Incorporating biodiversity assets in spatial planning: Methodological proposal and development of a planning support system

The information on biodiversity issues that planners have at disposal often offers a very limited support, due to the lack of informative data and suitable planning support systems (PSS). This paper aims at improving the treatment of biodiversity assets in spatial planning by proposing an approach to map and assess biodiversity assets, and by implementing it into a PSS, characterised by ease of use and usefulness. Biodiversity assets were divided into six themes, two of which refer to species (animal and plant species), and the remaining four to ecosystems (forest, agriculture, aquatic and alpine ecosystems). For each theme, the relevant baseline data were collected and processed, a multicriteria evaluation scheme was set up, and value judgments provided by experts of research institutes and public administration technical offices were sought. The themes were then integrated into a composite map. Factual and value-based information generated during the analysis was organised into a PSS, represented by a Geographic Information System (GIS) platform with a customised querying interface, which allows users to access to thematic layers in a hierarchical fashion, as well as to retrieve relevant background information and reports. The PSS was tested for a specific planning task: the screening stage of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The study area is located in Trentino, an alpine region in northern Italy.