Summary
The main objective of the BIOPRESS
project was to determine historical changes (1950 – 1990 – 2000) in land cover across
Europe for the purpose of measuring changes in habitats and their biodiversity.
Approach
The adopted approach was to sample Europe using 2 x 15 km transects and 30 x 30
km windows, containing one or more Natura-2000 sites, and establish changes by finding
and interpreting 1950’s aerial photos that had been acquired for these samples.
The aerial photos were interpreted following the CORINE land cover nomenclature
and definitions. The methodology for the transects and windows was slightly different:
for the transects a time series of aerial photos (1950, 1990 and 2000) were acquired
and interpreted at a 0.5 ha minimum mapping unit; for the windows, the CORINE land
cover layer of 1990 was used as the baseline and backdated with aerial photos maintaining
the CORINE 25 ha minimum mapping unit. A total of 59 Transects and 73 Windows were
processed (transects are located within windows). The land cover change data produced
from this exercise was stored in an ACCESS database and integrated into regional
biodiversity impact tables, also developed as part of the BIOPRESS project.
Map of study areas
Reports
The BIOPRESS book contains the aerial photo interpretation of the 59 transects accompanied
with, where available, a description of the area, the Natura-2000 site it partly
includes or ‘touches’ and a short explanation of some observed changes. For a copy
of the book contact Dr. France Gerard, ffg@ceh.ac.uk
The land cover change data and main BIOPRESS reports (including the regional biodiversity
impact tables and the aerial photo interpretation manual) is now freely available to download.
Funding
BIOPRESS (‘Linking Pan-European
Land Cover Change to Pressures on Biodiversity’) was funded by the European Commission
DG Research under the specific research and technological development programme
“Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development”
and the “Global Monitoring for the Environment and Security”
initiative of the Fifth Framework Programme.
Contributors