Evaluation and mapping of the conservation significance of habitats using GIS: an example from Crete, Greece

To ensure the long-term future of NATURA 2000 sites across Europe, effective techniques are required for evaluating and monitoring their conservation significance. This paper describes a GIS-based method that uses multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) to determine the conservation significance of vegetation communities and habitats for a case study of a proposed NATURA 2000 site on the northwest coast of Crete, Greece. The method uses the most frequently used criteria for the selection of priority areas for nature conservation—species and habitat diversity, rarity of species and habitats, naturalness, threat of human disturbance and replaceability. For each community and corresponding habitat type, each criterion was scored according to field data and expert knowledge using a numerical scale. The final conservation score for each community was derived using MCE within a GIS and mapped. The results demonstrated that the method is an effective tool for evaluating and comparing conservation significance and could be applied to other sites across Europe and to monitor change.