A decisional support system for the management of territorial fragmentation and ecological networks

The ecological network spatial device, while favouring the passage from a closed system of environmental protection to an open one that links up different places of environmental importance, puts evolutionary environmental dynamics at the centre of the conservation strategy that is seeking environmental quality as an expression of biodiversity (the greater, the more this is open and communicating with the outside). Surpassing the “insular” view of protection leads to extending conservation to the entire territory with modalities and forms coherent with the uses, functions and problems involving it, in order to attain a general balance and to intervening following a co-evolutionary strategy based on actions continuously monitored and adjusted on the feedback they produce. To achieve some of these objectives a decisional support system has been realised based on a SIT which enables the clarification of “latent” ecological networks on the grounds of degree of fragmentation of a territory and evaluation of the increase or reduction in fragmentation. Beginning by singling out levels of suitability for appropriate key species on a territory (the province of Sassari), potential environmental corridors are obtained as the areas most suitable for these species. By pinpointing the fragmentation network, the group of portions of the territory less suitable, and the fragmenting elements, and by calculating the modified effective mesh size, it is possible to determine the existing and potential levels of fragmentation on a municipal scale, linking up environmental quality and natural and political processes in planning processes. The procedure is transversal as regards planning levels: it can steer choices and policies on a local scale, though remaining within a supra-local strategic view and can be updated depending on the political outcomes and dynamics of transformation of the territory.