Identifying and understanding the patterns and processes of forest cover change in Albania and ...

171 Pages·2014·2.73 MB·English

Laze, Kuenda
Research Report
Identifying and understanding the patterns and
processes of forest cover change in Albania and
Kosovo
Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, No. 74
Provided in Cooperation with:
Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), Halle (Saale)
Suggested Citation: Laze, Kuenda (2014) : Identifying and understanding the patterns and
processes of forest cover change in Albania and Kosovo, Studies on the Agricultural and
Food Sector in Transition Economies, No. 74, ISBN 978-3-938584-78-1, Leibniz Institute of
Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), Halle (Saale),
https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:2-31678
This Version is available at:
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/103750
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Identifying and understanding the patterns and processes
of forest cover change in Albania and Kosovo
Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector
in Central and Eastern Europe
Edited by
Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development
in Transition Economies
IAMO
Volume 74
Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector
in Central and Eastern Europe
Identifying and understanding the patterns and
Edited by
Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development
processes of forest cover change in Albania
in Transition Economies
IAMO
and Kosovo
Volume 74
by
Kuenda Laze
IAMO
2014
Bibliografische Information Der Deutschen Bibliothek
Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen
Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über
http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar.
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek
Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists the publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available in the internet at: http://dnb.ddb.de.
This thesis was accepted as a doctoral dissertation in fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree "doctor agriculturarum" by the Faculty of Natural Sciences III at
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg on 29.01.2013.
Date of oral examination: 18.11.2013
Supervisor and Reviewer: Prof. Dr. A. Balmann
Co-Reviewer: Dr. D. Müller
Diese Veröffentlichung kann kostenfrei im Internet unter
<www.iamo.de/dok/sr_vo74pdf> heruntergeladen werden.
This publication can be downloaded free from the website
<www.iamo.de/dok/sr_vol74pdf>.
 2014
Leibniz-Institut für Agrarentwicklung in Transformationsökonomien (IAMO)
Theodor-Lieser-Straße 2
06120 Halle (Saale)
Tel.: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
e-mail: [email protected]
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ISSN 1436-221X
ISBN 978-3-938584-78-1
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was done during my time at the Leibniz Institute of Agriculture
Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO), Halle (Saale). Many people
have contributed to this work, and without their support this research could hardly
have been possible in the way it is presented now. Every step towards good progress
has been very enjoyable. The next few paragraphs will acknowledge these people's
contributions, starting with funding and theme orientation, their very helpful com-
ments, discussions, data provision and intensive encouragement and support.
I am deeply grateful to my supervisors Dr. Daniel Müller and Prof. Dr. Alfons
Balmann for funding the research and supporting it in the stage it is now.
Many thanks go to three people from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Re-
search (UFZ). I had very useful discussions with Dr. Sven Lautenbach on the R pro-
gramming. The discussions with PD. Dr. Thorsten Wiegand and Dr. Raja Kanagaraj
have been rewarding for the habitat suitability work. I am in debt to Stefan Suess for
his voluminous work on the satellite imagines, to Valbona Simixhiu, Genc Xhillari
and Gent Kromidha in Albania, and Ekrem Gjokaj, the staff of the Ministry of Agri-
culture, Forestry and Rural Development in Kosovo, as well as the Institute of
Environmental Agency Kosovo, which made essential data available to this re-
search.
After arriving in Halle (Saale), I received a lot of support from my IAMO col-
leagues, starting with BSE and the administration, who are always very helpful and
kind – many thanks to all of them. I thank you very much Hauke Schnicke for always
being helpful in German when mine was very poor, later to Dr. Amanda Sahrbacher
and Florian Schierhorn for being good colleagues and sharing an office with them.
I thanked you very much Dr. Karin Kataria for very useful discussions on calcu-
lations on local variations, always friendly times when we talked, and Dr. Zhanli Sun
on the ArcGIS. I enjoyed very much having two Albanian colleagues and friends at
IAMO – Klodjan Rama and Sherif Xhema – talking in our native language was
always good. I enjoyed the organization in Poland we did with Graduate School
groups, particularly with Swetlana Renner and Prof. Dr. Martin Petrick. Many
thanks go to Jim Curtiss for editing the dissertation and making it more interesting
to read.
The German course at the University has been worthwhile and enjoyable, with a
very good teacher Elli Mack and best friends Dr. Timothy March and Dr. Melinda
Noronha.
ii | Acknowledgments

At the very end, this research could have never be written without the immense
support and encouragement from my family and sister Ermira, who all prefer to
let me work on it and finalize it peacefully while they had to pass many hard times
by themselves. This monograph is dedicated first to my family. But it is also dedi-
cated to good people that wish things to get better in Albania and Kosovo for
themselves, their families, for their children and their future newcomers, and for
those who do their best to make their lives better and help save the natural envi-
ronment there.

Kuenda Laze, April 2014
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ i
List of tables ................................................................................................... v
List of figures ................................................................................................. vii
Abbreviations ................................................................................................. ix
Glossary .......................................................................................................... xi
1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 1
2 Theoretical background on forest cover and use ................................... 5
2.1 Human-environment interactions ........................................................................ 5
2.2 Forest ecosystem services ...................................................................................... 7
2.3 Forest transition ..................................................................................................... 8
2.4 Spatially explicit analyses of forest cover change ............................................... 10
2.5 Determinants of forest cover change and processes ........................................... 11
3 Methodology .............................................................................................. 17
3.1 Geographically weighted regression (GWR) ....................................................... 17
3.1.1 Models ....................................................................................................... 21
3.1.2 GWR equations .......................................................................................... 23
3.1.3 Decomposition of local variation ............................................................... 24
3.1.4 Principle components analysis (PCA) ....................................................... 24
3.1.5 Generalized least squares (GLS) ............................................................... 25
3.1.6 GWR analysis flowchart ............................................................................ 27
3.1.7 Added value of this research ...................................................................... 29
3.2 Generalized linear model (GLMs) ........................................................................ 30
3.2.1 Habitat suitability modeling ...................................................................... 31
3.2.2 Flowchart of the habitat suitability modeling analysis .............................. 33
4 Data ............................................................................................................. 37
4.1 Study area ................................................................................................................ 37
4.2 Forest cover change ................................................................................................ 40