Landscape pattern assessment
PARTNERS: USDA Forest Service Quantitative Science Staff, USDA Forest Service Forest Health Monitoring Program, US Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development, European Commission Joint Research Centre
SUMMARY: Landscape changes such as forest fragmentation and urbanization have direct and indirect impacts on a wide range of ecological processes. An important determinant of ecological impacts is the spatial pattern of natural resources within landscapes, particularly in relation to human land uses such as farming, infrastructure, and housing. Therefore, determining the status and trends in landscape patterns can be useful for understanding the condition of natural resources and potential risks posed by human activities. This project is focused on developing novel approaches to landscape pattern analysis and applying them at a national scale to support natural resource inventory, monitoring, and assessment. Current research focuses on: (1) methods of temporal change analysis appropriate for land cover maps derived from remote sensing; (2) methods to quantify and prioritize risks posed by the spatial patterns of human activities, and; (3) morphological spatial pattern analysis as a framework for pattern analysis. This project also produces periodic national land cover pattern assessments in support of the Forest Health Monitoring Program, the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, the Resource Planning Act Assessment, the National Report on Sustainable Forests, and related Agency and inter-Agency programs at national and global scales.
EFETAC’s ROLE: This project is supported by EFETAC funding.
STATUS: Ongoing
PROGRESS: This project has contributed analyses and interpretations of various aspects of land cover patterns to a dozen Forest Service national reports and assessments over the past decade, as well as to several national assessments prepared by other Federal Agencies and non-governmental organizations. The international aspects of the project have contributed to better harmonization of forest pattern assessment protocols globally.
The research has helped to establish both morphological spatial pattern analysis and multi-scale image convolution analysis as fundamental tools for landscape pattern analysis.
The research and assessments have been described in more than 50 publications which can be accessed online by following the search link at the bottom of this page.
LINKS:
USDA Forest Service Forest Health Monitoring Program
USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis Program
USDA Forest Service Resource Planning Act Assessment
USDA Forest Service National Report on Sustainable Forests
USDA Forest Service Forests on the Edge Project
US EPA Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Forest Pattern Research
The Heinz Center State of the Nation’s Ecosystems Report
CONTACT: Kurt Riitters, EFETAC Research Ecologist and Team Leader of EFETAC Forest Health Monitoring Research, kriitters@fs.fed.us or (919) 549-4015
Updated February 2012
