Mapping and analyzing landscape patterns

Abstract

Landscapes were mapped as clusters of 2 or 3 land cover** types, based on their pattern within the clusters and tendency for a single type to dominate. These landscapes, called Landscape Pattern Types (LPTs), were combined with other earth surface feature data in a Geographic Information System (GIS) to test their utility as analysis units. Road segment density increased significantly as residential and urbanized land cover components increased from absent, to present as patch, to present as matrix (i.e., the dominant land cover type). Stream segment density was significantly lower in LPTs with an urbanized or residential matrix than in LPTs with either a forest or agriculture matrix, suggesting an inverse relationship between stream network density and the prevalence of human development other than agriculture in the landscape. The ratio of average forest patch size to total forest in the LPT unit decreased as agriculture replaced forest, then increased as residential and urban components dominated. Wetland fractal dimension increased as agriculture and residential land cover components of LPTs increased. Comparison of LPT and LUDA land cover area statistics in ecoregions suggested that land cover data alone does not provide information as to its spatial arrangement.

Dynamics of rural landscapes and their main driving factors: A case study in the Seine Valley, Normandy, France

“…Change in a rural landscape and its driving factors can be studied through different methods (Forman and Godron, 1986;Wickham and Norton, 1994), The choice of the method of recording the information is determined by the type of results required. In the case of our study.…”

Understanding Landscape Metrics I

“…The quantification of landscape pattern has received considerable attention since the early 1980s, in terms of both development and application (Romme and Knight, 1982;O'Neill et al, 1988;Turner et al, 1989;Baker and Cai, 1992;Wickham and Norton, 1994;Haines-Young and Chopping, 1996;Gustafson, 1998). Several of the most commonly used landscape metrics were derived originally from percolation theory, fractal geometry, and information theory (the same branch of mathematics that led to the development of species diversity indices).…”

Impacto de los incendios forestales en comunidades vegetales sub-mediterráneas : evaluación multitemporal de la diversidad del paisaje utilizando imágenes Landsat TM

“…La espacialización y medición de la eco-diversidad (Wickham y Norton, 1994) se ha mejorado en los últimos años gracias al desarrollo de las tecnologías de la información geográfica -teledetección y sistemas de información geográfica (Burrough y MacDonell, 1998)-, así como a la consolidación del marco teórico y metodológico relativo a las influencias operativas de la ecodiversidad sobre la diversidad de especies (Legendre y Legendre, 1998;Mazerolle y Villard, 1999;Guisan y Zimmernman, 2000). Para la medición de la diversidad de paisajes, hábitats, ecosistemas o unidades ambientales se han propuesto una multiplicidad de índices (Turner y Gardner 1991), la mayoría de ellos correlacionados (Cain et al, 1997;Ritters et al, 1995), pero que suelen tener en cuenta, por norma general, el número de clases diferentes y la equitatividad de su reparto.…”