The roadless map of Greece
Description
Scientific context Roadless land conservation is a measurable tool to preserve the nature of high ecological integrity, hamper fragmentation, and address biodiversity decline (Ibisch et al. 2016; Kati et al. 2020). Greece has introduced a roadless legislation to this aim (BCL 2022; Kati et al. 2022) but risks rapid habitat loss from RES deployment (Kati et al. 2021). Biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning is needed, and roadless maps can be valuable tools for this aim under the Global and European Biodiversity Strategy. Description The dataset is the roadless map of Greece (5/2022), updating a previous work (Kati et al. 2020). Definitions: Roadless Core Area (RCA) is any land patch (excluding large waterbodies) that has a size greater than 1 km2 and lies at least 1 km away from the nearest road (accessible by motor vehicles, excluding paths). Roadless Area (RA) is the RCA and its 1 km buffer zone. Roadless Island (RI) and Roadless islet (Ri) are any non-artificial islands that are road-free in all their area, with a size above and below 1 km2, respectively. Roadless Fragmentation Indicator (RFI) is the percentage of RAs plus RIs of the Greek territory. Content: The dataset includes high-confidence data and consists of four sub-databases in kmz format: (a) 389 RCAs (different colors indicate five different size categories: 1-5, 5-10, 10-20,20-50 and >50 km2, (b) 389 RAs (including the RCAs), (c) 62 RI and (d) 3,456 Ris. Nota: The RFI is 6.1%. Most of the roadless sites had a size of over 1,000ha, lying in mountains and islands. Significance, use, limitations We recommend using the database to: • Expand the Greek roadless legislation to roadless sites of at least 1,000ha. • Include roadless sites in the strictly protected zones of the national network of protected areas (EC 2020). • Identify new areas for expanding and connecting the network of protected areas (EC 2020). • Define exclusion zones for new infrastructure development across sectors (SEAs) for Renewable Energy Sources, transport, tourism, industry, etc. • Update the SEBI 13 indicator (EEA 2012) and monitor fragmentation in Greece in more natural ecosystems (RFI) • Trigger policies toward landscape conservation and fragmentation minimization (CoE 2000; EC 2020). • Identify wilderness areas of Greece and map old-growth forests Funding Green Fund of Greece: program “Natural environment and innovative environmental actions 2021”. References BCL 2022. https://bc.lab.uoi.gr/en/research/projects/roadless/ CoE 2000. https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/176 EC 2020. https://ec.europa.eu/info/files/communication-eu-biodiversity-strategy-2030-bringing-nature-back-our-lives_en EEA 2012. https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/streamlining-european-biodiversity-indicators-2020 Ibisch et al. 2016. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf7166 Kati et al. 2020. https://doi.org/10.3390/d12040124 Kati et al. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abo2014
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We used the following geospatial data: 1. OSM. Geofabrik GmbH and OpenStreetMap Contributors: Data/Maps http://download.geofabrik.de. Date of access: 1/7/2021 2. Road database: road network digitized in 58 areas as part of the Roadless Areas and Sustainable Development in Greece project https://bc.lab.uoi.gr/en/research/projects/roadless/ 3. Greek territory 1:90000 https://www.hnhs.gr/el/?option=com_opencart&Itemid=269&route=product/product&product_id=271. Date of access: 9/6/2021 4. Waterbodies (natural lakes, reservoirs, transitional water bodies). Special Secretariat for Water. Ministry of Environment and Energy. http://wfdgis.ypeka.gr/?lang=EN. Date of access: 13/5/2020 5. Greek Natura 2000 network as of August 2020, http://mapsportal.ypen.gr/layers/geonode:n2000_spatial_gr_2020_08_10. Date of access: 15/5/2021 Step 1: We merged the OSM [1] dataset with the Roadless database [2]. We considered only those road classes that can be accessed by motor vehicles, except for tunnels; footway, path, pedestrian, cycleway, bridleway or steps were excluded. Step 2: We considered the Greek territory [3] and we subtracted natural lakes and reservoirs [4]. Step 3: We applied a buffer of 1 km (exclusion zone) from each side of the road network. This step was run separately for the mainland and every island larger than or equal to 1 sq.km. Step 4: We subtracted the exclusion zone from the land area of the country (produced in Step 2), calculated the area of the resulting land plots and excluded those less than 1 sq.km., as well as 7 Roadless Core Areas that have been already designated in the national legislation. The remaining 846 land plots were considered as candidate RCAs and RIs. Step 5: We inspected freely available imagery to identify and subsequently digitize any missing roads (i.e., Type I errors) within the RCA (also within their buffer zone of 1km) and RI. We also corrected segments wrongly identified as roads (i.e., Type II errors) in their close vicinity. Imagery included thematic maps accessed via the ArcGIS online tool, namely Bing Maps (year 2013) and World Imagery (years 2016-2021), as well as Google Earth satellite images (years 2016-2021). We also added boundaries to exclude cultivated areas accessed by heavy machinery and quarries. Step 6: We repeated Steps 3 and 4 to obtain the RCAs and RIs, excluding cases overlapping transitional waterbodies [4]. We merged the RCAs with the 7 designated ones and created a buffer of 1km around them to obtain the RAs. Step 7: We inspected 3,642 islands less than 1 sq.km in [3] using satellite telemetry to exclude artificial islands and islands containing missing roads (i.e., Type I errors), and thus identify Ris. Step 8: For each RCA, RA and RI we estimated the overlap with the Natura 2000 network [5], considering only cases of overlap greater than 0.1%. For each Ri we checked whether it overlapped or not the Natura 2000 network [5].