Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Landscape
fragmentation
The breaking-up of landscape into smaller patches by anthro-
pogenic and natural forces or the introduction of barriers
that impede exchange of organisms, energy, material, and
information across a landscape. Habitat fragmentation is
a similar term to landscape fragmentation, but has a more
explicit focus on changes in habitat relevant for organisms of
interest.
Landscape pattern
The composition (diversity and relative abundances) and
configuration (shape, size, and spatial arrangement) of
landscape elements, including both spatial patchiness and
gradients.
Landscape function
The horizontal and vertical exchanges of organisms,
energy, material, and information in a landscape.
Landscape structure
The composition and spatial arrangement of landscape
elements - including patches, corridors, and the matrix.
Landscape dynamics
Temporal changes
in the structure and function of
a
landscape, driven by natural
and anthropogenic
processes.
Landscape
sustainability
The ability of a landscape to maintain its basic environmen-
tal, economic, and social functions under ever-changing
conditions driven by human activities and environmental
changes. Landscape sustainability emphasizes the optimi-
zation of the composition and spatial configuration of the
landscape so as to achieve a high level of resilience or
persistency.
Metapopulation
The total population system that is composed of multiple
local populations geographically separated but connected
through dispersal.
Patch dynamics
A perspective that ecological systems are mosaics of
patches, each exhibiting nonequilibrium dynamics and
together determining the system-level behavior. Patches
can be biotic or abiotic, ranging from a tree gap in a forest
or a resource patch in a grassland to a whole ecosystem or a
continent.
Pattern analysis
The procedures with which landscape pattern is quantified,
primarily, using synoptic indices and spatial statistical
methods.
Scale
The spatial or temporal dimension of a phenomenon. In
landscape ecology, scale usually refers to grain and extent.
Grain is the finest spatial or temporal unit in a data set,
within which homogeneity is assumed, whereas extent is
the total spatial area or temporal duration of a study. Grain
and resolution are two related but distinct concepts. In
general, fine-grained analyses require high-resolution data,
