A landscape vulnerability framework for identifying integrated conservation and adaptation pathways to climate change: the case of Madagascar’s spiny forest

Context

Integrated conservation decision-making frameworks that help to design or adjust practices that are cognisant of environmental change and adaptation are urgently needed.

Objective

We demonstrate how a landscape vulnerability framework combining sensitivity, adaptive capacity, and exposure to climate change framed along two main axes of concern can help to identify potential strategies for conservation and adaptation decision-making, using a landscape in Madagascar’s spiny forest as a case-study.

Methods

To apply such a vulnerability landscape assessment, we inferred the sensitivity of habitats using temporal and spatial botanical data-sets, including the use of fossil pollen data and vegetation surveys. For understanding adaptive capacity, we analysed existing spatial maps (reflecting anthropogenic stressors) showing the degree of habitat connectivity, matrix quality and protected area coverage for the different habitats in the landscape. Lastly, for understanding exposures, we used climate change predictions in Madagascar, together with a digital elevation model.

Results

The fossil pollen data showed how sensitive arid-adapted species were to past climate changes, especially the conditions between 1000 and 500 cal yr BP. The spatial analysis then helped locate habitats on the two-dimensional axes of concern integrating sensitivity, adaptive capacity and climate change exposure. By identifying resistant, resilient, susceptible, and sensitive habitats to climate change in the landscape under study, we identify very different approaches to integrate conservation and adaptation strategies in contrasting habitats.

Conclusion

This framework, illustrated through a case study, provides easy guidance for identifying potential integrated conservation and adaptation strategies, taking into account aspects of climate vulnerability and conservation capacity.

     

Explaining host–parasitoid interactions at the landscape scale: a new approach for calibration and sensitivity analysis of complex spatio-temporal models

Landscape Ecology - Linking spatial pattern and process is a difficult task in landscape ecology because spatial patterns of populations result from complex factors such as individual traits, the...     

Using a landscape ecological perspective to analyze regime shifts in social–ecological systems: a case study on grassland degradation of the Tibetan Plateau

Landscape Ecology - Landscape ecology thinking and social–ecological system (SES) thinking investigate human–environment relationships from the perspective of ‘space’ and...     

Perceived access to recreational/green areas as an effect modifier of the relationship between health and neighbourhood noise/air quality: Results from the 3rd European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS, 2011–2012)

The present study tests the hypothesis that better access to recreational/green areas modifies the adverse effects of neighbourhood noise and air quality on health. We re-analysed the cross-national representative sample of the 3rd European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) (2011–2012). Data were available on self-rated health, neighbourhood noise, air quality, access to recreational/green areas, and other sociodemographic and neighbourhood covariates. The substantive analyses were based on weighted logistic regression with clustered standard errors. Overall, reporting major neighbourhood problems with noise and air quality was associated with higher risk for poor self-rated health, and this risk was higher among participants not using recreational/green areas in their neighbourhood or reporting a difficult access to those areas. There was a statistically significant effect modification across some exposure − access scenarios, but it was clearer for air quality than it was for noise. Thus, this exploratory study sets the basis for future research on the subject matter.