Nature Conservation; Urban Biotope Mapping

Since 1979, the Bavarian State Office for the Environment has been conducting urban biotope surveys in Bavaria’s independent cities. The city of Erlangen was one of the first cities to commission a survey of biotopes worthy of protection.

Cities often harbor an astonishing diversity of species—and Erlangen is no exception. This is the conclusion reached by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU) in its latest biotope and species protection survey for the Erlangen urban area, which was completed at the end of 2012.

What does urban biotope mapping entail?

The purpose of biotope mapping is to obtain comprehensive knowledge about the location, distribution, abundance, and condition of ecologically valuable habitats within the urban area. It thus serves as an important and indispensable foundation for nature conservation efforts and the enforcement of nature conservation laws.

What is species conservation mapping?

In parallel with the urban biotope mapping, extensive surveys of the fauna are therefore being conducted as part of the species conservation mapping. These surveys cover the animal groups reptiles, amphibians, dragonflies, grasshoppers, bats, butterflies, as well as wild bees and wasps. Species conservation mapping thus serves as an essential complement to biotope mapping.

What are the implications of biotope mapping for property owners?

Habitat mapping is merely an inventory of the natural environment. It has neither the mandate nor the legal authority to place ecologically valuable areas under protection or to prescribe specific management practices to property owners. It is nature, not the mapping, that makes an area a biotope. However, legal restrictions may arise from existing laws as well as from protected area regulations—but not from the biotope mapping itself.

Mapping—for Whom?

Biotope and species conservation mapping provides an important foundation for nature conservation and thereby contributes significantly to the preservation of ecologically valuable landscape elements for future generations. With this data as a foundation, measures can be taken to protect the increasingly rare habitats of animals and plants from degradation and destruction and to give appropriate consideration to the needs of nature and landscape conservation.

Biotope mapping thus serves as a working and decision-making basis for local landscape conservation measures and the Bavarian Contractual Nature Conservation Program, for assessing impacts on nature and the landscape, and for developing landscape and green space plans within the framework of urban land-use planning. It thus serves as the basis for many important decisions made by our nature conservation authority within the Environmental Office, as well as for issues related to urban development in Erlangen.

Results – Statistics

Biotope Mapping Between July 2009 and June 2011, the urban biotope mapping was updated. The total area of the mapped biotopes is 896 ha.

There are currently 318 biotopes within the city limits, comprising a total of 1,729 sub-areas, which corresponds to approximately 12% of the city’s total area. With the exception of municipal forests, forests were not re-mapped but were carried over from the old mapping for reference purposes.

By comparison, the Bavarian-wide average is only 4% of the state’s total area mapped as biotopes; the city of Erlangen thus lies well above this average. This demonstrates that it is possible to provide a multitude of high-quality habitats for animal and plant species despite dense settlement and extensive infrastructure.

Species-rich meadows account for the largest share of land area within the city limits. Since this habitat type has declined sharply nationwide in recent years and is rapidly being lost due to intensified land use, the protection of these meadows in Erlangen is of particular importance.

The legally protected and highly endangered sandy nutrient-poor grasslands, which are primarily concentrated in the Middle Franconian Basin, are present in Erlangen only over a relatively small area. The preservation and maintenance of these areas are therefore extremely important.

Among wooded habitat types, the high proportion of typical urban habitats—such as parks and green spaces with mature trees, isolated trees, and rows of trees—is noteworthy.

In the 1979–1991 biotope mapping of the city of Erlangen, 311 biotopes comprising 436 subplots and covering an area of approximately 880 ha were recorded. Thus, the total area has remained nearly unchanged.

Species Conservation Mapping As part of the species conservation mapping, over 3,000 records of 370 animal species were documented, distributed across 323 delineated habitats or point records. Particularly noteworthy—to name just a few—are the occurrences of the moor frog, tree frog, and crested newt; the marsh grasshopper and small heath grasshopper; and the green hawker dragonfly. Among wild bees, 18 species were identified that are classified as at least “critically endangered” according to the German or Bavarian Red Lists—this figure alone impressively underscores the importance that even small-scale urban habitats can have for species conservation.

How can you access the results?

The biotope mapping data is available for the public to download on the LfU website.

The results of the species conservation mapping are available to the nature conservation authority for its day-to-day work and, upon request and if there is a legitimate interest, are also provided by the LfU to planning offices and consultants for individual projects.

For more information, see the following links

Species Conservation Mapping - Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU)

Biotope Mapping – Data – Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU)

FIS-Natur – Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU)