IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i21p5899-d279652.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Urbanisation of Protected Areas within the European Union—An Analysis of UNESCO Biospheres and the Need for New Strategies

Author

Listed:
  • Maryann Harris

    (School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
    Parks and Landscape Services, Dublin City Council, Civic Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin 8, Ireland)

  • Claire Cave

    (School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland)

  • Karen Foley

    (Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
    School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland)

  • Thomas Bolger

    (School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
    Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland)

  • Tamara Hochstrasser

    (School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
    Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland)

Abstract

The UNESCO Biosphere Reserves (BRs) comprise core conservation areas supported by a buffer and transition zone of sustainable development. This zoning can help manage urbanisation around conservation areas. Although it is UNESCO policy to measure the number of BRs that have interactions with urban areas, there has been no systematic assessment of urban biospheres since 2008. This research addresses this deficit by measuring the extent of urbanisation of all designated BRs within the European Union (EU). Using the Copernicus Urban Atlas, the proximity of BRs to Functional Urban Areas (FUA) was determined. The results show that 46% (76/167) of BRs are situated within FUAs, including 11% (18/167) entirely within an FUA. The majority (64%) of EU-28 countries have BRs within FUAs. Urban influences on EU-28 BRs are extensive, as 90% are found within 50 km of an FUA. However, integration with urban areas may be lacking as 14% of EU BRs were adjacent to an FUA. Urban pressures are acute for 11% of EU BRs which had multiple FUAs within a 50 km radius. Therefore, urbanisation of BRs is a widespread challenge and recommendations are provided for BRs to function as an information sharing network and develop a new urban strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Maryann Harris & Claire Cave & Karen Foley & Thomas Bolger & Tamara Hochstrasser, 2019. "Urbanisation of Protected Areas within the European Union—An Analysis of UNESCO Biospheres and the Need for New Strategies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-26, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:21:p:5899-:d:279652
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/21/5899/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/21/5899/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James E. M. Watson & Nigel Dudley & Daniel B. Segan & Marc Hockings, 2014. "The performance and potential of protected areas," Nature, Nature, vol. 515(7525), pages 67-73, November.
    2. Filipe Batista e Silva & Hugo Poelman, 2016. "Mapping population density in Functional Urban Areas - A method to downscale population statistics to Urban Atlas polygons," JRC Research Reports JRC103756, Joint Research Centre.
    3. Wenwu Du & Sofia M. Penabaz-Wiley & Anthony Murithi Njeru & Isami Kinoshita, 2015. "Models and Approaches for Integrating Protected Areas with Their Surroundings: A Review of the Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-27, June.
    4. Marta F. Calvache & María-José Prados & Júlia M. Lourenço, 2016. "Assessment of National Parks affected by naturbanization processes in Southern Europe," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(9), pages 1629-1655, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erik Aschenbrand & Thomas Michler, 2021. "Why Do UNESCO Biosphere Reserves Get Less Recognition than National Parks? A Landscape Research Perspective on Protected Area Narratives in Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-18, December.
    2. Erik Aschenbrand, 2022. "How Can We Promote Sustainable Regional Development and Biodiversity Conservation in Regions with Demographic Decline? The Case of UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Elbe River Landscape Brandenburg, Germany," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-18, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bernadetta Zawilińska & Patrycja Brańka & Karol Majewski & Marcin Semczuk, 2021. "National Parks—Areas of Economic Development or Stagnation? Evidence from Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-24, October.
    2. Liang Chang & Teiji Watanabe & Hanlin Xu & Jiho Han, 2022. "Knowledge Mapping on Nepal’s Protected Areas Using CiteSpace and VOSviewer," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-23, July.
    3. Mariane Paulina Batalha Roque & José Ambrósio Ferreira Neto & André Luiz Lopes Faria, 2022. "Degraded grassland and the conflict of land use in protected areas of hotspot in Brazil," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 1475-1492, January.
    4. Chunrong Mi & Liang Ma & Mengyuan Yang & Xinhai Li & Shai Meiri & Uri Roll & Oleksandra Oskyrko & Daniel Pincheira-Donoso & Lilly P. Harvey & Daniel Jablonski & Barbod Safaei-Mahroo & Hanyeh Ghaffari , 2023. "Global Protected Areas as refuges for amphibians and reptiles under climate change," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.
    5. Ming-Kuang Chung & Dau-Jye Lu & Bor-Wen Tsai & Kuei-Tien Chou, 2019. "Assessing Effectiveness of PPGIS on Protected Areas by Governance Quality: A Case Study of Community-Based Monitoring in Wu-Wei-Kang Wildlife Refuge, Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-20, August.
    6. Tingting Zhang & Dan He & Tian Kuang & Ke Chen, 2022. "Effect of Rural Human Settlement Environment around Nature Reserves on Farmers’ Well-Being: A Field Survey Based on 1002 Farmer Households around Six Nature Reserves in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-18, May.
    7. Thomas Campagnaro & Giovanni Trentanovi & Tommaso Sitzia, 2018. "Identifying Habitat Type Conservation Priorities under the Habitats Directive: Application to Two Italian Biogeographical Regions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-20, April.
    8. Susan C. Cook-Patton & C. Ronnie Drever & Bronson W. Griscom & Kelley Hamrick & Hamilton Hardman & Timm Kroeger & Pablo Pacheco & Shyla Raghav & Martha Stevenson & Chris Webb & Samantha Yeo & Peter W., 2021. "Protect, manage and then restore lands for climate mitigation," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(12), pages 1027-1034, December.
    9. Gregor Schwerhoff & Ottmar Edenhofer & Marc Fleurbaey, 2020. "Taxation Of Economic Rents," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 398-423, April.
    10. Ziqi Meng & Jinwei Dong & Erle C. Ellis & Graciela Metternicht & Yuanwei Qin & Xiao-Peng Song & Sara Löfqvist & Rachael D. Garrett & Xiaopeng Jia & Xiangming Xiao, 2023. "Post-2020 biodiversity framework challenged by cropland expansion in protected areas," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 6(7), pages 758-768, July.
    11. Adam Pawlewicz & Wojciech Gotkiewicz & Katarzyna Brodzińska & Katarzyna Pawlewicz & Bartosz Mickiewicz & Paweł Kluczek, 2022. "Organic Farming as an Alternative Maintenance Strategy in the Opinion of Farmers from Natura 2000 Areas," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-22, March.
    12. Rachel Nichols & Satoshi Yamazaki & Sarah Jennings, 2021. "How did a network of marine protected areas impact adjacent fisheries? Evidence from Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 65(1), pages 119-142, January.
    13. Li, Shicheng & Zhang, Heng & Zhou, Xuewu & Yu, Haibin & Li, Wangjun, 2020. "Enhancing protected areas for biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    14. Patricio Sarmiento-Mateos & Cecilia Arnaiz-Schmitz & Cristina Herrero-Jáuregui & Francisco D. Pineda & María F. Schmitz, 2019. "Designing Protected Areas for Social–Ecological Sustainability: Effectiveness of Management Guidelines for Preserving Cultural Landscapes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-20, May.
    15. Nguyen, Minh-Hoang, 2023. "Investigating urban residents' involvement in biodiversity conservation in protected areas: Empirical evidence from Vietnam," Thesis Commons z2hjv, Center for Open Science.
    16. Ullah, S M Asik & Tani, Masakazu & Tsuchiya, Jun & Rahman, M.Abiar & Moriyama, Masao, 2022. "Impact of protected areas and co-management on forest cover: A case study from Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary, Bangladesh," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    17. Weaver, David B. & Lawton, Laura J., 2017. "A new visitation paradigm for protected areas," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 140-146.
    18. Qiaoqiao Zhan & Katsunori Furuya & Xiaolan Tang & Zhehui Li, 2024. "Policy Development in China’s Protected Scenic and Historic Areas," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-24, February.
    19. Jacqueline Loos & Henrik Von Wehrden, 2018. "Beyond Biodiversity Conservation: Land Sharing Constitutes Sustainable Agriculture in European Cultural Landscapes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-11, May.
    20. Sol, Joeri, 2019. "Economics in the anthropocene: species extinction or steady state economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-1.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:21:p:5899-:d:279652. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.