Are Valuable and Representative Natural Habitats Sufficiently Protected? Application of Marxan model in the Czech Republic

Ondřej Cudlín, Vilém Pechanec, Jan Purkyt, Karel Chobot, Luca Salvati and Pavel Cudlín
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Ondřej Cudlín: Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Lipová 9, CZ-370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic
Vilém Pechanec: Department of Geoinformatics, Faculty of Science, Palacký University Olomouc, 17. listopadu 50, CZ-771 46 Olomouc, Czech Republic
Jan Purkyt: Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Lipová 9, CZ-370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic
Karel Chobot: Nature Conservation Agency, Kaplanova 1, CZ-148 00 Praha, Czech Republic
Luca Salvati: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Viale S. Margherita 80, I-52100 Arezzo, Italy
Pavel Cudlín: Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Lipová 9, CZ-370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-25

Abstract: The joint impact of human activities and climate change on natural resources lead to biodiversity loss. Therefore, it is important to select protected areas through systematic conservation planning. The present study assessed how representative natural habitats are protected under the nature conservation network, and to identify new—but so far insufficiently—protected areas containing these habitats for sustainable management. We used the Marxan model to select the most valuable insufficiently protected natural habitats in the Czech Republic as a representative example for a conservation strategy for Central–Eastern European environments. We set three conservation targets (25%, 50%, and 75%), defining how much percent area of valuable representative natural habitats should be added to the area of the habitats already included in the Nature Protection Network. To implement these conservation targets it is necessary to preserve 22,932 ha, 72,429, ha and 124,363 ha respectively of the conservation targets occurring in the insufficiently protected areas, and 17,255 ha, 51,620 ha, and 84,993 ha respectively of the conservation features in the areas without protection status. Marxan was revealed to be an appropriate tool to select the most valuable and insufficiently protected natural habitats for sustainable management.

Keywords: biodiversity; nature habitats; protection level; conservation planning; Marxan model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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