Landscape Connectivity in Planning and Implementing Conservation and Restoration Approaches in Central Albania Carstic Lakes System

Abstract

The main aim of this contribution is to present the case of experiences with Lake Dumrea (Central Albania) when human intervention through land use change, deforestation, intensive agriculture development and habitat fragmentation led to a dramatic loss of water bodies and landscape degradation. As human interventions of before '90 converted land for resource extraction and for settlement and agricultural uses, and as our impacts on local scale continue to grow, there is a rapid changes of the physical, chemical, and biological character of these landscapes. Land use changes were significantly reduced the number of water bodies i.e. Dumrea lakes from historical 80 to current 50, while the amount of a aquatic habitat or fragment it, breaking it up into smaller or differently arranged units, including riparian habitats. From analyses process changed not only the size of habitat patches (Lakes surface and water volume) but also other landscape features, such as patch geometry or the amount of edge habitat, that are be of fundamental importance to species, communities, and ecological functions.