engleski

Biodiversity Analyses and Sites Selection in Dalmatian Counties (Croatia), as a Starting Point in the UNDP/GEF "COAST" Sustainable Development Program

The "COAST" Project have focused the problem of biodiversity protection and conservation in Dalmatia, where is a unique patchwork of marine, coastal, island, terrestrial and agricultural ecosystems, within a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral context of ICM and sustainable development. All available data were georeferenced to the Central-European MTB/4 grid units. Having in mind unevenly surveyed COAST area, to ensure consistency and homogeneity of results, special emphasize was given to the endangered and endemic species, rather then to simple richness analysis indicating alpha-diversity. Most representative data were available for vascular flora, that is proven indicator and surrogate group. Although four counties in the COAST area has only 22.9% of total Croatian inland area, according to available data, here we found 41% of Croatian vascular plant taxa. More than half of endemic plant species are growing here. After GIS spatial analyses of habitat, fauna and flora data, for each county 4 to 6 areas were identified and ranked according to their biodiversity importance. After multi-sectoral consultations, demo-site were proposed in each county, that was also the site with highest biodiversity in two of them, indicating that sole high biodiversity level is not always the strongest reason for conservation action to take place.

biodiversity; rarity; GIS; spatial analyses

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