Mapping and analyzing landscape patterns |
| |
Authors: | James D Wickham Douglas J Norton |
| |
Institution: | (1) The Bionetics Corporation, 22186 Warrenton, VA, USA;(2) Office of Water (4503), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 401 M Street, SW, 20460 Washington, DC, USA;(3) Present address: Biological Sciences Center, Desert Research Institute, 7010 Dandini Blvd, 89512 Reno, NV, USA |
| |
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. |
| |
Keywords: | landscape pattern land cover classification GIS |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|