Protected area effectiveness against land development in Spain

Abstract

Land use-land cover (LULC) changes towards artificial covers are one of the main global threats to biodiversity conservation. In this comprehensive study, we tested a number of methodological and research hypotheses, and a new covariate control technique in order to address common protected area (PA) assessment issues and accurately assess whether different PA networks have had an effect at preventing development of artificial LULCs in Spain, a highly biodiverse country that has experienced massive socioeconomic transformations in the past two decades. We used digital census data for four PA networks designated between 1990 and 2000: Nature Reserves (NRs), Nature Parks (NPs), Sites of Community Importance (SCIs) and Special Protection Areas (SPAs). We analysed the effect of explanatory variables on the ecological effectiveness of protected polygons (PPs): Legislation stringency, cummulative legal designations, management, size, age and bio-physical characteristics. A multiple Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) semi-experimental research design was used whereby artificial land cover increase (ALCI) and proportional artificial land cover increase (PALCI) results were compared inside and outside PAs, using 1km and 5km buffer areas surrounding PAs as controls. LULC data were retrieved from Corine Land Cover (CLC) 1990 and 2006 data. Results from three spatial-statistical models using progressively restrictive criteria to select control areas increasingly more accurate and similar to the assessed PPs were compared. PAs were a generally effective territorial policy to prevent land development in Spain. NRs were the most effective PA category, with no new artificial covers in the assessed period, although exact causality could not be attributed due to overlaps. SPAs were the least effective category, with worse ALCI data than their control areas. Legal protection was effective against land development, which was influenced by most biophysical variables. However, cumulative legal designations and PA management did not seem to influence land development. The spatial-statistical technique used to make cases and control environmentally similar did not produce consistent outcomes and should be refined.

Effect of protected areas in reducing land development across geographic and climate conditions of a rapidly developing country, Spain

“…There was no consistent pattern of developmental pressure across proximal and distant buffers, in contrast to what was shown by Rodríguez‐Rodríguez and Martínez‐Vega (). Proximal SPA and NR buffers on coastal zones experienced the greatest AAI values, which suggests strong pressures around these areas, many of them coastal wetlands (Capdepón, ).…”

“…Other explaining factors being similar, the substantially lower degree of legal overlap in Atlantic PAs, most of which corresponded to legally lenient, unmanaged SCIs in the assessed period, may additionally explain this finding. Previous studies did not find a correlation between the number of legal overlaps and land development in Spanish PAs but did find differences in effectiveness in particular PA categories with and without legal overlaps (Rodríguez‐Rodríguez & Martínez‐Vega, ), which suggests some influence of this variable on land development at PA category level in Spain. The greatest relative effectiveness of coastal Macaronesian PAs is encouraging to long‐term coastal conservation in a small biogeographic region that is rich in endemic biodiversity (Santamarta, Naranjo, & Arraiza, ) and especially important in the Canary Islands, where over 75% of the species of conservation concern are in unfavourable or unknown conservation status (Prieto, ) and where ecosystem services are deteriorating (Montes et al, ).…”

“…NRs and SPAs were especially effective in coastal areas, whereas SPAs were just moderately effective inland. The high effectiveness of Spanish NRs to prevent land development has been previously stated as resulting from high legal and managerial protection and legal overlaps (Rodríguez‐Rodríguez & Martínez‐Vega, ). The very different performance of coastal and inland SPAs is probably influenced by the larger proportion of legal overlap in coastal SPAs and/or the types of ecosystems that SPAs protect in both zones.…”

“…The very different performance of coastal and inland SPAs is probably influenced by the larger proportion of legal overlap in coastal SPAs and/or the types of ecosystems that SPAs protect in both zones. In Spanish inland areas, many SPAs have an agrarian character (Araújo et al, ; Martínez‐Fernández et al, ) with some biophysical characteristics that make them more prone to land development than other PA categories, such as greater initial percentage of treeless cover (Rodríguez‐Rodríguez & Martínez‐Vega, ). In turn, coastal SPAs likely include a large proportion of wetland area, unsuitable to land development, and may overlap with other legal PA categories more easily.…”

“…We assessed land development using two models: (a) an original model and (b) a biophysically enhanced model (BEM). To create the original model, we deleted the areas affected by additional territorial regulations limiting land development that confer additional protection from the assessed areas, following methodological recommendations (Rodríguez‐Rodríguez & Martínez‐Vega, ). We produced a legal ‘exclusion layer’ including public hydraulic domain areas (Spanish Government, ), public coastal domain areas (Spanish Government, ), and other PAs designated until 2008 (Spanish Government, ; only for controls), from cases (PPs) and/or controls (Appendix ).…”