A framework for habitat monitoring and climate change modelling: construction and validation of the Environmental Stratification of Estonia

Abstract

Environmental stratifications provide the framework for efficient surveillance and monitoring of biodiversity and ecological resources, as well as modelling exercises. An obstacle for agricultural landscape monitoring in Estonia has been the lack of a framework for the objective selection of monitoring sites. This paper describes the construction and testing of the Environmental Stratification of Estonia (ESE). Principal components analysis (PCA) was used to select the variables that capture the most amount of variation. Seven climate variables and topography were selected and subsequently subjected to the ISODATA clustering routine in order to produce relatively homogeneous environmental strata. The ESE contains eight strata, which have been described in terms of soil, land cover and climatic parameters. In order to assess the reliability of the stratification procedure for the selection of monitoring sites, the ESE was compared with the previous map of Landscape Regions of Estonia and correlated with five environmental datasets. All correlations were significant. The stratification has therefore already been used to extend the current series of samples in agricultural landscapes into a more statistically robust series of monitoring sites. The potential for applying climate change scenarios to assess the shifts in the strata and associated ecological impacts is also examined.

A Review of Approaches for Automated Habitat Mapping and their Potential Added Value for Biodiversity Monitoring Projects

“…Geijzendorffer & Roche (2013) have shown that the GHCs are sufficiently robust to record habitats consistently. More recently Villoslada et al (2017) have carried out a similar procedure at a smaller scale in the 45,000 1 km squares in Estonia.…”

Reasoning for the Selection of Indicative Objects for Landscape Monitoring of Environmental Territory and Research by Remote Sensing Data and Field Surveying

“…Моделювання екологічної стратифікації ландшафтів проводилося вченими Естонії для збереження біорізноманіття [11], моделювання майбутнього лісових ландшафтів Карпат внаслідок змін кліматичних умов -у роботі [12].…”

Ecological landscape elements: long-term monitoring in Great Britain, the Countryside Survey 1978–2007 and beyond

“…This successful method of the consistent classification of land into relatively homogenous strata has been proven to provide a valuable spatial framework as the basis for monitoring ecological indicators across large areas. There are now several examples of where the British methods have been emulated effectively, including Northern Ireland (Cooper, 2000), Spain (Elena-Rosselló, 1997), Norway (Bakkestuen et al, 2008), Sweden (Ståhl et al, 2011), Estonia (Villoslada et al, 2016) and Europe (and the whole world) (Metzger et al, 2013).…”