Applying threat analysis approach in a small forest urban park (Northern Italy): local expert-based assessment to prioritize the management actions

Abstract

To overcome the human-induced threats impacting on ecosystems, managers should focus on priorities. Here, we applied the expert-based Threat Analysis (TAN) in a forest urban park (Northern Italy), involving experts which ranked local threats, from the more to less impacting and following the IUCN classification. We also evaluated the level of knowledge of operators about these threats. Experts identified five priority target-specific threats: Roads and Railroads; Invasive-Non Native/Alien species; Other Ecosystem modifications; Recreational Activities, and Storms and Flooding. Storms and Flooding and Invasive-Non Native/Alien species appeared the threats with significant highest magnitude. Knowledge of threats is comparable without significant difference among them. However, Storms and Flooding and Roads and Railroads are the threats having both the highest level of knowledge by experts and the highest magnitude. At the opposite, Mowing was the less known threat regarding its regime and showed the lowest magnitude. TAN approach should be routinely used to build conceptual frameworks, ranking threats from the more to less impacting, therefore optimizing the management effort and developing local projects.