A Methodological Framework to Quantify Anthropogenic Effects on Landscape Patterns

Landscape ecology is defined as the study of ecological patterns and processes in their spatial context (Antrop 2001). Landscape ecology is motivated by a need to understand the development and dynamics of pattern in ecological phenomena, the role of disturbance in ecosystems, and characteristic spatial and temporal scales of ecological events (Urban et al. 1987). Many other definitions of landscape ecology
can be found in the literature (Turner et al. 2001; Wu and Hobbs 2007). The same observation can be made for the landscape concept (Farina 2000a). Application of the principles of hierarchy theory (Allen and Starr 1982; Urban et al. 1987; Forman 1995; Burel and Baudry 2003; Bogaert and Mahamane 2005) to the biosphere leads to a definition of a landscape as the level of spatial or biological organization situated
between the ecosystem level (lower level of organization than the landscape) and the regional level (higher level of organization than the landscape). A landscape can consequently be defined as a cluster of interacting and contiguous ecosystems; several contiguous landscapes will constitute a region.

ISBN:978-4-431-87798-1

Publication year:2011

Keywords:Anthropogenic Effects, framework