Project series: Assessment of Habitat Parameters for Natura 2000 by Means of Aerial Photo Interpretation in the frame of the project Large scale inventory of the Natura 2000 Site Niedere Tauern by means of remote sensing.

Information on alpine Natura 2000 sites frequently fails to meet decision-makers requirements, since comprehensive, systematic and comparable data acquired over longer periods of time are available only in exceptional cases. The present project thus focused on developing remote sensing based methods tailored to the mapping and habitat assessment of large-scale alpine protection areas. These methods were implemented in the Natura 2000 site Niedere Tauern designated as a SPA according to the EU Birds Directive. The developed methods can easily be adapted for application in other alpine protection areas. The project was commissioned by the Government of the Province of Styria within the EU-cofinanced IPAM (Integrative Protected Area Management) project. The multidisciplinary work was carried out by Joanneum Research (project co-ordination, remote sensing, geo-informatics) in cooperation with Landesmuseum Joanneum (ornithological aspects), the University of Graz (habitat assessment), the Technical University of Graz (Aerial photo interpretation) and the Styrian Government (nature conservation specifications).