Taking better account of biodiversity issues and ecological connectivity in territories thanks to prospective scenarios

Abstract

Ecological conservation is fundamental for maintaining biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides. However, few territorial assessments take into account recent and future natural and anthropogenic dynamics, particularly changes in land use and land cover, to identify habitat networks that are robust over time. Prospective approaches, already used in various fields including land use planning, can make it possible to take these spatio-temporal dynamics into account. We show here the limits of two main types of existing land use and land-cover change scenarios and how they can be combined to assess changes on a regional scale with very fine spatial and thematic resolution. Such scenarios and the assessment of their consequences on biodiversity and habitat networks, or more generally on different environmental indicators, are particularly useful as a decision-making aid or to get different categories of stakeholders to think together about a desirable future for the territory.