Report on the revision of the Habitat Type Map for the Natura 2000 site Ennstaler Alpen National Park Gesäuse

On the one hand, the revising of the Habitat Type Map from 2012 was due to the presence of additional terrestrial cartilage results (alm mapping Neuburgalm: KURZ & ZIMMERMANN 2013; Moor mapping: HEDGEHOG 2013; Biotope mapping Tamischbach Tower: KAMMERER & RESSEL 2013 & EMMERER & KAMMERER 2014; Maple ash forests: Carli 2014a & ZIMMERMANN 2015; Larch-Zirbenwald: Carli 2014b; Beech forests: Zimmermann & LANGER 2016) and, on the other hand, the correction of the first Habitalp aerial image interpretation from 2006 (Habitalp CC). The improved spatial delimitation of the polygons and the inclusion of additional carting results gave rise to the hope that the area size of the FFH habitat types could be determined more precisely than in the first map version. For the area balances of the first map, the open land mapping (Höbinger ET AL. 2012), biotope mapping (KAMMERER ET AL. 2006 et seq.), alpine mapping (EGGER ET AL. 2006 et seq.) and the modelling of the current vegetation (ZIMMERMANN & KREINER 2012). The area balances of the FFH-LRT were not calculated directly from the map at that time, but were generated from the databases of the individual mappings. The individual mappings were not blended together in real terms, but only placed on top of each other for the representation as a layer. This means that there is no 100 % correlation between the map image and the area data. For the new card version, however, the areas should be calculated directly from the card. This brings advantages and disadvantages with regard to the accuracy of the area data: An advantage is the correlation between map image and area statistics, the prevention of double counting for mapping overlaps, and the uniform calculation method across the map; the disadvantage is the disclosure of the possibility to take into account in a polygon in addition to the prevailing existing LRT in terms of area (with the consequence that small-area LRT tends to be underrepresented and large-area LRT tends to be overrepresented). The fact that the different approaches of individual mappings with regard to the survey method and FFH allocation can no longer be seen as easily when a genuine synthetic card is calculated is to be considered more advantageously. This point will have to be discussed even further.