Remote sensing and the future of landscape ecology

Abstract

Landscape ecology focuses on the analysis of spatial pattern and its relationship to ecological processes. As a scientific discipline, landscape ecology has grown rapidly in recent years, supported by developments in GIS and spatial analysis techniques. Although remote sensing data are widely employed in landscape ecology research, their current and potential roles have not been evaluated critically. To provide an overview of current practice, 438 research papers published in the journal Landscape Ecology for the years 2004—2008 were examined for information about use of remote sensing. Results indicated that only 36% of studies explicitly mentioned remote sensing. Of those that did so, aerial photographs and Landsat satellite sensor images were most commonly used, accounting for 46% and 42% of studies, respectively. The predominant application of remote sensing data across these studies was for thematic mapping purposes. This suggests that landscape ecologists have been relatively slow to recognize the potential value of recent developments in remote sensing technologies and methods. The review also provided evidence of a frequent lack of key detail in studies recently published in Landscape Ecology , with 75% failing to provide any assessment of uncertainty or error relating to image classification and mapping. It is suggested that the role of remote sensing in landscape ecology might be strengthened by closer collaboration between researchers in the two disciplines, by greater integration of diverse remote sensing data with ecological data, and by increased recognition of the value of remote sensing beyond land-cover mapping and pattern description. This is illustrated by case studies drawn from Latin America (focusing on forest loss and fragmentation) and the UK (focusing on habitat quality for woodland birds). Such approaches might improve the analytical and theoretical rigour of landscape ecology, and be applied usefully to issues of outstanding societal interest, such as the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

How to integrate remotely sensed data and biodiversity for ecosystem assessments at landscape scale

“…Recent advances in applying remote sensing techniques and collecting large biological databasesoften updated by citizen scientists-have improved the possibilities to develop spatial biodiversity indicators on a landscape scale, which could be monitored over time (GEO BON;Newton et al 2009;Pereira et al 2010;Coops et al 2013). Earth Observation studies have often led to land cover data that is derived from satellite images (Gottschalk et al 2005).…”

Remote sensing of ecosystem services: An opportunity for spatially explicit assessment

“…This paper reviews the current ecosystem service related works in both fields. Two points should be mentioned: 1) remote sensing has been widely used to quantify ecosystem characterization (Cohen and Goward, 2004;Ustin et al, 2004;Wulder et al, 2004;Muraoka and Koizumi, 2009;Newton et al, 2009). Only those applications in relation to some specific ecosystems and the goods and benefits ecosystems provided to people are included here; and 2) ecological service is an integrated concept combining the ecological and social system-the ecologist wants to quantify specific ecosystem services, while the economist applies economic values to the changes in ecosystem services.…”

“…The spatially explicit nature of remotely sensed imagery allows several ecosystem service issues to be examined, especially the extent and location of ecosystem services. Nevertheless, Aplin (2005) and Newton et al (2009) noted that remote sensing specialists have perhaps focused on technological issues as the major concern rather than ecological problems. On the other hand, ecologists have insufficient background in addressing ecological problems at regional, landscape, and global scales (Barrios, 2007).…”

Incertidumbre de los índices de paisaje en el análisis de la estructura espacial

“…Sin embargo, los análisis de paisaje no siem pre incorporan los nuevos métodos desarrollados por los especialistas en sensores remotos, lo cual ayudaría a incre mentar la exactitud de los análisis (Newton et al 2009). La mayor accesibilidad en las últimas décadas a datos de sensores remotos ha provocado gran interés en el análisis de la estructura y composición, además de la dinámica del paisaje, lo cual se ha realizado principalmente mediante algún tipo de categorización o clasificación de imágenes satelitales (Newton et al 2009). …”

“…Estos índices han sido ampliamente utilizados para relacionar patrones espacia les con procesos o funciones ecológicas, recibiendo mucha atención de parte de la ecología del paisaje en las últimas décadas (Turner 2005). De acuerdo a McGarigal et al (2002) los índices de paisaje corresponden a algoritmos que cuantifican una determinada característica espacial a nivel de parche, clase o paisaje, lo cual es realizado ex clusivamente con mapas categorizados que provienen en su mayoría de la clasificación de imágenes de sensores re motos (Newton et al 2009). Si bien, su utilización y apli caciones son amplias, se ha encontrado que los índices de paisaje son muy sensibles a algunos aspectos relacionados con el análisis de imágenes de sensores remotos.…”