Réseau électrique et réseau écologique : contraintes et opportunités dans un paysage fragmenté (Nord-Pas-de-Calais)

Abstract

Recently, linear utility infrastructures stopped being considered principally as obstacles to ecological connectivity and have started to be considered as potential land use opportunities for the creation and maintenance of environments conducive to biodiversity within the framework of the Green Blue Networks initiative (in French, Trame verte et bleue or TVB). In a fragmented landscape, can linear utility infrastructures, in the same way as high and low voltage power lines, offer habitats favourable to the movements of certain species? This article seeks to identify the points of contact between the electric grid and the Green Blue Network of the Nord-Pas de Calais region based on landscape ecology methods. The data-bases created were used to: show the overlap between the electric grid and the green blue network; the evaluation of how land use is affected by the works, as well as their co-visibility; and the estimation by simulation of the effects of a change in land use on ecological connectivity and the landscape.

Keywords

• landscape
• biodiversity
• ecological continuity
• electric grid
• green and blue network
• landscape ecology