Ecosystem Guidelines for Environmental Assessment

JAN VLOK
SCEPS
Quartz patches can support a wide array of succulents, such as
Gibbaeum pubescens, Astroloba sp. and Glottiphyllum depressum.
biodiversity specialists. Limiting an environmental investigation to one or the other means that the full
range of potential impacts on biodiversity has not been considered. The findings of such an assessment
would be incomplete, which can have negative ramifications for project planning and authorisation.
What complicates matters, though, is that ecological processes are seldom easy to see - take, for
example, pollination, seasonal migration or seed dispersal - and can occur with great temporal and
spatial variation.
Nevertheless, some ecological processes can be effectively represented by spatial surrogates -
mappable environmental features that serve as area-specific substitutes for the actual processes that
need to be maintained.
Spatial components of ecological process include physical linkages, boundaries and gradients in the
landscape, such as:
- River corridors,
- The interface between different soil types, or between flat areas and slopes, or
- Altitudinal changes in temperature and precipitation.
Spatial components of ecological processes can thus be defined as mappable environmental features
that are required to maintain specific ecological processes.
80 : SPATIAL COMPONENTS OF ECOLOGICAL PROCESSES