Assessing soil biodiversity potentials in Europe

Aksoy, Ece; Louwagie, Geertrui; Gardi, Ciro; Gregor, Mirko; Schröder, Christoph; Löhnertz, Manuel

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.02.173

Cited by 36 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…To create the suitability map all predictor layers included in the GWR model were classified, similarly to Condesso de Melo et al (2015) and Aksoy et al (2017). The likelihood of an interaction between the vegetation and groundwater resources was scored from 1 to 3 for each predictor.…”

Section: Suitability Map Buildingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Vegetation indices offer excellent tools to assess and monitor plant changes and water stress (Asrar, 1989). The NDWI (Gao, 1996) is a satellite-derived index that aims to estimate fuel moisture content (Maki et al, 2004) and leaf water content at canopy level, being widely used for drought monitoring (Anderson et al, 2010;Gu et al, 2007;Ceccato et al, 2002a). This index was chosen to be more sensitive to canopy water content and a good proxy for water stress status in plants.…”

Section: Map Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping the suitability of groundwater-dependent vegetation in a semi-arid Mediterranean area

Marques

Nascimento

Cardoso

et al. 2019

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Mapping the suitability of groundwater-dependent vegetation in semi-arid Mediterranean areas is fundamental for the sustainable management of groundwater resources and groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) under the risks of climate change scenarios. For the present study the distribution of deep-rooted woody species in southern Portugal was modeled using climatic, hydrological and topographic environmental variables. To do so, Quercus suber, Quercus ilex and Pinus pinea were used as proxy species to represent the groundwater-dependent vegetation (GDV). Model fitting was performed between the proxy species Kernel density and the selected environmental predictors using (1) a simple linear model and (2) a geographically weighted regression (GWR) to account for autocorrelation of the spatial data and residuals. When comparing the results of both models, the GWR modeling results showed improved goodness of fit as opposed to the simple linear model. Climatic indices were the main drivers of GDV density, followed by a much lower influence by groundwater depth, drainage density and slope. Groundwater depth did not appear to be as pertinent in the model as initially expected, accounting only for about 7 % of the total variation compared to 88 % for climate drivers. The relative proportion of model predictor coefficients was used as weighting factors for multicriteria analysis to create a suitability map for the GDV in southern Portugal showing where the vegetation most likely relies on groundwater to cope with aridity. A validation of the resulting map was performed using independent data of the normalized difference water index (NDWI), a satellite-derived vegetation index. June, July and August of 2005 NDWI anomalies, for the years 1999–2009, were calculated to assess the response of active woody species in the region after an extreme drought. The results from the NDWI anomalies provided an overall good agreement with the suitability to host GDV. The model was considered to be reliable for predicting the distribution of the studied vegetation. The methodology developed to map GDVs will allow for the prediction of the evolution of the distribution of GDV according to climate change and aid stakeholder decision-making concerning priority areas of water resource management.

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Section: Suitability Map Buildingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Map Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping the suitability of groundwater-dependent vegetation in a semi-arid Mediterranean area

Marques

Nascimento

Cardoso

et al. 2019

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…As proof of the two concepts, we produced two maps of the soil biodiversity and habitat function of soils, one for the Netherlands and one for Europe. This work in progress is a follow up of earlier publications on a regional scale (e.g., Scotland [34], France [35,36], Netherlands [29]), and European scale (e.g., [20,21,30,32,37]). We took advantage of the progress of the monitoring of soil biological attributes in the Netherlands [11] and in many EU-projects, i.e., SoilTrec [38], Soilservice [16], EcoFINDERS [17,33], and LANDMARK [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 69%

“…These properties were soil-pH, texture, soil organic matter, evapotranspiration, temperature, soil biomass productivity, and land use type. Aksoy et al (2017) [32] compared their map with the maps of earthworm community metrics of [21] and found that these maps were statistically correlated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping Soil Biodiversity in Europe and the Netherlands

et al. 2019

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Soil is fundamental for the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, but our knowledge about soil organisms and the habitat they provide (shortly: Soil biodiversity) is poorly developed. For instance, the European Atlas of Soil Biodiversity and the Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas contain maps with rather coarse information on soil biodiversity. This paper presents a methodology to map soil biodiversity with limited data and models. Two issues were addressed. First, the lack of consensus to quantify the soil biodiversity function and second, the limited data to represent large areas. For the later issue, we applied a digital soil mapping (DSM) approach at the scale of the Netherlands and Europe. Data of five groups of soil organisms (earthworms, enchytraeids, micro-arthropods, nematodes, and micro-organisms) in the Netherlands were linked to soil habitat predictors (chemical soil attributes) in a regression analysis. High-resolution maps with soil characteristics were then used together with a model for the soil biodiversity function with equal weights for each group of organisms. To predict soil biodiversity at the scale of Europe, data for soil biological (earthworms and bacteria) and chemical (pH, soil organic matter, and nutrient content) attributes were used in a soil biodiversity model. Differential weights were assigned to the soil attributes after consulting a group of scientists. The issue of reducing uncertainty in soil biodiversity modelling and mapping by the use of data from biological soil attributes is discussed. Considering the importance of soil biodiversity to support the delivery of ecosystem services, the ability to create maps illustrating an aggregate measure of soil biodiversity is a key to future environmental policymaking, optimizing land use, and land management decision support taking into account the loss and gains on soil biodiversity.

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“…Any damage to the soil structure also damages other environmental elements and ecosystems. Soil biodiversity assessment and biological monitoring is required to correctly assess soil degradation and correlated risks, as well as soil quality (Aksoy et al, 2017;Squire et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detection and reduction of land degradation in Smarde municipality rural territory

Cintina¹,

Baumane²

2017

Research for Rural Development

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The aim of the paper is to explore the possibilities of detection and reduction of land degradation in Smarde municipality rural territory (56°57′18″ N; 23°20′17″ E). To carry out land degradation prevention measures, initially the territories of degraded land should be determined. This paper highlights the field inspection method. For territory inspection a model was used that gave the opportunity to identify degradation types with their characteristic features and possibilities to reduce the land degradation. The territory of Smarde municipality rural territory was inspected in nature and degraded territories identified. The costs of land degradation elimination depend on the type of land degradation. In territories where the land degradation reduction or elimination has been done, its control has to continue in order to stop the development of land degradation.

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Assessing soil biodiversity potentials in Europe

Cited by 36 publications

References 38 publications

Mapping the suitability of groundwater-dependent vegetation in a semi-arid Mediterranean area

Mapping the suitability of groundwater-dependent vegetation in a semi-arid Mediterranean area

Mapping Soil Biodiversity in Europe and the Netherlands

Detection and reduction of land degradation in Smarde municipality rural territory

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