Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2021

Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V9

Field validation of the Habitat Types Map of Iceland

Höfundar / Authors: Noémie Boulanger-Lapointe (1), Marteinn Möller (1), Rán Finnsdóttir (2), Bryndís Marteinsdóttir (2)

Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: 1. University of Iceland, 2. Landgræsðlan

Kynnir / Presenter: Noémie Boulanger-Lapointe

The Habitat Types Map of Iceland was produced by The Icelandic Institute of Natural History in 2016 and is now widely used by terrestrial ecologists to select field sites and explain general landscape use by animal species, among other things. The map consists in 12 broad and 64 narrow categories which mainly adhere to the European Nature Information System (EUNIS) classification with few Iceland specific additions. It is available in raster format at a 5 m resolution. Although, many have used it in the field and most agree that it is useful to distinguish general landscape features, the map has never been formally validated. In this poster, we will present the results of the field validation of the Habitat Types Map of Iceland using data from 230 sites sampled by the Landgræsðlan monitoring program Grólind in 2019 and 2020. We tested the map using both the broad and narrow categories. We also resampled the original raster to derive maps with pixel sizes of 10, 20 and 50 m. We discuss the strenghts and weaknesses of the map and propose recommendations for future use and improvements.