The interplay between habitat loss and fragmentation represents the biggest challenge to nature conservation. It has become clear that to counter this unprecedented nature decline it is not sufficient to protect habitat patches in isolation, but it is crucial to ensure the functionality of entire ecological networks.
Although connectivity conservation is gaining attention in international and national policies, science and practice are lagging behind. Habitat loss and fragmentation are often assessed independently, and de-fragmentation strategies often rely on non-quantitative approaches.
We integrated advances in ecology, mathematics, and network-science to produce a coherent theoretical and methodological framework to quantify and map entire ecological networks, cumulative anthropogenic impacts, and guide sustainable management. The approach allows identifying species’ functional habitats (networks of core areas and corridors), priority areas for conservation, mitigation measures or restoration, and assessing scenarios of land-use or climatic changes. The framework can be applied to any species and data - including tracking data, monitoring programs, citizen science and expert-based assessments.
Our Map Portal shows Norway-scale, high-resolution connectivity maps for a wide range of species, including reindeer, moose, red deer, pollinators, forest beetles, trees and different forest types – and the list is increasing. Our prototype App shows how these maps can be integrated and used to support sustainable land planning, land prioritization for conservation mitigation and restoration. Although the transportation network is a major driver of habitat loss and fragmentation, through simulations and scenario analyses we show how it can also play a major role in defragmentation and sustainable land planning.

Road infrastructure increases accessibility and is expected to promote land use activity, such as agricultural, trade, and industry. Hence, there is widespread concern around the environmental cost of major road developments proposed for SSA. We have a fairly good understanding of how roads directly affect species but lack deeper insight into their role in catalyzing broad ecosystem scale impacts. In this study we adopt a data-driven machine learning approach to model the influence of road density and other potential predictors of land cover patterns across South African ecosystems. We find that land cover patterns in 2020 are more directly explained by a few important predictors like topographic complexity, rainfall, gdp contribution and population density. Road infrastructure is not a main driver of land cover patterns, yet its influence is noteworthy in some biomes such as the Succulent Karoo, Nama Karoo, Indian Ocean Coastal Belt and Grassland. We show the influence and marginal effect of each predictor, including roads changes between biomes suggesting there are unique mechanisms driving land cover patterns. Finally, our analysis suggests that road density has an indirect effect, interacting with other important predictors to influence the land cover trajectory. Yet, we suspect that road development in isolation may not be sufficient for driving land cover change. This study characterizes the conditions under which land cover to land use change may occur and highlights the potential ways in which road development might affect such change.

Rail Baltica is a cross-border project that connects the three Baltic States with Central Europe along the North Sea – Baltic Corridor. The aim of Rail Baltica is to develop a new, 870 km long, EU track gauge, double track, electrified, fast conventional railway line to eliminate the infrastructure bottleneck caused by the lack of a 1435 mm track connection between the Baltic states and the European railway network.
Despite being one of the most environmentally friendly and safest means of transport, rail can also have a significant impact on wildlife by creating a barrier effect and leading to habitat fragmentation. Rail Baltica aims to provide a sustainable mode of transportation for the Baltic region, and mitigating the barrier effect is at the core of this greenfield project’s commitments.
Numerous structures along the Rail Baltica corridor are being designed for fauna passage, including not only ecoducts and tunnels but also adapted road overpasses with green belts, dry culverts, adapted hydraulic culverts, adapted river bridges with extra clearance, as well as adapted road/railway tunnels with green belts.
Design and landscaping solutions are selected with extra care to enable wildlife to cross safely, and placement is based on comprehensive assessments carried out in all three implementing countries to develop solutions that ensure animal migration and habitat connectivity. In areas up to 7-8 animal passages can be found within a kilometre of the railway alignment. Gain insight into this challenging journey of Rail Baltica global project and see examples from newly built objects in Estonia.

In the last 30 years, Romania has been preoccupied with the development of road infrastructure, as a driver for increasing economic development. During this period, conflicts between the need to develop road infrastructure and for nature conservation have occurred periodically. Attempts to map these conflicts have been done before, the most recent of which dating from 2008, when a map was elaborated showing a first identification of ecological corridors and the existing barriers from that time.
However, in the intervening years several developments have occurred. On the one hand, there have been developments in the mapping of ecological corridors, indicating these areas in more detail and with better accuracy. Also, the infrastructure has developed, with many motorway sectors already in operation, and with plans for further construction in the following years.
The need for an updated map for the permeability and infrastructure development conflict is thus evident. It is proposed to elaborate such a map, based on the results related to connectivity produced by several projects in the last 10 years (such as the ConnectGREEN project, the COREHABS project), completed with updated information on infrastructure development, traffic levels on national roads and other proposed projects in the future.
The presentation proposes showing and discussing the results of this analysis and of the resulting map, which will be updated with newly identified barriers due to the implementation of recent projects and with potential areas in the existing infrastructure which are suitable for defragmentation.

Increasing fragmentation as a result of the constant development of the transport network is a
threat to landscape and is evident in all parts of the European continent. One of the last relatively
unfragmented regions with extensive natural habitats without significant human impact are the
Carpathians, which are home for a large population of large carnivores. However, large projects of
transport infrastructure development are planned here as well and threaten unfragmented forest
habitats important for maintenance of the Carpathian population. This could be a problem especially
in the most preserved eastern and southern part, where currently there are not sufficient and
efficient tools to protect ecological connectivity. Within the ConnectGREEN project, using a unified
methodology, we identified and delineated a cross-border and coherent network of suitable habitats
connected by migration corridors. Using fragmentation geometry composed of road network and
settlement we identified critical connectivity zones where animals are forced to cross the barriers.
When delineating the ecological network, we considered the heterogeneous character of the
Carpathian landscape and designed an innovative basis for nature and landscape connectivity
protection across the Carpathians. All the components of the ecological network will be implemented
into spatial planning processes and documentation in the Carpathian countries.

The General Wildlife Corridor Plan (GWP) is an independent ecological, primarily forest-related planning of the state of Baden-Württemberg (Germany) for a cross-state biotope network and an integrative component of a national and international network of wildlife corridors, which has been enshrined in law since 2012. The central prerequisite for a functional biotope network, its permeability of the landscape for animal and plant species, was reviewed on the tenth anniversary and compared with the situation in 2012. This primarily includes the absence of traffic barriers, or the possibility of overcoming these with crossing aids, as well as keeping sufficiently large gaps in the settlement and commercial infrastructure open.
The conclusion is that wildlife corridors are increasingly under pressure from unsuitable uses. They often receive too little attention in open land planning and it takes too long to reconnect them over traffic routes. Added to this is the increased expansion of renewable energies, with both wind turbines and ground-mounted photovoltaic areas competing with important areas of the biotope network. For different reasons, areas away from residential areas are usually considered for both.
Numerous authorities, from forestry to urban planning as well as recognized nature conservation associations play a decisive role in the implementation of the GWP. Finally yet importantly, amicable solutions must also be sought with landowners and users. Only a joint alliance of all those involved and affected can make a large-scale functional ecological network possible again in the long term.

In Flanders (Belgium) the provinces have a responsibility for the organisation and realisation of a network of ecological corridors.

This is a complex task because of the strong fragmentation of the landscape, the many civil functions that coexist in the open space, the fragmentation of ownership, the difference in vision between stakeholders. As a government on an intermediary level between local and regional authorities we are well suited for this task: We can combine strong ecological knowledge with the ability to coordinate participation processes.

We developed an online tool to share spatial information about potential suited locations for ecological corridors. In this online map we incorporated ecological data from observations, habitat monitoring and Flemish Natura 2000 policy reports.

The tool is developed in ArcGis online so it is widely accessible to our stakeholders.

In this lightning talk we will demonstrate the use of the tool with some examples and show how the tool can contribute to the cooperation of stakeholders to realise ecological corridors in Limburg.

Urban areas cover approximately 1% to 6% of Earth's surface. However, more people live in urban than rural areas than ever globally, causing immense ecological "footprints" and complex direct and indirect effects on ecosystems. In landscape usage and urban planning, built-up area refers to the land occupied by buildings, structures, and other manufactured elements, such as transportation hubs, including bridges, tunnels, electricity lines, and parking lots.
The main objective of the research is to verify the existence of spatio-temporal landscape changes caused by the historical development of building structures, including features of a transportation system at the landscape level.
The Czech Republic's landscapes and its historical development during 19-21 centuries have been chosen for investigation.
The methodology includes comprehensive and multidisciplinary landscape assessment designed to provide an understanding of the spatio-temporal landscape changes.
The methodological process for 3-time horizon 1850-1950-2024 includes the following:
1. Sixty randomly selected rectangular study sites, each 4 km2 in area.
2. Analysis of the historical state via original stable cadastral maps.
3. Investigation of aerial photos from 1950 and the current location of build-up elements using Czech cadastral maps from the Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping, and Cadastre (ČÚZK).
4. Spatial analysis uses geographic information systems (ArcGIS Pro) and QGIS software.
The results indicate an increase and expansion of transport elements and road networks over the past two centuries.
Conclusion: Expansion is characterized by population growth and migration factors driven by technological advancements and socioeconomic shifts that significantly affect the quality and quantity of biodiversity.