APPLYING ECOLOGICAL MODELS TO ALTERED LANDSCAPES - SCENARIO-TESTING WITH GIS

Including ecological information within the planning process is proble matic. Individual species response to landscape change will be complex and is often difficult to express in terms of cost or benefit. Pressu re on land, particularly in densely populated countries such as the UK , means that land-use needs to be planned in all areas, urban and rura l. Designing landscapes to conserve biodiversity is challenging, and a holistic perspective must be retained at all times. A Geographic Info rmation System (GIS) is described which integrates ecological models o f species occurrence with spatial data on known landscapes. The use of the tool is illustrated with a series of models of woodland birds wit hin the fragmented landscape of East Anglia, England. Scenarios of woo dland loss or gain can be visualised quickly through the creation of a ltered landscapes; the bird models can then be re-run and the predicte d impact on species distributions displayed. The tool is generic, in t hat any species can be modelled at any scale if ecological models are available to describe its distribution in terms of landscape variables . It is argued that it remains the job of the ecologist to make knowle dge about species distributions accessible to the planning process. Th e key to this is that mathematical models must be expressed spatially in a format suitable for scenario-testing. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B .V.