Landscape ecology is a rapidly growing science of quantifying the ways in which ecosystems interact--of establishing a link between activities in one region and repercussions in another region. Remote sensing is a fast, inexpensive tool for conducting the landscape inventories that are essential to this branch of science. However, anyone who has conducted studies in the field has already found that traditional landscape ecology metrics are not always reliable with remote images. "Landscape Ecology: New Metric Indicators for Monitoring, Modeling, and Assessment of Ecosystems" with Remote Sensing presents a new set of metrics that allows remotely sensed data to be used effectively in landscape ecology.
This groundbreaking new work is the first to present new metrics for remote sensing of landscapes and demonstrate how they can be used to yield more accurate analyses for GIS studies. The new metrics expand the capabilities of GIS, reduce interference and incorrect readings, help ecologists better understand ecosystem relationships, and reduce study costs. This set of metrics should be adopted by the EPA and will be the standard measure for future landscape analysis.
This authoritative guide assesses the current state of the field and how remote sensing and landscape metrics have been used to date. It also explains how some of the traditional metrics were developed and how they can fail in landscape studies. Once this background has been established, the new metrics are introduced and their benefits and uses explained. The information in this book has previously been available only in scattered journal articles; this is the first single source for complete background information and instructions on using the new metrics.
Introduction
- Goals and Objectives
- Significance of Research
- Selection of Study Sites
- Summary of Chapters
- Background and Evaluation of Landscape Metrics
- Landscape Ecology Metrics
- The Contagion Metric
- The Fractal Dimension Metric
- Introduction of Improved Metrics
- Potential Problems of Existing Landscape Metrics for Use with Remote Sensing Data
- Systematic Evaluation of Landscape Metrics
- Problems with Contagion
- Problems with Fractal Dimension
- Research Methods
- Overview of Experimental Design
- Capability of Metrics to Capture Changes in Landscape Pattern
- Sensitivity of Metrics to Spatial Resolution of Remote Sensing Data
- Analysis of Metrics Along a Spatial Gradient in Rhodonia, Brazil
- Analysis of Metrics Along a Spatial Gradient in Washington, D.C.
- Analysis of Metrics Along a Vertical Gradient in the Sierra Nevada
- Analysis of Metrics Along a Temporal Gradient in Ouro Preto, Brazil
- Empirical Analysis of Landscape Metrics
- Metric Capability in Quantifying Changes Along a Spatial Gradient in Rodonia, Brazil
- Sensitivity of Metrics to Landscape Pattern Variation
- Sensitivity of Metrics to Spatial Resolution
- Test of the Regression Equations for PPU and SqP Using Landsat MSS 79 Meter Data
- Metric Capability in Quantifying Changes Along a Spatial Gradient in Washington, D.C.
- Sensitivity of Metrics to Landscape Pattern Variation
- Sensitivity of Metrics to Spatial Resolution
- Metric Capability in Quantifying Changes Along a Vertical Gradient in the Sierra Nevada
- Sensitivity of Metrics to Landscape Pattern Variation
- Sensitivity of Metrics to Spatial Resolution
- Metric Capability in Quantifying Changes Along a Temporal Gradient in Ouro Preto, Brazil
- Sensitivity of Metrics to Landscape Pattern Variation
- Sensitivity of Metrics to Spatial Resolution
- Summary Conclusions and Future Work
Bibliography
Index