New research project to develop species distribution models in cooperation with the NLWKN
As part of a cooperation agreement signed in December 2024 between the Lower Saxony State Agency for Water Management, Coastal Defence and Nature Conservation (NLWKN) and the PhyGeo, potential distribution areas of selected animal species (primarily amphibians, reptiles but also dragonflies and dormice) will be modelled for the whole of Lower Saxony (Atlantic biogeographical region) using ‘big data’ and AI-based machine learning as part of the transnational integrated LIFE project ‘Atlantic Sand Landscapes’.
The project aims to contribute to reversing the trends of biodiversity and valuable natural areas’ losses as part of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030. To this end, favourable reference values for the distribution area of the species are also to be defined. The cooperation partners involved in the project want to apply modelling methods that correspond to the current state of research in an official context in order to be able to answer nature conservation questions, for which there would otherwise not be sufficient spatio-temporally explicit information available.
Website LIFE project: https://www.sandlandschaften.de/en/
