Abstract Landscape and Urban Planning xxx (2003) xxx–xxx Spatial patterns in land cover of exurbanizing watersheds in southeastern Michigan (2003)
BibTeX
@MISC{Cifaldi03abstractlandscape,
author = {Rebecca L. Cifaldi and J. David Allan and J. D. Duh and Daniel G. Brown},
title = {Abstract Landscape and Urban Planning xxx (2003) xxx–xxx Spatial patterns in land cover of exurbanizing watersheds in southeastern Michigan},
year = {2003}
}
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Abstract
Recent research into landscape composition and configuration, or pattern, seeks to identify a core set of metrics and determine whether these describe unique gradients or dimensions of pattern across diverse settings. Prior work generally has examined relatively large units, and it is uncertain whether this approach will prove useful with small (50–100 km 2) landscape units such as the sub-catchment of headwater streams. We estimated 25 pattern variables for the 109 sub-catchment of the Huron and Raisin river basins in southeastern Michigan, which are similar in terrain but represent, respectively, urbanizing and agricultural conditions. Three principal components analyses (PCA) performed on sub-watersheds within the combined area, and for each basin separately, identified five axes that explained ∼80 % of the variation in landscape pattern. The first and strongest component described a fragmentation gradient ranging from landscapes dominated by a single land cover type to more diverse, patchy landscapes, and was similar in all three analyses. Variables quantifying variation in patch size were related to the second component in each analysis. Components three through five quantified different gradients in land cover pattern among the analyses, suggesting that gradients of variation in land cover spatial patterns quantified by later components are unique to each landscape. Pattern metrics were correlated with proportion of land in a land cover class, especially for proportion agricultural and proportion urban land, which exhibited the broadest land cover gradients in the study area. Moreover, a number of relationships were non-linear, indicating that the same value for a variable could occur in two different landscapes. Overall, we find that a suite of commonly used landscape metrics typically applied to large landscape
Keyphrases
southeastern michigan abstract landscape xxx spatial pattern land cover urban planning xxx study area single land cover type combined area pattern variable principal component analysis landscape composition large unit landscape metric land cover spatial pattern diverse setting pattern metric landscape pattern quantified different gradient patchy landscape later component raisin river basin core set land cover pattern patch size landscape unit second component land cover class proportion urban land land cover gradient different landscape recent research headwater stream large landscape agricultural condition prior work fragmentation gradient
