Detecting threatened biodiversity by urbanization at regional and local scales using an urban sprawl simulation approach: Application on the French Mediterranean region
2012
Vimal, Ruppert | Geniaux, Ghislain | Pluvinet, Pascal | Napoléone, Claude | Lepart, Jacques | Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE) ; Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) ; Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD [Occitanie])-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro) | Unité de recherche d'Écodéveloppement (ECODEVELOPPEMENT) ; Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) | Agence Nationale de la Recherche: 05-BDIV-014 ABIME; Ministere de l'Ecologie, de l'Energie, du Developpement Durable et de la Mer: 0001077-Diva2 BIO2M; Languedoc-Roussillon regional government
International audience
Show more [+] Less [-]English. Urbanization is a major threat on biodiversity due to the direct destruction of natural and semi-natural habitats and to the indirect impacts caused by urban areas beyond their limits. In this study, we proposed a methodological framework to assess the potential impacts of current and future urbanization on high diversity sites and their associated species across the entire French Mediterranean region. Using a 100 m grid cell, we adapted a land-use change (LUC) model to project future urbanization over a 20 years period. We developed a multi-level approach based on three impacts of urban development: the direct consumption of high diversity sites, the indirect urban effects on the surrounding area over a scale of 2 km and a scale of 50 km. Our model predicts that 35% of the total number of sites can potentially be impacted by urbanization (i.e. at least 1 ha predicted to be built between 2006 and 2030). 3.2% of the total number of sites may lose 10% or more of their surface area to urbanization. We found that the impacts of urban area and urban growth differ among the three different pressure indicators in terms of surface area and localization of sites, number and nature of species impacted and variation of these patterns between the two dates. In general, most of the sites under pressure are located in the coastal part of the study region and are of smaller surface area than average.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by Institut national de la recherche agronomique