Ecological value

This index gives a measure of the quality of each physiographic landscape unit from the ecological point of view, in analogy with what defined at the scale 1:50,000 for biotopes.

The indicators that contribute to the assessment of the ecological value are the following:

• naturalness
• ecological multiplicity
• ecosystem rarity
• rarity of the type of landscape (at the national level)
• presence of protected areas within the unit's territory

The cartography of ecological systems is used to define the ecosystem naturalness and rarity, while the cartography of the Habitat at the scale 1:50,000 is used to define the ecological multiplicity.