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TOWARDS A CORE DATA SET FOR LANDSCAPE ASSESSMENTS
Citation:
JONES, B., J. WALKER, N. ZACCARELLI, W. G. KEPNER, AND G. ZURLINI. TOWARDS A CORE DATA SET FOR LANDSCAPE ASSESSMENTS. ECOSYSTEMS. Springer, New York, NY, 11:48-65, (2005).
Impact/Purpose:
To provide broad-based support for the Intermediate Office of NERL and to facilitate outreach and communications with peers, stakeholders, clients, and the public.
Description:
One of the primary goals of the NATO Committee on Challenges to Modern Society (CCMS) Landscape Pilot Study is to further develop, apply, and share landscape assessment technologies and spatial databases among participating countries, with the ultimate aim of sustaining environmental quality and a high quality of life. These assessments cover a range of issues (water quality, landscape condition, biological diversity, urbanization, global climate change) and spatial scales (local to Basin-level).
Based on a general characterization and assessment of the individual projects in the Pilot Study, we conclude that there is no single minimum set of data that meets the needs of all participating countries. However, there is a small set of core data that are being used across most of the projects, including attributes for land cover (Corine data), digital elevation model (DEM) data, and soils. These data are found in most of the individual projects because they are readily available and also capture processes controlling a wide range of environmental endpoints. Because they are being used by many of the projects, and because they are readily available, these core data offer the potential to conduct broad-scale or cross-country assessments in Europe. The primary aim of such a project would be to target and prioritize areas for further study and protection rather than to predict or forecast states (conditions) or responses to management for specific areas. The latter objective is part of some of the individual projects. We provide a review of core data sets used in a wide range of landscape assessments. We also identify a number of potential sources of data and provide some general recommendations for their use.