Assessing landscape services as foundation for Green Infrastructure functionality: the case of the Wienerwald Biosphere Reserve

Mita Drius, Katharina Theresa Sams, Friedrich Knopper, Christa Hainz-Renetzeder, Christiane Brandenburg, Thomas Wrbka

Publications: Contribution to journalArticlePeer Reviewed

Abstract

Biosphere Reserves are considered as means for the people who live and work within them to attain a balanced relationship with the natural and semi-natural environment. Moreover, they contribute to the needs of society by showing a way to a more sustainable future. The Wienerwald Biosphere Reserve partly surrounds the city of Vienna and other minor settlements, representing a well-developed example of Green Infrastructure (GI) of great cultural and natural value. Its heterogeneous landscape offers a variety of landscape services (LS). In this work, we quantified and mapped the capacity of LS offered by the open land elements of Wienerwald. Starting from a high-resolution dataset, we selected suitable indicator classes, and scored each ecological and socio-cultural service through an expert-based capacity matrix. The subsequent analyses with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) focused on the intensity and density of LS capacities by developing an index useful for mapping GI functionality. The work provides an effective monitoring tool for the Reserve’s both ecological and socio-cultural sustainability performance. It also allows detecting resilient areas, by considering both the spatial distribution and the abundance of landscape elements.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-39
Number of pages39
JournalLandscape Online
Volume84
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

  • 106003 Biodiversity research
  • 105904 Environmental research
  • 107006 Nature conservation

Keywords

  • capacity matrix
  • ecosystem services
  • green infrastructure
  • landscape services
  • Wienerwald Biosphere Reserve

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