enabling numeric inventory and statistical analysis. 2 Information Sources The DMEER maps draw from two primary information sources: for potential natural vegetation the Bundesamt für Naturschutz (BfN; BOHN 1995, BOHN et al. 2000) and for topographic and climatic data, the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITE; BUNCE 1995). Vegetation reflects many physical site factors, such as climate, soil type, elevation, and orientation. It is also composed of the ecosystem’s primary production and serves as habitat for the animal community. Vegetation acts as an integrator of many of the physical and biological attributes of an area, and a vegetation map can be used as a surrogate for ecosystems in conservation evaluations (SPECHT 1975, AUSTIN 1991). A vegetation map, therefore, provides the foundation for the assessment of distribution of ecological regions. The potential natural vegetation map (Figure 1) was produced in Germany by the Institut für Vegetationskunde, Bundesamt für Naturschutz (BOHN 1995, BOHN et al. 2000/2003) in close cooperation with other European experts. This vector map illustrates the distribution of natural dominant plant communities and their complexes, which are adapted to existing climatic and edaphic conditions, excluding – as far as possible – human impact. It is divided into 19 physiognomically and ecologically characterised formations and formation-complexes, which are further differentiated according to floristic, edaphic, climatic and phyto-geographical criteria. Altogether the legend comprises 698 mapping units, of which 580 were used to produce DMEER. The BfN map includes the most important features of latitudinal and longitudinal vegetation regularities, azonal vegetation types and their geographical differentiation as well as edaphic, geographical and floristical varieties of the natural plant cover. The vegetation of Europe is subdivided into 19 formation units, which are sorted according to their physiognomic and structural features, dominant species and floristic composition into lower units. This map is very complex, with 18,808 polygons covering an area of approximately 285,000,000 km². The topographic and climatic information was added from the map of European Land Classification as depicted in Figure 2 and produced by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITE), United Kingdom. The ITE map was considered as an important base over which the potential natural vegetation map would be superimposed. 3 Methodology Ecological regions are by definition bound to specific areas. It would be impossible to manage the multiple layers of information required to characterise an ecological region without a Geographical 28
Information System (GIS). The strength of GIS is its ability to integrate data from a variety of sources using a common frame of reference. Figure 1 (Left): Part of the Alps and Northern Italy as described by the Map of the Natural Vegetation of Europe (BOHN et al. 2000/2003). Figure 2 (Right): Raster map with 0.5x0.5 degree cells is based on statistical analysis of climate, altitude and locational data, resulting in 64 groups, 59 of which were included on DMEER area. The procedure of displaying ecological regions in GIS can be broken down into four specific activities (DAVIS 1995): – breaking up of continuous space into objects and choosing one or more representations for those units in GIS; – defining and measuring the appropriate set of attributes to circumscribe each object; – derivation of ecological gradients or classes from the attribute data (statistical analysis); – spatial display and reporting of the derived ecological map. To derive ecological gradients, and understand patterns of ecology, a cluster analysis was performed. Cluster analysis is a classification technique for placing similar entities or objects into groups or “clusters”. The cluster analysis model was used to place similar samples into clusters, which are arranged in a hierarchical treelike structure called a dendrogram. These clusters or classes of sorting objects represent different ecological regions, and depending on their position in the dendrogram or the level of aggregation, represent homogenous sub-ecological regions inside the primary ecological regions. To produce DMEER, two software systems were used: ARCINFO® to perform the geographical information analysis in GIS, and SAS® to produce the hierarchical classification. 3.1 Geographical information management In order to combine the information sources, it was first necessary to reassemble the two maps to the same map projection. Both maps were transformed in the Albers Projection. In the Albers Projection the area is preserved, although shape, distance and direction suffer some distortion. 29
- Seite 1: Anwendung und Auswertung der Karte
- Seite 4 und 5: Titelbild / Cover: Verkleinerung de
- Seite 6 und 7: Erhaltungszustand der natürlichen
- Seite 8 und 9: HOLGER FREUND Holozäne Meeresspieg
- Seite 10 und 11: Resolution der Teilnehmer des Works
- Seite 13 und 14: Foreword An International Workshop
- Seite 15: • Informing national and internat
- Seite 18 und 19: 2000 Druck der Vegetationskarten un
- Seite 20 und 21: - Auszüge aus der Übersichtskarte
- Seite 22 und 23: Introduction to the International W
- Seite 24 und 25: Finalisation and publication of the
- Seite 26 und 27: Organisational aspects The presenta
- Seite 29: Application and Analysis of the Map
- Seite 33 und 34: Over this distance matrix several m
- Seite 35 und 36: Figure 8 (Left): The Highlands beca
- Seite 37 und 38: - boundaries between ecological reg
- Seite 39 und 40: Anwendung und Auswertung der Karte
- Seite 41 und 42: SCHMIDT 2000, 2001). Die in diesem
- Seite 43 und 44: Diese „landschaftsökologische Ve
- Seite 45 und 46: Tabelle 2 entsprechende Qualitätsa
- Seite 47 und 48: Abb. 2: Analogie Kugelbeispiel / Ra
- Seite 49 und 50: 0 200 400 600 0 500 1000 1500 2000
- Seite 51 und 52: Abb. 5: Karte der landschaftsökolo
- Seite 53 und 54: Die Analyse der geostatistischen Re
- Seite 55 und 56: DINTER, W. (1999): Naturräumliche
- Seite 57 und 58: Application and Analysis of the Map
- Seite 59 und 60: 2 FAO Requirements Many environment
- Seite 61 und 62: In practical terms, delineation of
- Seite 63 und 64: 3.3 FAO Global Ecological Zone clas
- Seite 65 und 66: Table 2: LUT for Europe, showing th
- Seite 67 und 68: forests (F), 7 subgroups (F1- F7) h
- Seite 69 und 70: Figure 2: Map of Global Ecological
- Seite 71: Annex Table 4: Source maps used for
- Seite 74 und 75: DMEER-Projekt (Digitale Karte der
- Seite 76 und 77: Figure 1: The ecoregions are catego
- Seite 78 und 79: An example of the relationship betw
Information System (GIS). The strength of GIS is its ability to integrate data from a variety of sources<br />
using a common frame of reference.<br />
Figure 1 (Left): Part of the Alps and Northern Italy as described by the Map of the Natural Vegetation of Europe<br />
(BOHN et al. 2000/2003).<br />
Figure 2 (Right): Raster map with 0.5x0.5 degree cells is based on statistical analysis of climate, altitude and<br />
locational data, resulting in 64 groups, 59 of which were included on DMEER area.<br />
The procedure of displaying ecological regions in GIS can be broken down into four specific activities<br />
(DAVIS 1995):<br />
– breaking up of continuous space into objects and choosing one or more representations for those<br />
units in GIS;<br />
– defining and measuring the appropriate set of attributes to circumscribe each object;<br />
– derivation of ecological gradients or classes from the attribute data (statistical analysis);<br />
– spatial display and reporting of the derived ecological map.<br />
To derive ecological gradients, and <strong>und</strong>erstand patterns of ecology, a cluster analysis was performed.<br />
Cluster analysis is a classification technique for placing similar entities or objects into groups or<br />
“clusters”. The cluster analysis model was used to place similar samples into clusters, which are<br />
arranged in a hierarchical treelike structure called a dendrogram. These clusters or classes of sorting<br />
objects represent different ecological regions, and depending on their position in the dendrogram or<br />
the level of aggregation, represent homogenous sub-ecological regions inside the primary ecological<br />
regions.<br />
To produce DMEER, two software systems were used: ARCINFO® to perform the geographical<br />
information analysis in GIS, and SAS® to produce the hierarchical classification.<br />
3.1 Geographical information management<br />
In order to combine the information sources, it was first necessary to reassemble the two maps to the<br />
same map projection. Both maps were transformed in the Albers Projection. In the Albers Projection<br />
the area is preserved, although shape, distance and direction suffer some distortion.<br />
29
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