Indices of landscape pattern

Abstract

Landscape ecology deals with the patterning of ecosystems in space. Methods are needed to quantify aspects of spatial pattern that can be correlated with ecological processes. The present paper develops three indices of pattern derived from information theory and fractal geometry. Using digitized maps, the indices are calculated for 94 quadrangles covering most of the eastern United States. The indices are shown to be reasonably independent of each other and to capture major features of landscape pattern. One of the indices, the fractal dimension, is shown to be correlated with the degree of human manipulation of the landscape.

Use and misuse of landscape indices

“…If better understood and practiced, landscape pattern analysis can play useful roles in theory and practice of landscape ecological research ͑O'Neill et al 1988;O'Neill et al 1999;Turner 1990;Li and Reynolds 1994;Gustafson 1998;Turner et al 2001͒: ͑1͒ comparing different systems or the same system at different times, ͑2͒ monitoring large-scale change to ensure that magnitudes and rates of vital ecological changes are determined in a timely fashion, and ͑3͒ providing alternatives that convert maps and other spatial data into formats that are more useful and easier to understand. However, even these uses presume that a particular quantitative description of spatial pattern is of ecological importance, a presumption that landscape ecologists must verify by demonstrating a close relationship between spatial pattern and ecological process ͑Gustafson 1998; Turner et al 2001͒.…”

“…While landscape ecology emerged in Europe more than half a century ago ͑Naveh and Lieberman 1984͒, the past two decades have seen unprecedented developments in theory and practice ͑Wu and Hobbs 2002͒. With its fast rising status, landscape ecology continues to diversify in ideas, perspectives, and approaches, becoming a new paradigm in ecology that emphasizes the reciprocal interactions between spatial pattern and ecological processes, scale, and hierarchy ͑Risser et Turner 1989;Pickett and Cadenasso 1995;Wu and Loucks 1995;Brandt 1998;Wu and Hobbs 2002͒. One of the trademarks of landscape ecology, especially in North America, has been its extensive use of landscape metrics, among numerous methods for spatial pattern analysis ͑O'Neill et al 1988;Turner and Gardner 1991;Gustafson 1998͒. However, after two decades of exciting developments, the ecological understanding derived from landscape pattern analysis has been less than expected.…”

Examining Spatiotemporal Urbanization Patterns in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal: Remote Sensing and Spatial Metrics Approaches

“…The use of spatial metrics has provided a new platform for describing the spatial land use and land cover heterogeneity and morphological characteristics within the urban environment. Spatial metrics are already commonly used to quantify the shape and pattern of landscapes [11,29,30].…”

Landscape ecological security assessment based on projection pursuit in Pearl River Delta

“…Thus, in recent years, landscape index has been widely applied to landscape dynamics analysis and landscape ecological security assessment (Xiao et al 1991;Wu 2007;O'Neill et al 1988). However, due to the high variation ) and correlation (Riiters et al 1995;Lausch and Herzog 2002;Gong and Xia 2007) among landscape indices, choosing the right landscape index or developing a new landscape index for the analysis of different regions has become increasingly important, with a particular emphasis on the correlation between landscape indices and ecological process.…”