Keywords: GIS, natural protected areas, landforms, biodiversity, geodiversity

Transcription

1 GIS ASSESSMENT OF LANDFORM DIVERSITY COVERED BY NATURAL PROTECTED AREAS IN ROMANIA Alexandru-Ionuţ PETRIŞOR* Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, Romania National Institute for Research and Development in Spatial and Urban Planning, Bucharest, Romania ABSTRACT. The richness of the natural heritage of Romania pleads for the need of conserving its geodiversity and biodiversity. The natural protected areas (reserves) should reflect the national biogeographical diversity. Geographical Information Systems provide a methodology to assess whether this conservation goal is met. This paper focuses on employing the GIS methodology to assess whether existing natural protected areas reflect the national geodiversity, particularly the diversity of landforms. Results suggest that high regions (mountains, hills and plateaus) are well covered, including over 50% of each type of reserve, while plains are covered lesser. The expansion of protected areas by declaring new sites is already a priority of the governmental agenda; nevertheless, plain regions should be considered first when choosing new sites to constitute a reserve. Keywords: GIS, natural protected areas, landforms, biodiversity, geodiversity INTRODUCTION The rich natural heritage of Romania can be assessed qualitatively and quantitatively by using two concepts. Geodiversity refers to the heterogeneity of landscape features, i.e., geological features (rocks, minerals, fossils, and structures), geomorphological features (landforms and processes), and soil (Gray, 2004), while biodiversity embeds the variability of organisms, populations and ecosystems, including the systems dominated by the human species (Petrişor, 2008). Numerous studies had underlined the direct correlation between geodiversity and biodiversity (Musila et al., 2005; Santucci, 2005), resulting into the definition of biogeographical regions. Out of the eleven biogeographical regions identified in Europe, five are also present in Romania (Petrişor, 2008). The richness of the geographical and biological heritage of Romania can be understood by simply counting its components: five types of landforms - floodplain, plain, hill or plateau, and mountain (Mâra, 2007; Cazan et al., 2004); five biogeographical regions - alpine, Black Sea, continental, pannonian, and steppic (Petrişor, 2008); 900 mineral species from the Carpathians (Papp and Szakáll, 1996); 10 classes and 39 types of soils (Ministerul Mediului şi Dezvoltării Durabile, 2008); over 3,700 higher plant species and more than 33,802 animal species (Vădineanu, 2003); and 783 types of habitats identified and characterized in 261 areas analyzed all over the national territory within the framework of the Coordinated Information on the European Environment (CORINE) Biotopes Program (Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development, 2007). The goals of protecting biodiversity and geodiversity are achieved by establishing natural protected areas. The European policy on nature conservation consists of two pieces of legislation: Council Directive 79/409/EEC on the protection of wild birds, known as the "Birds Directive" and adopted in April 1979, and Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora, known as the "Habitats Directive" and adopted in May At the core of this policy is the creation of a coherent ecological network of protected areas across the continent, known as NATURA 2000 and formed by Special Protection Areas (SPAs) established in order to conserve the 182 bird species and sub-species listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive as well as migratory birds, and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) / Sites of Community Importance (SCIs) established in order to established in order to conserve the 253 habitat types, 200 animal and 434 plant species listed under the Habitats Directive; the aim is for the network to cover more than 20% of the territory of the European Union (Byron and Arnold, 2008). The Special Protection Areas, Special Areas of Conservation and Sites of Community Importance were declared in Romania as a result of joining the Natura 2000 program. The Romanian legislation had established twelve categories of protected areas (parentheses indicate the nature of the elements focusing the conservation goals): scientific reserves (biological), national parks (biological), natural monuments (biological and/or geological), natural reserves (biological and/or geological), geo-parks (geological), natural parks (biological), biosphere reserves (biological), wetlands designated as internationally important under the Convention of Ramsar (biological), natural sites of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (biological), Sites of Community Importance (biological), Special Areas of Conservation (biological), and Special Protection Areas (biological). The management of these categories follows the recommendations of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), European or other international guidelines, as well as *Correspondence: Alexandru-Ionuţ Petrişor, Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism, str. Academiei, nr , sector 1, cod , Bucharest, Romania, telephone: +4-(021) , fax: +4(021) , a.i.petrisor@gmail.com Article received: August 2009; published: November 2009

2 Petrişor A.I. recommendations established by international conventions, treaties or other similar instruments. Scientific reserves, national parks, natural monuments, natural reserves, and natural parks correspond to IUCN categories I to V (IUCN, 1994). The establishment of all these protected areas was also made in accordance with the aim to safeguard for the future generations ecosystems representative for the biogeographical space and biodiversity (IUCN et al., 1980). The coverage of the biogeographical regions in Romania by natural protected areas had been analyzed using the Geographical Information Systems - GIS (Petrişor, 2008). A GIS represents a decision support system involving the integration of spatially referenced data in a problem solving environment (Cowen, 1988) or a collection of computer hardware, software, geographic data, and personnel designed to efficiently capture, store, update, manipulate, analyze, and display all forms of geographically referenced information (Ioniţă and Moise, 2001). Applications of the GIS methodology to the conservation included an assessment whether natural protected areas cover the biogeographical diversity of wetlands in Romania (Petrişor, in press). The purpose of this paper is to use the GIS methodology to assess the relationship between the conservation of biodiversity and geodiversity in Romania in a case study looking at the coverage of landforms by four types of natural protected areas declared up to the moment, i.e., national and natural parks, scientific and natural reserves, natural monuments, Sites of Community Importance (Natura 2000), Special Areas of Conservation (Natura 2000), and Special Protection Areas (Natura 2000). MATERIALS AND METHODS This study had integrated two datasets: (1) data on natural protected areas from Romania, available for free public download from the website of the Romanian Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development at the Uniform Resource Locator(URL): e/biodiversitate/ and (2) landforms, derived from the digital elevation model (DEM) of Romania, subsampled from the European data available from the European Environment Agency (EEA) at the URL: Both datasets were available in ArcView GIS format, but some corrections were made to provide for the compatibility of European data with the Stereo70 projection used in Romania. The main methodological issue was related to the definition of landforms by altitude. Different authors propose a wide range of altitude limits to discriminate between landforms: plains - up to 300 m., hills and plateaus - up to 800 m. (Mâra, 2007); plains - up to 200 m., hills and plateaus - up to 1000 m. (Cazan et al., 2004). However, even the two works cited above do no provide a clear limit of separation between hills or 360 plateaus and mountains. Moreover, the two classes overlap for an interval of approximately 200 m. altitude. This study proposes the following limits of the landforms: floodplain - 0 to less than 20 m, plain - 0 to less than 200 m, hill or plateau to less than 900 m, and mountain - over 900 m. The two datasets were overlaid for a visual and quantitative analysis of information. Quantitative analyses consisted of using GIS spatial analysis and geo-processing functions to compute areas of all reserves belonging to each particular type situated within a given landform, classified based on the DEM: the percentage of a certain type of reserve situated in a particular landform was computed dividing the area of the specified type of reserve within the given landform by the total area of reserves of the same type in Romania, regardless of the landform where they are situated; in addition, reserves were classified based on the altitude where they are situated: the percentage of protected areas at low altitudes was computed as the sum of protected areas within the floodplain and plain regions, computed for each type of reserve; and the percentage of protected areas at high altitudes represented the sum of protected areas within the hill, plateau and mountain regions, computed for each type of reserve. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The results are displayed graphically in Figure 1 and numerically in Table 1. The map in Figure 1 also displays the area subjected to the application of the Convention on the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians, even though this area cannot be considered a natural protected area in the true meaning of this concept, as protective actions are only recommended, but not compulsory within its perimeter. For this reason, this territory has not been included in the calculations displayed in Table 1. Excepting for the aforementioned region, the visual analysis of Figure 1 suggests that most protected areas are situated in high altitude regions. This conclusion is strengthened by the data displayed in Table 1, showing that regardless of the type of reserve, most protected areas are situated in the hill, plateau or mountain regions (over 50% in each case; it is noteworthy mentioning that over 90% of the Special Protection Areas are at high altitude). The results suggest that the mountain areas of Romania are well covered by natural protected areas. This is in line with the same concerns that had led to the adoption of the Convention on the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians. At the same time, costal areas and wetlands are also well covered, most likely due to the overall contribution of the size of Danube Delta reserve of the biosphere. Nevertheless, there is a need to cover other landforms, such as the plains; the need has already led to a priority of the governing program (Government of Romania, 2004). Vol. 19, issue 2, 2009, pp

3 GIS assessment of landform diversity covered by natural protected areas in Romania Fig. 1 Position of natural protected areas in Romania based on the landforms. Landforms is displayed using gray shades (the brighter, the higher the altitude), while protected areas appear as hatched areas, with a different symbol for each type considered. The image also displays the limits of application of the Convention on the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians as a black contour. 361

4 Petrişor A.I. Table 1 Areas of different types of natural protected areas by landform where they are situated and corresponding percentages Type of natural protected area Floodplain Plain Area % at low altitudes % * Area % * ** Hill/plateau Mountain Area % * Area % at high altitudes *** National and natural parks Scientific and natural reserves, natural monuments Sites of Community Importance (Natura 2000) Special Areas of Conservation (Natura 2000) Special Protection Areas (Natura 2000) * The percentage of a certain type of reserve situated in a particular landform was computed dividing the area of the specified type of reserve within the given landform by the total area of reserves of the same type in Romania, regardless of the landform where they are situated. ** The percentage of protected areas at low altitudes represents the sum of protected areas within the floodplain and plain regions, computed for each type of reserve. *** The percentage of protected areas at high altitudes represents the sum of protected areas within the hill, plateau and mountain regions, computed for each type of reserve. % * It is important to note that the inclusion of a certain territory in a particular type of reserve is not exclusive and does not prevent the inclusion of the same territory or of its parts in a different type of reserve. This statement is particularly true for SCIs, SACs and SPAs (Naumann, 2007); moreover, parts of the Danube Delta biosphere reserve are enlisted with the RAMSAR convention, with the Man and Biosphere Program, and with the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Consequently, the areas computed in Table 1 could be used to provide for a general image, but should be used with caution when comparing two types of reserves, as corrections for overlapping are required in this case for accurate estimations. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that high regions (mountains, hills and plateaus) are well covered by natural protected areas, including over 50% of each type of reserve, while plains are covered lesser. Therefore, the expansion of protected areas, in line with governmental priorities, should give priority to the inclusion of representative sites situated in the plain areas. In addition, the study underlined the potential of the GIS methodology in analyzing the effectiveness of conservation strategies. Possible limitations might be due to the definition of landforms by altitude. Nevertheless, such limitation underlines the flexibility of GIS as a decision support system, allowing for the input from different specialists. REFERENCES Gray M, Geodiversity - valuing and conserving abiotic nature. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, Petrişor AI, Levels of biological diversity: a spatial approach to assessment methods, Romanian Review of Regional Studies, 4(1), 41 62, Musila W, Todt H, Uster D, Dalitz H, Is Geodiversity Correlated to Biodiversity? A Case Study of the Relationship Between Spatial Heterogeneity of 362 Soil Resources and Tree Diversity in a Western Kenyan Rainforest, African Biodiversity, Springer-Verlag, New York, , Santucci VL, 2005, Historical Perspectives on Biodiversity and Geodiversity, Geodiversity & Geoconservation, 22(3), 29 34, Mâra L, Elaborarea studiului de analiză strategică de mediu pentru Planul de Amenajare a Teritoriului Naţional, Secţiunea a VI-a - Zone turistice. Faza 1 - Aspecte relevante ale stării actuale a mediului, caracteristici de mediu, Zone cu importanţă specială pentru mediu, IPTANA- S.A., Bucharest, Cazan CM, Cherciu R, Manda M, Creează-ţi mediul! Dicţionar de termeni, Holcim, Bucharest, Papp G, Szakáll S, Mineral species discovered in the Carpathian area, Herman Ottó Museum, Miskolc, Ministerul Mediului şi Dezvoltării Durabile, Proiect de Ghid Tehnic privind modalităţile de investigare şi evaluare a poluării solului şi subsolului, Bucharest, 2008, available at the URL tigare_draft_4_august_2008.doc Vădineanu A, Rîşnoveanu G, Gheorghe I, Biodiversity conservation, threats and research in Romania, BioPlatform e-conference Priorities in biodiversity conservation and research in the Acceding and Candidate Countries (ACC) and their integration in the European Research Area (ERA), Byron H, Arnold L, TEN-T and Natura 2000: the way forward. An assessment of the potential impact of the TEN-T Priority Projects on Natura Final report, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Scotland, IUCN, Guidelines for Protected Area Management Categories. Gland, Switzerland, IUCN, UNEP, WWF, FAO, UNESCO, World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Vol. 19, issue 2, 2009, pp

5 GIS assessment of landform diversity covered by natural protected areas in Romania Conservation for Sustainable Development, Morges, Switzerland, Cowen DJ, GIS versus CAD versus DBMS: What Are the Differences?, Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, 54, , Ioniţă A, Moise E, English-Romanian Dictionary for GIS and TIC, ICI Publishing House, Bucharest, Petrişor AI, Using Geographical Information Systems to assess the coverage of wetland biodiversity by Natura 2000 sites within the biogeographical regions of Romania, Environmental Engineering and Management Journal, in press (estimated publication: 2010). Government of Romania, Government Program , Bucharest, Naumann S, Convergence with EU Nature Protection Policies, Ecologic - Institute for International and European Environmental Policy, Berlin,