Where are the wilder parts of anthropogenic landscapes? A mapping case study for Denmark

Mapping wilderness in China: Comparing and integrating Boolean and WLC approaches

“…Biophysical naturalness of land use (BN) reflects the degree to which an ecosystem has been changed from its original state due to human modification by settlement, deforestation, and agriculture. This is often determined by assigning values to land use types based on expert knowledge (Carver et al, 2002;Carver et al, 2012;Kuiters et al, 2013;Liu et al, 2014;Müller et al, 2015;Radford et al, 2019). In this study, different naturalness values (from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest degree of naturalness) were assigned to different land-use types by 25…”

“…This has subsequently been regarded as the main theoretical basis of mapping wilderness and has been widely used across various spatial scales and locations (e.g. Carver & Fritz, 1995;Aplet et al, 2000;Carver et al, 2002;Mc Morran et al, 2008;Comber et al, 2010;Ólafsdóttir & Runnström, 2011;Carver et al, 2012;Kuiters et al, 2013;Müller et al, 2015;Lin et al, 2016;Radford et al, 2019;Hou et al, 2019). The wilderness continuum is usually mapped using spatial indicators of naturalness and remoteness wherein it is assumed that if an area is more natural and more remote from human disturbance, then it is likely to be relatively wilder in comparison to those areas which are more developed and easily accessible.…”

“…Indicators which appropriately reflect variations in wilderness across China's varied landscapes were selected using previous studies as a guide (Lesslie & Maslen, 1995;Aplet et al, 2000;Carver et al, 2002;Ólafsdóttir & Runnström, 2011;Carver et al, 2012;Carver et al, 2013;Kuiters et al, 2013;Müller et al, 2015;Plutzar et al, 2016;Hawes et al, 2018;Radford et al, 2019). These include biophysical naturalness of land use (BN), population density (PD), remoteness from settlement (RS), remoteness from roads/railways (RR), settlement density (SD) and roads/railways density (RD).…”

“…However, limitations in the scale (generalization), completeness and resolution of global datasets indicate that global-scale assessments often do not include many locally important wilderness areas which have high conservation value at national and local levels. In order to address this issue, national wilderness mapping studies based on national datasets have been conducted in several countries including Australia (Lesslie & Maslen, 1995), the United States (Aplet et al, 2010), the United Kingdom (Carver et al, 2002), Iceland (Ólafsdóttir & Runnström, 2011), Denmark (Müller et al, 2015), Scotland (Carver et al, 2012), Austria (Plutzar et al, 2016), China and Switzerland (Radford et al, 2019).…”

The call of the wild: Investigating the potential for ecoacoustic methods in mapping wilderness areas

“…Maps usually comprise four key layers: perceived naturalness; absence of modern artefacts; rugged or challenging terrain; and remoteness from roads and ferries. Similar multi-criterion approaches, based on satellite data, have been developed in many regions: Australian national wilderness inventory (Leslie and Maslen, 1995), the wildness quality index for Europe (EEA, 2010), the human footprint index at the global scale (Sanderson et al, 2002), the map of Denmark (Müller et al, 2015), and the Cairngorm National Park Wildness Quality map (Carver et al, 2008). This multi-criterion approach is attractive because it can be operationalized at scale using satellite data and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to create comprehensive maps that support landscape management and decision making such as for renewable energy projects or protected area management (McMorran and Carruthers-Jones, 2015;Long, 2019, see also Scottish Natural Heritage, 2014).…”