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- Title
Indicators of landscape fragmentation: The case for Combining ecological indices and the perceptive approach.
- Authors
Llausàs, Albert; Nogué, Pascual-Joan
- Abstract
One of the landscape dynamics that has attracted significant interest, both from the scientific community and, more recently, from the broader population, is landscape fragmentation. Landscape fragmentation has come to the forefront since it impacts ecological systems and human ac-tivities. From landscape ecology to the theory of perception, multiple disci-plines have dealt with the concept and measurement of landscape fragmen-tation and its impacts on habitats and societies. Landscape fragmentation, which is one of the most widespread landscape processes, has been stud-ied in both conservation biology and landscape ecology disciplines. Quanti-tative indicators capable of measuring landscape patterns and changes are used to examine landscape fragmentation and assess the impact on the environment and biodiversity. In addition, qualitative indicators are used to measure the social dimension and perception of landscape fragmentation by humans (with little connection to ecological processes). The present study takes a pragmatic approach to integrate existing con-cepts and methodologies of landscape fragmentation assessment and ex-amine the feasibility of creating a comprehensive indicator that combines the strengths of these different perspectives. In this article, we summarize and analyze the current assessments used to study landscape fragmenta-tion. We report the strengths, limitations, successes and challenges of the quantitative and perceptive approaches and provide an insight into the pos-sibilities and potential of combining these approaches into one assessment. Based on the existing literature and pioneering integrative approaches, we conclude that it is convenient and feasible to design an indicator of land-scape fragmentation. This indicator would be informative of changes in the landscape pattern and meaningful for land planners and society as a whole. Such an indicator, however, should be constrained in scope to focus on people and our unique perception of scale, visual fragmentation, and human societal context and cultural background. A combination of both approaches would maximize the significance and utility of a landscape fragmentation indicator. Landscape ecology methodologies have proved to be useful in develop-ing indicators of landscape patterns. There are difficulties, however, which are inherent in the measurement methods and the interpretation of the meaning that landscape fragmentation indices have for species living in the landscape. These limitations require researchers to be very concise regard-ing the targeted species, the elements considered to cause the fragmenta-tion of their habitat and the scale at which this habitat should be studied. The exact definition of which elements are involved in landscape fragmentation and the degree to which they contribute to the perception and the discrimi-nation of groups of people that share similar views and opinions regarding a given landscape fragmentation pattern are issues that can be addressed by disciplines studying landscape perception, preferences and interactions within communities. At present, when integrative approaches combining landscape ecology indices and visual indicators have proved to be achiev-able, studies of the viability of particular indicators that are informative for specific landscape processes are important. Our future research will focus on the development of a suitable indicator of landscape fragmentation, which takes into account the aforementioned requirements and limitations.
- Subjects
FRAGMENTED landscapes -- Environmental aspects; FRAGMENTED landscapes; BIOINDICATORS; LANDSCAPE changes -- Environmental aspects; LANDSCAPE ecology; ANTHROPOGENIC effects on nature; LANDSCAPE design
- Publication
Manzar: The Iranian Scientific Journal of Landscape, 2013, Vol 5, Issue 22, p43
- ISSN
2008-7446
- Publication type
Article