IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i2p398-d197620.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluating European Conservation Areas and Proposal of New Zones of Conservation under the Habitats Directive. Application to Spanish Territories

Author

Listed:
  • Víctor Rincón

    (Departamento de Farmacología, Farmacognosia y Botánica, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Plaza de Ramón y Cajal, s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain)

  • Javier Velázquez

    (Universidad Católica de Ávila, Calle de los Canteros, s/n, 05005 Ávila, Spain
    Silvanet Research Group, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain)

  • Javier Gutiérrez

    (Universidad Católica de Ávila, Calle de los Canteros, s/n, 05005 Ávila, Spain)

  • Beatriz Sánchez

    (Universidad Católica de Ávila, Calle de los Canteros, s/n, 05005 Ávila, Spain)

  • Ana Hernando

    (Universidad Católica de Ávila, Calle de los Canteros, s/n, 05005 Ávila, Spain
    Silvanet Research Group, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain)

  • Antonio García-Abril

    (Silvanet Research Group, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain)

  • Tomás Santamaría

    (Universidad Católica de Ávila, Calle de los Canteros, s/n, 05005 Ávila, Spain)

  • Daniel Sánchez-Mata

    (Departamento de Farmacología, Farmacognosia y Botánica, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Plaza de Ramón y Cajal, s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain)

Abstract

The European Union (EU) ensures the conservation of biodiversity through the Natura 2000 Network, which establishes the classification and selection of protected areas at European level. Unfortunately, member countries cannot make the best zoning decisions for biodiversity conservation because there are no clear and uniform parameters to designate Natura 2000 sites. Due to this, it is convenient to evaluate the importance of the criteria for biodiversity conservation through a general assessment, which could establish relevant criteria that can be analysed through geostatistical methods combined in multicriteria analysis. This paper aims to consider biodiversity importance values taking into account land use, so that it is possible to develop a zoning proposal which verifies or corrects the suitability of the designated areas for the Natura 2000 Network in Castilla y León, Andalucía and Madrid (Spain). The choice of these regions allows us to compare areas with a high variability of population density, making possible to compare the potential protected areas with respect to the population living in each area. This assessment has been performed using basic and easily adaptable criteria of biodiversity conservation, so it could be applied in other European territories. In this way, clear and uniform parameters for zoning will be used, being possible to detect the best protected areas. One of the most important purposes of the Natura 2000 Network is to increase connectivity between territories; our work proposes new areas that could be linked to currently protected territories, to favour the achievement of this purpose of the Natura 2000 Network.

Suggested Citation

  • Víctor Rincón & Javier Velázquez & Javier Gutiérrez & Beatriz Sánchez & Ana Hernando & Antonio García-Abril & Tomás Santamaría & Daniel Sánchez-Mata, 2019. "Evaluating European Conservation Areas and Proposal of New Zones of Conservation under the Habitats Directive. Application to Spanish Territories," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-25, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:2:p:398-:d:197620
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/2/398/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/2/398/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keeney,Ralph L. & Raiffa,Howard, 1993. "Decisions with Multiple Objectives," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521438834.
    2. Norman Myers & Russell A. Mittermeier & Cristina G. Mittermeier & Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca & Jennifer Kent, 2000. "Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities," Nature, Nature, vol. 403(6772), pages 853-858, February.
    3. C. R. Margules & R. L. Pressey, 2000. "Systematic conservation planning," Nature, Nature, vol. 405(6783), pages 243-253, May.
    4. Costello, Christopher & Polasky, Stephen, 2004. "Dynamic reserve site selection," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 157-174, June.
    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. Junze Liu & Xiaoyuan Huang & Huijun Guo & Zhuoya Zhang & Xiaona Li & Mengxiao Ge, 2022. "Study on Functional Zoning Method of National Park Based on MCDA: The Case of the Proposed “Ailaoshan-Wuliangshan” National Park," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-15, October.

    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. Takuya Iwamura & Kerrie A Wilson & Oscar Venter & Hugh P Possingham, 2010. "A Climatic Stability Approach to Prioritizing Global Conservation Investments," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(11), pages 1-9, November.
    2. Boyd, James & Epanchin-Niell, Rebecca & Siikamaki, Juha, 2012. "Conservation Return on Investment Analysis: A Review of Results, Methods, and New Directions," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-01, Resources for the Future.
    3. Newburn, David A. & Berck, Peter & Merenlender, Adina, 2005. "Habitat and open space at risk and the prioritization of conservation easements," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19345, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    4. Wang, Haoluan, 2017. "Land Conservation for Open Space: The Impact of Neighbors and the Natural Environment," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258125, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Eppink, Florian V. & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2007. "Ecological theories and indicators in economic models of biodiversity loss and conservation: A critical review," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 284-293, March.
    6. John A. Gallo & Amanda T. Lombard & Richard M. Cowling, 2022. "Conservation Planning for Action: End-User Engagement in the Development and Dual-Centric Weighting of a Spatial Decision Support System," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-14, December.
    7. 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).
    8. Lewis, David J. & Plantinga, Andrew J. & Nelson, Erik & Polasky, Stephen, 2011. "The efficiency of voluntary incentive policies for preventing biodiversity loss," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 192-211, January.
    9. Caitlin Cunningham & Karen F. Beazley, 2018. "Changes in Human Population Density and Protected Areas in Terrestrial Global Biodiversity Hotspots, 1995–2015," Land, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-20, November.
    10. Luis Santiago Castillo & Camilo Andrés Correa Ayram & Clara L. Matallana Tobón & Germán Corzo & Alexandra Areiza & Roy González-M. & Felipe Serrano & Luis Chalán Briceño & Felipe Sánchez Puertas & Ale, 2020. "Connectivity of Protected Areas: Effect of Human Pressure and Subnational Contributions in the Ecoregions of Tropical Andean Countries," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-19, July.
    11. Erica Honeck & Atte Moilanen & Benjamin Guinaudeau & Nicolas Wyler & Martin A. Schlaepfer & Pascal Martin & Arthur Sanguet & Loreto Urbina & Bertrand von Arx & Joëlle Massy & Claude Fischer & Anthony , 2020. "Implementing Green Infrastructure for the Spatial Planning of Peri-Urban Areas in Geneva, Switzerland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-20, February.
    12. Stefan Hajkowicz & Andrew Higgins & Kristen Williams & Daniel P. Faith & Michael Burton, 2007. "Optimisation and the selection of conservation contracts," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 51(1), pages 39-56, March.
    13. Huirong Yu, 2022. "A multi-scale approach to mapping conservation priorities for rural China based on landscape context," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(9), pages 10803-10828, September.
    14. Sándor F. Tóth & Robert G. Haight & Luke W. Rogers, 2011. "Dynamic Reserve Selection: Optimal Land Retention with Land-Price Feedbacks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(5), pages 1059-1078, October.
    15. Miao, Ruiqing & Feng, Hongli & Hennessy, David A. & Arora, Gaurav & Loesch, Charles R., 2022. "Grassland Easement Acquisition: Conversion Hazard Rate, Additionality, and Spatial Spillover," 2022 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting (Virtual), January 7-9, 2022 316531, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. Onal, Hayri & Yanprechaset, Pornchanok, 2007. "Site accessibility and prioritization of nature reserves," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 763-773, February.
    17. 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.
    18. Dissanayake, Sahan T.M. & Önal, Hayri, 2011. "Amenity driven price effects and conservation reserve site selection: A dynamic linear integer programming approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2225-2235.
    19. Carter, Neil & Levin, Simon & Barlow, Adam & Grimm, Volker, 2015. "Modeling tiger population and territory dynamics using an agent-based approach," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 312(C), pages 347-362.
    20. Sebastian Schmidt & Stephan Busse & Elshan Nuriyev, 2017. "Government and biodiversity governance in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan: an institutional perspective," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 19(5), pages 1953-1980, October.

    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:2:p:398-:d:197620. 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.