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Explora: Environment
and Resource Assessing ecosystems by land cover and landscapes

importance in maintaining what are known as landscape endangered, endangered, or vulnerable. In the post-
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ecosystem services. 6-12 The same applies to β-diversity. 13,14 Soviet space, an attempt to prioritize ecosystems based
Ecosystem diversity directly enhances cultural ecosystem on their rarity was made within the framework of The
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services, supports landscape multifunctionality, 13,16 and Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity-Russia project
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stabilizes landscape services. 12,17,18 (2013 – 2021). This experience showed that ecosystem
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Conserving biodiversity cannot be accomplished mapping is a key pre-requisite for such assessments.
without effective accounting and monitoring. Ecosystem Armenia’s diverse ecosystems and species richness
accounting has rapidly developed in recent years, following make all these tasks crucial for the country. Due to its
the United Nation’s recommendations. It includes mountainous terrain, Armenia has a great diversity of
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accounts of ecosystem extent and condition, as well as ecosystems and species in a relatively small area. 33-36 It is
accounts of ecosystem services and assets. Therefore, part of the Caucasus biodiversity hotspot, as identified
ecosystem mapping and monitoring of changes in their by Conservation International. However, Armenia’s
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extent are necessary components of ecosystem accounting. ecosystems face significant negative impacts from climate
Ecosystem mapping is a complex task that remains change and unsustainable use of natural resources by
incomplete in many countries. While present available humans. 36
land cover maps provide a tool for monitoring changes This study serves as a preparatory step for the project,
in ecosystem extent, they define only a small number of Ecosystem Accounting in Armenia: Setting the Scene,
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broad land cover classes without reflecting the biological which is being implemented in collaboration with the
specifics of ecosystems. Scientific geobotanical and Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional
landscape zoning, as well as national and international Development (IOER), with the participation of experts
classifications of ecosystems, such as the International from leading scientific organizations in Armenia, and
Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Global the support of the German Federal Ministry for the
Ecosystem Typology, reflect the specifics of biodiversity Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety. The
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and ecosystems. However, they do not account for ongoing Biodiversity Conservation Centre in Armenia conducted a
changes in the actual extent of ecosystems. preliminary analysis of open data on the state of Armenia’s
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The European initiative of mapping and assessing ecosystems and biodiversity, which highlighted that the
ecosystems and their services is an example of large-scale available data provides a solid foundation for developing
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progress along this path. The European map of ecosystems national ecosystem accounting. The assessment of
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is based on a combination of spatially explicit land cover ecosystem diversity and further development of ecosystem
data and the habitat classification of the European Nature extent accounts can be based on available scientific maps
Information System (EUNIS) (https://eunis.eea.europa. of landscape zones and vegetation, as well as available land
eu/habitats.jsp), which includes numerous types of cover and satellite images.
ecosystems, taking into account natural conditions and The purpose of this study was to evaluate the
geographical features of biodiversity. 23,24 At the same time, applicability of an approach based on the intersection of
the European Ecosystem Extent Accounts. 25-27 continue to land cover data and a landscape map for accounting for
rely on data from the coordination of information on the terrestrial ecosystems in Armenia. It is important to clarify
environment (CORINE) detailed land cover, which was that our objective was not to assess Armenia’s ecosystems
updated every 6 years from 2000 to 2018 by the Copernicus but to test the suitability of this methodological approach
Land Monitoring Service. for ecosystem accounting. To achieve this, maps of
The most direct form of ecosystem diversity protection landscape-land cover classes (LLCCs) – combinations
comes through national and international red lists of between landscape zones and land cover classes
ecosystems. The IUCN red list of ecosystems (RLE) 28,29 (Environmental Systems Research Institute [ESRI] 2023,
includes eight categories similar to those used for the Red List 2017, and European Space Agency [ESA] 2021) – were
of Species, along with five criteria that provide a consistent created as proxies for terrestrial ecosystems. We then
method for assessing the risk of ecosystem collapse. Two estimated the area of natural landscapes and LLCCs within
of these criteria are based on the area of ecosystems and the administrative provinces of Armenia and ranked the
their changes: (i) declining distribution and (ii) restricted LLCCs by rarity. Using the obtained data, we evaluated
distribution. The European Red List of Habitats is based the importance of Armenia’s administrative provinces in
on modifications of the IUCN methodology. It assesses conserving natural landscapes and LLCCs. Subsequently,
233 natural and semi-natural terrestrial and freshwater we assessed changes in the extent of landscapes and
habitat types, of which 36% are classified as critically LLCCs, as well as shifts in provincial importance, over the

Volume 2 Issue 2 (2025) 2 doi: 10.36922/eer.4996