Establishing forest connection in landscapes under urban sprawl is essential for maintaining the ecological processes and ensuring biodiversity conservation. However, the major challenge is incorporated the ecological network in the land-use/land-cover planning. This way, the main objective of the study was the evaluation of environmental criteria for prioritizing areas to obtain forest functional connectivity in a landscape subject to the urban sprawl. The second objective was to understand how the criteria are associated with the structural forest attributes represented by traditional landscape ecology metrics. The criteria were defined through the literature review, representing the landscape characteristics as the topographic, conflicts, and biotics. The metrics used to characterize the forest structure were perimeter, shape index, and distance to the nearest neighbor. They were generated to a selected group of forest remnants, which represent the landscape forest structure. Sampling the criteria and forest fragments maps (i.e., different maps representing the metrics-values) through the hexagon network, we assessed how the criteria are associated with the structural forest attributes. The statistical analysis used to evaluate these sampled values were The Moran Global (Moran I) and Moran Local (LISA). We obtained that the urban expansion process is diffuse, although it does not occur randomly in our landscape. The criteria slope, TWI, distance from drainage network, distance from highways, distance from the low-density urban area, and distance from forest patches have characteristics that support this process. Furthermore, our results indicated a spatial autocorrelation among metrics and after, among metrics and these criteria. Also, we obtained that the external influences on the fragments did not occur randomly and that the criteria act on the landscape. This way, through these criteria, we can identify regions where it is possible to have the persistence of forest fragments, even though in places under the impact of urban sprawl.

The terrestrial surface is the basis for defining the species dispersion paths and overcoming the matrix resistance. In this approach, connecting paths with high levels of integrity must avoid barriers and anthropized areas. In this context, the main objective of this study was to develop the Landscape Resistance Index based on environment integrity. It was developed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), supported by the criteria of Land Surface Temperature, Nighttime Reflectance, and Inverted NDVI, which are called observed variables. The landscape studied in the Green Belt Biosphere Reserve of São Paulo has suffered from urban sprawl. However, it has significant remnants of the Atlantic Forest, which is a biodiversity hotspot. Our results indicated criteria variability in the landscape, however, modeled through the SEM, obtaining a significant adjustment of the Landscape Resistance Index, with CFI of 1.00 and RMSEA of 0.00. The index reflects the resistance levels of the land-use/land-cover, expressed by the class interval, ranging from 0% (1.73) to 100% (493.88), with the highest values associated with the anthropized uses and forest isolation. This way, the index based on environmental attributes reflects the structure of functional forest connectivity, supporting the planning design of forest corridors across landscapes.