Conservation Area Hierarchy in the Meiron Mountains Reservation via GIS

The purpose of this work was to design a GIS as a support tool for environmental and planning conflicts. At the core of this system lie the evaluation and analysis of the natural and landscape resources of the Har Meiron reservation while emphasizing the reservation’s importance and its role in preserving valuable natural resources.

The Har Meiron reservation is the focal point of a conflict for the last 17 years. The conflict stems from citizens who live in villages that are positioned at the middle of the natural reserve. They want to further develop their lands in the reserve, but the Ministry of the Environment and other “green” organizations, such as the Society for the Protection of Nature and the Reservation Authority, reject their plans preferring to keep the reservation as is.

The spatial database for the research was built from different data coverages collected from several sources. The data was classified and structured into a few major layers such as flora, built areas, roads, archaeology sites, and landmarks.

At the end of the process, all layers were incorporated into one grid layer that presented area cells with the following order of conservation levels: (1) area cells with the highest conservation level; (2) area cells with intermediate conservation level; (3) area cells with the lowest conservation level; (4) already developed areas; (5) the conflict areas—developed area cells that were ranked as high preservation level; and (6) areas that are undeveloped and do not contain natural values.

In the future, it will be possible to create other spatial analyses to support decision making for regional sustainable development planning, and this system may serve as a solution for other environmental conflicts at the planning committee phase.