Redistribution of the map with the ecoregions of Flanders (version 2002)

This is a redistribution of the data source 'Ecodistricten en Ecoregio's', originally published by the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) and distributed by 'Informatie Vlaanderen' under a CC-BY compatible license. It is redistributed for reproducible, analytical workflows on Flemish Natura 2000 habitats and regionally important biotopes.

A first version of the ecodistricts of the Flemish region was made by the Institute of Nature Conservation and included in the ‘Flemish Structure Plan, part Open Space (1993)’ (Structuurplan Vlaanderen, deelfacet Open Ruimte). The former division in ecodistricts was partly based on the partition in ‘traditional landscapes’. Ecodistricts were defined as spatial entities, homogeneous with respect to abiotic characteristics which are slowly changing in time, as there are geology-lithology, soil, geomorphology-relief, (geo)hydrology. However, a well defined hierarchy linked to a policy level as well as to an ecological level was missing. Moreover, the internal heterogeneity in certain ecodistricts was relatively high and no unambiguous method was used to define the boundaries of the ecodistricts. For the delimitation of the new ecodistricts in Flanders in 2002 the following abiotic components were considered (in hierarchical order): climatology, geology, relief, geomorphology, geohydrology, hydrology of surface water, soil. Ecodistricts were defined on the basis of their homogeneity for most of these abiotic components. On a higher hierarchical level, ecodistricts were grouped into ecoregions, based on the similarity of their geological and geomorphological properties. The 36 ecodistricts were grouped into 12 ecoregions. The data source was produced as part of action 134 of the Flemish environmental policy plan for the period 1997-2001 and is managed by the Research Institute for Nature and Forest.

The dataset is a shapefile of geospatial polygons that describe the ecoregions of the Flemish region, identical to the shapefile hb_ecoreg_inbo in the original data source.