National Habitat Classification

The classification of habitat types has been developed in Europe over the past two decades, and intensive work on this issue began due to the need to adopt regulations for nature protection. During the preparation of the Birds Directive in the early 1980s, the system of a two-digit labelling code for habitat types was adopted. The next step was made during the adoption of the Habitats Directive. In 1991, the then 12 European Union Member States developed the habitat type classification within the project CORINE-Biotopes. This classification system has been further developed and expanded throughout the whole of Europe through the project to develop the PHYSIS database on habitat types. Habitat types from Annex I of the Habitats Directive carry codes of the CORINE classification, however, in the habitat type manual, these codes have been "converted" into classes of the PHYSIS classification and the descriptions from that database used.

In recent years, an advanced version of the habitat type classification entitled EUNIS has been developed within the frame of the European Environment Agency (EEA). Its application is becoming mandatory in the development of regular reports for the EEA by each member state.

Despite the ongoing development of the European classification of habitat types, none of these systems as of yet covers all the specificities of individual countries, and therefore, many countries have also developed their own national habitat type classification systems.

In Croatia, it was concluded during the implementation of the Emerald Ecological Network for the Council of Europe (2002), aimed at establishing habitats in Croatian of European importance, that the European classification system was insufficient to categorize the overall wealth and diversity of habitat types in Croatia, especially with regard to underground and marine habitats.

For the purpose of implementing the project Habitat Mapping, created by the OIKON Institute for Applied Ecology for the then Ministry of Environmental Protection and Physical Planning in 2002, work began to develop a National Habitat Classification system (NKS). Special attention was given to ensure that the NKS was compatible with the European classification for the purposes of international cooperation and implementing international regulations, and a key was constructed to convert the NKS habitat types into the corresponding classes of the PHYSIS and EUNIS classifications. Many competent scientists cooperated in the project, and the Ministry established the Working Group for the NKS which delivered the first version of the National Habitat Classification to the Ministry of Culture in April 2004. The Ministry handed over the classification system, along with the complete results of the Habitat Mapping project to the State Institute for Nature Protection, as the body competent for expert tasks in nature protection pursuant to the Nature Protection Act. The Institute further developed a key to convert the NKS codes into CORINE habitat types as prescribed by the Habitats Directive, so as to determine the representation of threatened and rare habitat types in Croatia that are protected under the Directive.

During this process, the Institute discovered the existence of several additional habitat types from the Directive that were not included in the NKS, and that are present in Croatia and require protection. Furthermore, in order to establish the ecologically important areas pursuant to the Nature Protection Act and the Habitats Directive, the need arose to establish certain "habitat complexes" listed in the Directive as protected, and which in fact consist of several habitat types associated into a complex. For that reason, the first version of the NKS was supplemented with the following habitat types, whose descriptions were taken from the European PHYSIS database: Pannonian saline grasslands, submontane heaths with Vaccinium, carbonate wells, peat beech woods with sphagnum peat bogs, oleander galleries, coastal pine woods and plantations, travertine building river communities, travertine waterfall vegetation, and "complex habitats": estuaries, coastal lagoons and large shallow coves and bays. In 2009, this version was supplemented in line with new findings relating to the habitat classification and published as Annex I of the Ordinance on Amendments to the Ordinance on habitat types, habitat map, threatened and rare habitat types and measures for conserving habitat types.