Design and Interpretation of Intensity Analysis Illustrated by Land Change in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

Abstract

Intensity Analysis has become popular as a top-down hierarchical accounting framework to analyze differences among categories, such as changes in land categories over time. Some aspects of interpretation are straightforward, while other aspects require deeper thought. This article explains how to interpret Intensity Analysis with respect to four concepts. First, we illustrate how to analyze whether error could account for non-uniform changes. Second, we explore two types of the large dormant category phenomenon. Third, we show how results can be sensitive to the selection of the domain. Fourth, we explain how Intensity Analysis’ symmetric top-down hierarchy influences interpretation with respect to temporal processes, for which changes during a time interval influence the sizes of the categories at the final time, but not at the initial time. We illustrate these concepts by applying Intensity Analysis to changes during one time interval (2000–2004) in a part of Central Kalimantan for the land categories Forest, Bare and Grass

Characterizing the Intensity and Dynamics of Land-Use Change in the Mara River Basin, East Africa

“…The error analysis method [25] does not provide a threshold of how large the deviation of observed intensity from uniform intensity should be in order to qualify as real change. This is because, in some cases, like in our study, the actual map (classification) errors are not precisely known [39,40]. It does, however, imply that the higher the deviation (commission or omission error), the higher the likelihood that the deviation represents real land change.…”

“…For each category gain or loss, transition level analysis compares the observed intensity of each transition with a hypothetical uniform transition that would occur if the transition were distributed uniformly among land-use categories available for the transition. Equations (1) and (2) (Summarized equations used in the intensity analysis [24,25]) are used for transition level analysis to identify the transition from an arbitrary category i to a particular gaining category n [24,39]. In other words, the equations identify which land-use categories are intensively avoided or targeted for gaining by category n in a particular time interval.…”

Land Use Development of Vineyards in Goriška Brda, Slovenia

“…The shortcoming of the land change analyses based only on net change is that it might greatly underestimate the total change on the landscape, since the net change fails to capture the swapping component of change. A lack of net change does not necessarily indicate a lack of change (Pontius et al, 2013).…”

Influence of classification errors on Intensity Analysis of land changes in southern Nigeria

“…Furthermore, in our case study, error of 11% or less in one of the maps could explain all deviations from a uniform hypothesis. Aldwaik and Pontius (2012) give methods at the transition level of Intensity Analysis to test whether transitions target or avoid the loss of an arbitrary category m. Our article does not present transition-level analysis concerning deviations from uniform transitions of a category's loss, following the suggestion of Pontius et al (2013). The interpretation of the transition-level analysis concerning the loss of category m is unclear in the context of temporal change, because the intensities of the transitions from category m are conditional on the sizes of the categories at the latter time, but the transitions during the interval influence the size of the categories at the latter time.…”