Technical guidelines for assessing and monitoring the condition of Annex I habitat types of Directive 92/43/EEC: guidelines to assess fragmentation of habitat types

This guide provides some methodological guidelines on spatial aspects of fragmentation that apply to any terrestrial habitat type. It describes methods that are useful for practitioners dealing with habitat condition assessment. The aim is to show how fragmentation can be included in a decision framework for assessing habitat condition, and examples are developed as necessary. This guidance: i) reviews how fragmentation is currently incorporated by EU member states in their protocols for Annex I habitat assessment and monitoring, identifying convergences, gaps and harmonization potential; ii) describes a decision framework that can be used to assess fragmentation as an explicit contribution to the condition assessment of any terrestrial habitat type; and iii) illustrates an approach to such a decision framework, both to make it immediately applicable by EU member states with small data requirements and objective interpretation clues, and to show how other techniques should be incorporated into such a decision framework