European framework for surveillance and monitoring of habitats: a methodological approach for Spain

Abstract

There is a well defined policy requirement for a practical and reproducible procedure for surveillance and monitoring of habitats in Spain that can subsequently be fitted into a European framework. Any such procedure also needs to incorporate records of the Spanish habitat classification.A procedure is described that will satisfy those requirements and has been field tested both in Spain and in Europe. Rigorous rules and training are required; otherwise changes from baseline records cannot reliably be separated from background noise. The procedure uses the classical plant life forms long used in biogeography and is based on their statistical relationship with the environment. This relationship has been validated statistically and the procedure has also been tested in the field in all European environmental zones and widely in Spain. 130 General Habitat Categories are defined and these are enhanced in the field by recording environmental, site and management qualities to produce a flexible database that can then be interrogated. The rules for mapping the habitats mean that they can be used for descriptive purposes or for monitoring. In conjunction with stratification and subsequent sampling, national estimates of stock and change can then be produced.Finally, based on the previous experience of SISPARES, a methodological scheme is proposed for adapting the approach to Spain. The proposal will allow links to be made between European scale surveillance and monitoring to those already obtained for Spain.Key words: field recording, stratification, biodiversity, life forms, BIOHAB, SISPARES. Resumen Estructura europea para la supervisión y el seguimiento de hábitats: aproximación metodológica para EspañaExisten en España políticas bien definidas que demandan procedimientos prácticos y reproducibles para llevar a cabo la supervisión y seguimiento de los hábitats, de modo que subsecuentemente puedan ajustarse al marco Europeo. Cualquier procedimiento de estas características necesita poder incorporar datos registrados de la clasificación española de hábitats.Aquí se describe un procedimiento que satisface dichos requisitos y que ha sido probado tanto en España como en el resto de Europa. El método exige reglas rigurosas y entrenamiento de campo; si no los cambios en los registros bá-sicos no se podrán separar de manera fiable de los errores subjetivos cometidos durante la toma de datos. El procedimiento utiliza las clásicas formas de vida, ampliamente utilizadas en estudios biogeográficos y está basado en sus relaciones con el medio ambiente. Esta relación ha sido validada estadísticamente y el procedimiento ha sido probado en el campo en todas las zonas ambientales de Europa.En España, se han definido 130 Categorías Generales de Hábitats y se han verificado en el campo mediante el registro de atributos ambientales, estacionales y de manejo, de forma que puedan ser incluidas en una base de datos suficientemente flexible. Las directrices para la cartografía de hábitats posibilitan su uso descriptivo y permiten su...

Harmonization of the Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) with the General Habitat Categories (GHC) classification system

“…Common approaches for monitoring changes in habitat also require definitions and rules that are harmonised continentally and globally. To address this problem, Bunce et al (2005Bunce et al ( , 2006Bunce et al ( , 2008Bunce et al ( , 2011 introduced the General Habitat Categories (GHCs) and tested it throughout Europe. The GHC procedure has been developed based on the definition of habitat as "an element of land that can be consistently defined spatially in the field in order to determine the principal environments in which organisms live".…”

A review and a framework for the integration of biodiversity monitoring at the habitat level

“…Monitoring of land cover changes has a long tradition in Europe, starting with the SISPARES programme in Spain in 1956 and the Countryside Survey of the UK in 1973 (Brandt et al 2002;Firbank et al 2003;Bunce et al 2006). In several of these programmes, the integration of different approaches of surveillance and monitoring has already been achieved.…”

Bridging theory and implementation – Testing an abstract classification system for practical mapping by field survey and 3D aerial photographic interpretation

“…A high rate of progress combined with high classification accuracy is likely to be achieved if the methods combining API and FS are optimally organized (Skånes 1997;Sickel et al 2004;Bunce et al 2006;Groom et al 2006;Wehn et al 2015). Combined methods starting with API and followed by FS reduce the amount of work to be done in field, thus reducing the cost of land cover mapping (Lewis et al 2013).…”

“…Similar results were found in previous studies (Fox et al 2000;Benz et al 2004;Ihse 2007;Wehn et al 2015). A high rate of progress combined with high classification accuracy is likely to be achieved by methods that combine API and FS (Skånes 1997;Sickel et al 2004;Bunce et al 2006;Groom et al 2006;Wehn et al 2015).…”