The Geodiversity of Brazil: Quantification, Distribution, and Implications for Conservation Areas

Abstract

Research related to geodiversity aim at valuing abiotic aspects as inseparable components of natural heritage and, thus, as well as biodiversity, must be understood and valued through the ordering of their use and geoconservation. Geodiversity studies are developed based on several approaches, from the broadest ones, which contemplate the measurement of abiotic elements fully, to those that assess geoheritage through geodiversity values. The present research follows the broader approach of evaluating and analysing the entire geodiversity, applying the measurement of abiotic elements without their valuation, and spatialising areas with a greater and lesser density of the selected elements related in this research lithology, relief, and soil. For this purpose, bases produced by systematic surveys of Brazilian research institutions were used. As a result, the mapping of the subindexes obtained pointing from the division into 5 classes, the areas which present greater and lesser diversity of each element, as well as the synthesis map for the indexes of geodiversity elements in Brazil, considering the three elements selected for this mapping. The analysis of the indexes' spatialisation was carried out from a descriptive and genetic perspective, aiming to explain the causes of the distribution of the abiotic elements in the Brazilian territory, providing subindexes for studies in the scope of environmental services, nature, and territory conservation planning. A spatial analysis was also carried out between the Geodiversity Index Map and the Brazilian conservation units and the areas where geopark projects are being developed.

Geoeducational assessments in Khon Kaen National Geopark, Thailand: implication for geoconservation and geotourism development

“…As per the geodiversity theory of Gray (2013) , the inventories and characterisation of the KKGp can be classified through fossils, landforms, landscapes, rocks, and minerals. The classification methods ( Ruban, 2010 ; Neches, 2016 ; Ponjiger et al., 2021 ; Pal and Albert, 2021 ; Ferrando et al., 2021 ; Dias et al., 2021 ; de Paula Silva et al., 2021 ; Chrobak et al., 2021 ; Scammacca et al., 2022 ; Carrion-Mero et al., 2022 ) suggest that these geosites have potential as paleontological, geomorphological, stratigraphical, petrological, and mineralogical sites.…”

Geodiversity Assessment as a First Step in Designating Areas of Geotourism Potential. Case Study: Western Carpathians

“…Creating a synthetic map of geodiversity for such a large area as the Western Carpathians is not easy, mainly due to the generalization of component maps, where it is not always possible to notice small elements that may undoubtedly be important from the point of view of geotourism. However, such maps are also needed to designate areas predisposing for more detailed geodiversity analyzes or the creation of geoparks, such as in Brazil (de Paula Silva et al, 2021;Dias et al, 2021), Hungary (Pál and Albert, 2021), Portugal (Pereira et al, 2012), or South Africa (Kori et al, 2019). It is true that the methodology of the above-mentioned analyzes is quite different from the one presented in this article, but in all the examples, it can be seen that the relief diversity plays a major role in creating a geodiversity map.…”

“…The most problematic seems to be the geological (lithological) analysis, because so far no way has been found to objectively classify rock types according to the relevant criteria. The criteria used in the lithological geodiversity map in this article somehow refer to those proposed by, for example, Zwoliński and Stachowiak (2012), de Paula Silva et al (2021), or Fernández (2020. However, it is worth mentioning here a fairly important element, which is not only determining the criteria of individual lithological forms on the basis of their characteristic features and assigning them appropriate values but also reflecting on their diversity resulting from the number of different types of rocks in a given unit (e.g., tectonic) (Chrobak, 2018).…”

Quantifying alpha, beta and gamma geodiversity

“…Instead, a variety of approaches based on field measurements, numerical calculations, statistical methods and GIS-analyses have been applied to measure geodiversity (Boothroyd and McHenry, 2019; Crisp et al, 2021; Zwoliński et al, 2018). The resulting estimates vary substantially from sum-based variables (Antonelli et al, 2018; Hjort et al, 2012; Tukiainen et al, 2017) to different geodiversity indices (De Paula Silva et al, 2021; Ruban, 2010; Serrano and Ruiz-Flaño, 2007) and topographical variables derived from satellite remote sensing data (Lausch et al, 2019; Read et al, 2020; Zarnetske et al, 2019). These estimates are often difficult to compare across or between locations and scales.…”