About the project

• Background

  In recent years there’s been published research and reports looking at ownership types and biodiversity in Europe. Some of these studies have uncovered differences in biodiversity between ownership types, whilst others have not. Thus, researchers have not come to any concurrence and there is still a need for more research in the field.

  This project sets itself apart from previous ones, because to our knowledge there hasn’t been done any research on differences or correlations between ownership types and biodiversity, using both geospatial, natural, and social scientific methods.

• Materials and methods

  The study is carried out in south-eastern Norway, in the following municipalities: Oslo, Nittedal, Jevnaker, Gran, Lunner, Hurdal, Nannestad, Eidsvoll, Ullensaker, and Gjerdrum. The properties have been delimited to all above 100 decares, which also consist of forest, freshwater and/or wetlands according to the AR5 resource maps of the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO). The areas are further delimited to just forests in some of the analyses.

  The biological data used consists of (1): light detection and ranging (LIDAR) data, to look at structural forest diversity; (2) environmental inventories in forestry, to look at the diversity and accumulation of mapped habitats; and (3) species observations, to look at the species diversity between different ownership types. In addition to these data, we will also include other factors like site quality classes and closeness to infrastructure, to see if such factors explain the distribution and diversity of the biological data better than ownership.

  The social scientific data used is property data from the Norwegian Land Registry (Grunnboka), and data collected through a questionnaire sent out to the forest owners. The owners will provide information about the ownership type, management methods used in their forests, their influence over the management, and their management goals. The biological data and property data will be prepared in the geographic information system QGIS and analysed statistically in R. R will also be used to analyse the answers from the questionnaire.

• Goals

  The first goal of this project is to see if there are any significant differences or correlations between ownership types and biodiversity in our study area.

  The second goal is to find out if there are any differences or correlations between ownership types and: how forest owners manage their forests, forest owners’ influence over the forest management, and the management goals of the forest owners.

  The third goal is to see whether the distribution and diversity of the biological data used in this study are better explained by other factors than ownership.

Participants

• NMBU

  Kim André Anstensen Nielsen

  Masterstudent

  Master's student
• NINA

  Ulrika Jansson

  Forsker

  Co-supervisor

  Vegard Gundersen

  Forsker

  Co-supervisor