Comparing Conservation Value Maps and Mapping Methods in a Rural Landscape in Southern Finland

Abstract

We used the following GIS and remote sensing datasets in mapping habitat types and ecosystem services: two different sets of aerial imagery, an airborne laser scanner (ALS) data from the National Land Survey (NLS) of Finland, 20 m resolution multisource National Forest Inventory (MS-NFI) from the Finnish Forest Research Institute from year 2009 (Tomppo et al., 2013), 1:20 000 resolution digital soil and 1:200 000 resolution digital bedrock maps from the Geological Survey of Finland, forestry planning polygons and polygons of Forest Act habitats from the Finnish Forest Centre Pirkanmaa from years 2000–2010, as well as a 1:10 000 resolution topographic database, and a 1:50 000 resolution SLICES land-use database from the year 2010 from the NLS Finland. Finally, we used a vascular plant species inventory data from the area. In the data, the presence of vascular plant species inside 286 quadrats with an area of one km2 has been surveyed from 1983 to 2011 (Kuitunen, 2013).