The Green Belt as a European Ecological Network strengths and gaps

Marco Neubert, Sylvi Bianchin
DETECTING GAPS – GIS-BASED INVENTORY OF ECOLOGICAL NETWORKS IN SELECTED
CENTRAL EUROPEAN BORDER REGIONS
2 METHODOLOGY
Figure 1: Location of the TransEcoNet study area
Dudley and Parish (2006 [4]) define six key steps in a protected area gap analysis. In
our gap analysis (figure 2) we followed these key steps but we used easily accessible data on
ecosystems (CORINE land cover data set classified through a hemeroby index which we used
as a proxy for non-available data on ecosystems respectively biodiversity for the investigation
area) as well as worldwide accessible species data (IUCN database). We combined a
corridor/habitat approach (identification of existing and potential habitat corridors) with a
species occurrence approach (number of threatened species of mammals, birds, reptiles and
amphibians) for the prioritisation process [8], [9].
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