The municipalities assumed the administration of the Nature Conservation Act §
3-protected habitats in 2007. Two years after, a discussion began about whether
the municipalities were able to handle this administration or whether nature
should be left to itself. The strongest evidence of the lack of administration
was studies of smaller, local areas where the protected nature was gone or changed.

Phase 1 of the report examines this debate through a description of the project’s
broad problem area. The broad problem area arises from the issue: With the
possibilities that exist within GIS, why is there not an automatic system to
designate, or at least locate areas that have been altered or are gone? The
development of such a system, which may conduct this investigation results in
the following speculation: How is a model based on data of existing registrations
of NBL § 3-protected natural areas and raster data made so that it can locate
the § 3-areas that have been changed or are gone?

In phase 2 of the project the desired model is made by first looking at the methods
and theories related to finding changes called Change Detection. Subsequently it
is determined through testing and theory how the methods are to be used in the
project model, which is applied to the § 3-protected areas in Aalborg Municipality
in phase 3.

Based on the results of this model it is estimated in phase 3 that the calculation
of a change value, which is the result of the described model and shows the
degree of change in the § 3-areas, is working to locate areas which are unchanged.
This, because changed areas can be changed due to several causes, natural and
manmade. In light of this it is concluded that by having constructed a model that
can provide a separation of modified and unmodified areas, the project’s thesis
has been proven.