GIS supported techniques for land use change impacts evaluation in potential environmentally sensitive areas

In recent centuries, the athropogenic land use change caused extensive loss of habitat and is widely recognized as a major driver of the current biodiversity crisis (de Lima, Dallimer, Atkinson, Barlow, 2012). One of the main transformation of the land use is caused by agriculture. Understanding how to minimize the impacts on biodiversity of the LUC not just limited to the peri-urban areas, but also to agricultural land is one of the main issues in land management. Mitigation measures have to be devoted to contrast fragmentation and increasing insulation in more natural environments, avoiding, on the other hand, an increasing homogenization of the agricultural landscape. This paper presents the evaluation of three LUC scenarios in a NIP Area of Campania Region (Cervelli et al., 2016), in terms of impacts on wildlife. The work was developed within European LIFE/ENV/IT/275 Ecoremed projects. GIS applications techniques and Spatial Multicriteria Decision Analysis (Malczewskj, 2006) have identified the areas of 14 wildlife species-umbrella possible presence in landscape. The evaluations were integrated through the use of sensitivity data, based on habitat assessments, territory permeability, species conservation and rarity, extended to more than 300 taxa. The developed methodology allows the identification of potential conflict areas between LUC scenarios and species presence areas, in order to calibrate interventions and mitigation strategies. The methodology is, therefore, a support tool for the decision-maker, to define appropriate planning strategies aimed to ecological networks management, physical-territorial continuity among the natural environments maintenance, creation of a species mobility support systems, combating isolation and ensuring the maintenance of adequate biodiversity levels. Purpose of the work is to contribute to the definition of positive LUC for NIP area, not only in economic terms, but as integrated development opportunities of the territory.