Landscape ecology for SEA : lessons learned

• Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) calls for analysis of processes and patterns atlandscape scale, which gives the opportunity to include ecosystem services in decision‐making. In order to understand how planning decisions affect ecosystem services such asbiodiversity, it is necessary to analyse ecological processes on landscape and regionalscales. Landscape ecology provides methods and tools for addressing effects on landscapescale, such as effects of habitat loss and fragmentation, which are caused by a wide arrayof human‐induced changes and pose critical threats to biodiversity and other ecosystemservices. Thus, in order to be able to assess impacts on biodiversity, spatial methods andtools based on landscape ecological principles need to be developed. This paper addressesthe use of spatial methods and tools, scale problems, visualization and communication forincorporating landscape ecological methods in SEA. The study is based on lessons learnedfrom experiences in Sweden and Italy that refer to SEA for different levels of planning,from local to regional. This will lead to increased understanding and a discussion on keyissues on how planning processes can be improved through the use of effective tools foranalyzing landscape and its ecosystem services.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

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