Natural and environmental assets

Methodology

Background: The aim of the maps was to develop one such “new geography” which supports their territorial identity through the identification of natural and environmental assets. The characterisation of territories provides baseline information about the environmental “value” of a specific region, i.e. if the region owns environmental assets that make it unique and that hence could support the development of the region by properly and sustainably exploiting the asset item.

Input Data:

• Urban – rural typologies / Rural typologies
• High nature value farmlands
• Proximity to natural areas (CLC semi-natural classes, N2000, CLC water)
• Air quality (PM10)
• Degree of soil sealing

The range of values in the different input data sets was standardised to five classes. These five classes were assumed to represent a gradient of “natural and environmental assets” for each grid cell.

The distribution of input data values to the five output classes were based on the median of the original data and their standard deviation. Scores are attributed to each class.

Processing and results:

The degree of “natural and environmental assets” is calculated from the sum of the five individual input layers. The range of values is between 5 (= 5 x 1) and 75 (= 5 x 15). The resulting layer was classified into five classes:

In a next step, the “natural and environmental assets”-classification was clipped to the mountain-layer.