A review of criteria for evaluating natural areas

Abstract

ABSTRACT/Methods for evaluating natural areas have evolved in the last couple of decades to assess the importance of natural areas for the purposes of land-use planning, environmental impact assessment, and planning protected areas. Criteria used for evaluation vary and generally fall into three categories: ecological, or abiotic and biotic; cultural; and planning and management. Abiotic and biotic criteria are reviewed here in terms of three questions for each criterion: What is it--what are the definitions used in the ecological and environmental management literature? Why use it--what are the reasons behind its use? How has it been used--what is the state-of-the-art in assessing the criterion? Cultural criteria are discussed more generally in terms of the commonly used frameworks and the concept of significance. Planning and management criteria are generally related to either the need for management action or feasibility of effective management.

Robustness of reserve selection procedures under temporal species turnover

“…This means that a higher investment may be needed in order to ensure the persistence of rarer species, which may imply targeting these as priorities when allocating conservation resources. Indeed, the presence of rare species is one of the most frequent criteria for the selection of protected areas (Margules & Usher 1981;Smith & Theberge 1986).…”

An ecological framework for the planning, design and management of urban river greenways

“…The framework began with an ecological planning process (McHarg, 1969;Cook, 1991), and built in ecological design process (Hough, 1984;Lyle, 1986), ecological knowledge that related to the design of natural areas (Smith and Theberge, 1986), and theory and methodology from landscape ecology (Vink, 1983;Naveh and Lieberman, 1984;Forman and Godron, 1986). The result was a framework (Fig.…”

“…An indicator-species approach uses individual species which represent more complex data; an inventory approach uses classification separate from assessment; and a system-based approach uses criteria including rarity, diversity, naturalness, and structural differentiation. The latter is the most widely adopted approach for ecological assessments (Margules and Usher, 198 1;Smith and Theberge, 1986). Aggregate values from the established criteria are used to form a quantitative description of relative worth.…”

“…Many approaches have been developed for the comparison of natural areas and to facilitate decision-making in conservation (Gehlbath, 1975;Goldsmith, 1975;Wright, 1977;Margules and Usher, 1981;Game and Peterken, 1984;Smith and Theberge, 1986). Bourdages et al (1992) have suggested that methods initially developed for estimating ecological value and prioritizing the selection of natural areas to be preserved can also be used in urban land-use management.…”

“…This approach has been the most widely adopted approach for ecological evaluation (Smith and Theberge, 1986). The ecological value of landscape elements are assessed according to the six criteria he presented: plant species diversity, degree of naturalness, species rarity, plant community structure, landscape category, and sensitivity to disturbance (Tables 3 and 4) (Wright, 1977).…”