Spatial Scale Effects on Landscape Pattern Metrics

Spatial Scale Effects on Landscape Pattern Metrics presents a systematic assessment of the spatial scale effects on landscape patterns metrics that are of great interest to graduate students and professionals in the fields of landscape ecology, geography, remote sensing and environmental sciences. Scale effects on the performances of landscape metrics have attracted a lot of concern recently. Most studies have focused on two scale effects: changes in spatial resolution and changes in spatial extent. Little empirical analysis has been done on the effects of spatial aggregation (filtering) on landscape metrics. This book has analyzed the effects of three types of changes in scale on the performances of eighteen commonly used landscape metrics: (1) varying spatial aggregation, (2) varying spatial resolution, and (3) varying spatial extent. This study has demonstrated the importance of using landscape metrics that have little sensitivity to scale effects and most sensitivity to the actual landscape pattern changes for examining time-series changes in deforestation on the landscape.