| Title | Landscape analysis of human impacts on forest fragmentation in the great lakes region |
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| Author | Zhang, Y; Guindon, B |
| Source | Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing vol. 31, no. 2, 2005 p. 153-166, https://doi.org/10.5589/m05-002 |
| Year | 2005 |
| Alt Series | Natural Resources Canada, Contribution Series 20181230 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited |
| Document | serial |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | paper; on-line; digital |
| File format | pdf |
| Subjects | geophysics; remote sensing |
| Program | Canada Centre for Remote Sensing Divsion |
| Released | 2014 06 02 |
| Abstract | The Great Lakes watershed is a major geographic feature of North America, reflecting a diverse landscape ranging from the heavily forested north to the highly industrial and agrarian south. Quantitative
aspects of the regions landscape have been extracted from a combination of land cover derived from satellite (Landsat multispectral scanner (MSS)) data and topographic map layers. Synoptic evaluations of a number of landscape metrics (forest
contagion, U-index, riparian corridor extent, road density) indicate strong correlations between human activity (HA) and natural vegetation (NV) characterizations. Conventional or commonly used landscape metrics are scalar quantities; however, human
activities are characterized by spatial regularity. For example, the small remnant forest patches in the southern portion of the watershed exhibit a spatial distribution that is associated with historic settlement patterns that led to widespread
deforestation of the land and conversion to agriculture. It is shown through cellular automata simulations of deforestation that the observed values of scalar landscape metrics and their interrelationships can only be understood by taking into
account the spatial pattern aspects associated with causal human drivers of the deforestation process. © 2005 Government of Canada. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 311584 |
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