•Landscape heterogeneity is a combination of land use and landscape features.•Land use heterogeneity describes landscape’s composition and structure.•Landscape features’ heterogeneity reflects the ...diversity and the amount of features.•The index provides a robust assessment agricultural landscapes’ heterogeneity.
The biodiversity of agricultural landscapes is strongly dependent on extensive traditional management practices and the proportion of natural and semi-natural habitats within the landscape. Within Europe, contemporary agricultural management practices, as well as nature conservation regimes are often oriented toward establishing suitable preconditions for maintaining biodiversity; this requires operational methods to assess and monitor the effects of policy measures on landscape heterogeneity. In this article a method for evaluating landscape heterogeneity of agricultural landscapes is proposed, which measures two main components: (1) land cover heterogeneity and (2) landscape features’ heterogeneity. The first can be defined as a function of compositional (number of land cover categories) and configurational (distribution of land cover categories) heterogeneity, whereas the latter is the result of landscape features diversity (the number of different types of landscape features) and landscape features count (the overall number of landscape features). Considering the proposed index, the heterogeneity of agricultural landscapes is ranked into three classes. The proposed land use and landscape features inventory, combined with the landscape heterogeneity evaluation index, could serve as a basis for the development of landscape management practices, which aim to fulfill objectives of several EU policies (e.g. Common Agricultural Policy, Natura 2000). Nevertheless, spatial context, as well as nature protection and agricultural objectives need to be considered when applying the proposed index in management practice.
Historical archaeologists explore landscapes in the American West through many lenses, including culture contact, colonialism, labor, migration, and identity. This volume sets landscape at the center ...of analysis, examining space (a geographic location) and place (the lived experience of a locale) in their myriad permutations. Divided into three thematic sections-the West as space, the West as community, and the West today-the book pulls together case studies from across the American West and incorporates multivocal contributions and perspectives from archaeology, anthropology, Indigenous studies, history, Latinx studies, geography, and material culture studies. Contributors tackle questions of how historical archaeologists theoretically and methodologically define the West, conveying the historical, mythological, and physical manifestations of placemaking. They confront issues of community and how diverse ethnic, racial, gendered, labor-based, and other demographic populations expressed their identities on and in the Western landscape. Authors also address the continued creation and re-creation of the West today, exploring the impact of the past on people in the present and its influence on modern conceptions of the American West.
Inspired by the European Landscape Convention, landscape conservation policies in European countries are increasingly becoming connected to cultural heritage policies. In some European countries such ...as Spain, the vision of the ELC has been enriched with that of the guidelines on the inclusion of Cultural Landscapes on the World Heritage List. The Spanish National Cultural Landscape Plan, an instrument for the implementation of the ELC promoted by the Spanish Institute of Cultural Heritage, expressly states that its definition of cultural landscape should be based on the definition of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, but incorporating the ELC. However, this confluence is ultimately reflected in confronting guidelines. This study deepens this duality of the concept of cultural landscape, explores its conflicting spatial implications, and discusses its use in Spanish regional instruments. Through the statistical study of a sample of Spanish cultural landscapes, our study recognizes the need for guidelines for the identification of landscapes of special interest, especially if they are to be converted into cultural properties afterwards. Although the study cannot provide a method that solves the problem of the spatial dimensions of the landscape without major concessions, it has provided a classification of the dominant typology.
Contexts
The influence of landscape patterns on urban thermal environment has received remarkable attention with the rapid urbanization process worldwide. Although numerous studies have revealed the ...relationship between landscape patterns and the urban thermal environment, there is limited effort to quantify the contributions of landscape patterns and anthropogenic heat to urban heat islands (UHI) under the seasonal and daily dynamics.
Objectives
This study aims to identify the effects of landscape patterns and anthropogenic heat on UHI intensity in the daytime and nighttime as well as in different seasons.
Methods
We first used remotely sensed images to extract the landscape patterns and land surface temperature. Anthropogenic heat was quantified through energy consumption data. Multivariate stepwise regression was used to quantify the effects of landscape patterns and anthropogenic heat on UHI intensity.
Results
Eight models were constructed for daytime and nighttime UHI intensity in spring, summer, fall, and winter, respectively. Results demonstrated that the presence of buildings is the main factor affecting UHI intensity in urban area for three seasons except summer. Basically, the contributions of landscape configuration to the UHI in the daytime is higher than landscape composition, while the opposite is true at night. The contribution of anthropogenic heat was low in all seasons due to the high correlation with non-monolayer buildings. The nighttime UHI intensity models fit better than the daytime, especially in the winter.
Conclusions
This study contributes to the understanding of landscape influence on UHI intensity and provides practical guidelines for landscape planning to mitigate UHI effects.
Global environmental challenges require approaches that integrate biodiversity conservation, food production, and livelihoods at landscape scales. We reviewed the approach of conserving biodiversity ...on “high-nature-value” (HNV) farmland, covering 75 million ha in Europe, from a resilience perspective. Despite growing recognition in natural resource policies, many HNV farmlands have vanished, and the remaining ones are vulnerable to socioeconomic changes. Using landscape-level cases across Europe, we considered the following social-ecological system properties and components and their integration into HNV farmland management: (1) coupling of social and ecological systems, (2) key variables, (3) adaptive cycles, (4) regime shifts, (5) cascading effects, (6) ecosystem stewardship and collaboration, (7) social capital, and (8) traditional ecological knowledge. We argue that previous conservation efforts for HNV farmland have focused too much on static, isolated, and monosectoral conservation strategies, and that stimulation of resilience and adaptation is essential for guiding HNV farmland through rapid change.
Context
Exploring how ecosystem service values (
ESV
) are likely to change based on government intentions to develop and protect land is essential for sustainable landscape management.
Objectives
...(1) Simulate land use change under future baseline (BAS), resource consumption (CON), and resource protection (PRO) scenarios, based on forecasted land expropriation prices implemented by the government of Hubei Province. (2) Measure changes in ecosystem services influenced by future land use. (3) Provide sustainable landscape management strategies to control the risk of ecosystem service loss.
Methods
This research couples Computable General Equilibrium of Land Use Change and Dynamics of Land System (CGELUC-DLS) models to simulate land use changes and calculated
ESV
using the equivalent factor method.
Results
(1) Predicted areas of cultivated land, forest, and grassland throughout Hubei Province declined under the three scenarios between 2015 and 2025. (2) Compared with 2015, equivalent values per unit area of ecosystem services (
ESV
e
) decreased by 2.27%, 4.01%, and 1.67% in 2025 under BAS, CON, and PRO scenarios, respectively. The future trend in
ESV
e
reduction across western Hubei Province did abate in the PRO scenario. (3) Reasonably adjusting land expropriation prices is a regulatory approach that can serve to strengthen sustainable landscape management in China.
Conclusions
ESV
will inevitably decline in the future due to continuous land use changes across Hubei Province. The government should implement diversified strategies to control ecosystem services loss, including adjusting land expropriation prices, adopting regional differentiated management strategies, and implementing intensive but sustainable land use policies.
Context
An important output of connectivity science is the identification of priority areas for the conservation of landscape connectivity. However, current connectivity conservation planning methods ...rarely take into account risks associated with future land use and climate change, and seldom incorporate stakeholder perceptions of connectivity priorities.
Objectives
We modeled future connectivity change for five umbrella vertebrate species in a fragmented landscape, the Montérégie region in Québec, Canada. We aimed to show how connectivity, land use change, and climate change models can be integrated with stakeholder information to derive simple connectivity assessments and conservation scenarios.
Methods
We projected change in ecological connectivity along with land use and climate change, for five vertebrate species whose needs are representative of the habitat and movement needs of many other vertebrates in our study region. We organized a participatory workshop with local stakeholders, utilizing methods of consensus building to identify priority areas for connectivity. We used the results to generate simple connectivity conservation scenarios.
Results
Land use change strongly impacted connectivity negatively for all species. The effects were worsened by climate change the more our species relied on climate-sensitive forest habitats, suggesting that interactions between climate and land use change can matter even at sub-regional scales. Integrating stakeholders’ priorities into connectivity modeling allowed for the definition of useful scenarios.
Conclusions
Our results highlight the relevance of an iterative, multi-stakeholder approach to the definition of scenarios for connectivity conservation priorities. Integrated models can support the scenario-making process for fragmented landscapes, where deriving realistic and relevant alternative scenarios is challenging.
Context
Urban sprawl typically consists of low-density urban development dominated by single-family housing and automobile-oriented land use patterns. Sprawl impacts landscape structure and ...composition, especially along the urban periphery. However, few studies have simultaneously examined sprawl at the building level and by building type (e.g. single family, multi-family) and its relationship to forest landscapes within an urbanizing region.
Objectives
(1) To map and quantify 30-years of sprawl and assess its impacts on forest landscapes in southeast Michigan, a seven-county region centered on the City of Detroit (2) to investigate how different building types, densities, and distances affect forest structure.
Methods
We used the Random Forests algorithm to analyze high resolution remote-sensing imagery and computed three landscape metrics of forest fragmentation and cohesion, incorporating data on built types and densities. Finally, we investigated the relationship between single-family housing sprawl and forest landscape functionality.
Results
The built-up expansion was correlated with an increase in overall tree canopy in the region. However, multilevel analysis revealed these same forest landscapes became less cohesive and more fragmented over time as a result of urban sprawl. Additional correlation tests revealed an increase in patch density and decrease in effective mesh size (meff) and patch cohesion in areas proximate to low-density single-family housing.
Conclusions
The analysis documents how urban sprawl negatively impacts forested landscapes. Single-family housing in particular had a detrimental impact on the functionality of adjacent forested landscapes. High thematic resolution enables policy-makers and planners to identify specific policies and interventions to increase landscape functionality.
Climate and topography are among the most fundamental drivers of plant diversity. Here, we assessed the importance of climate and topography in explaining diversity patterns of species richness, ...endemic richness and endemicity on the landscape scale of an oceanic island and evaluated the independent contribution of climatic and topographic variables to spatial diversity patterns. We constructed a presence/absence matrix of perennial endemic and native vascular plant species (including subspecies) in 890 plots on the environmentally very heterogeneous island of La Palma, Canary Islands. Species richness, endemic richness and endemicity were recorded, interpolated and related to climate (i.e. variables describing temperature, precipitation, variability and climatic rarity) and topography (i.e. topographic complexity, solar radiation, geologic age, slope and aspect). We used multimodel inference, spatial autoregressive models, variance partitioning and linear regression kriging as statistical methods. Species richness is best explained by both climatic and topographic variables. Topographic variables (esp. topographic complexity and solar radiation) explain endemic richness, and climatic variables (esp. elevation/temperature and rainfall seasonality) explain endemicity. Spatial patterns of species richness, endemic richness and endemicity were in part geographically decoupled from each other. Synthesis. We identified several topography‐dependent processes ranging from evolutionary processes (micro‐refugia, in situ speciation, pre‐adaptation to rupicolous conditions, dispersal limitations) to human‐induced influences (introduced herbivores, fire, land use) that possibly shape the endemic richness pattern of La Palma. In contrast, climate mainly drives endemicity, which is connected to ecological speciation and specialization to local conditions. We highlight the importance of incorporating climatic variability into future studies of plant species diversity and endemism. The spatial incongruence in hot spots of species richness, endemic richness and endemicity emphasizes the need for an integrated conservation approach acknowledging different diversity measures to protect the complete spectrum of diversity. High‐elevation islands such as La Palma are highly suitable to study drivers of diversity and endemism, as they offer environmental gradients of continental magnitude on the landscape scale of a single climatic mini‐continent and a large array of in situ‐speciated endemics.
Context
Land-use change is a key driver of pollinator declines worldwide. Plantation forests are a major land use worldwide and are likely to expand substantially in the near term, especially with ...projected cellulosic biofuel production. But little is known about the potential local and landscape-scale impacts of plantation forestry on bees, the most important group of pollinators worldwide.
Objectives
We studied the effects of local management, landscape context, and their interaction on bee abundance and species richness in the southeastern US, in pine plantations and other nearby land uses.
Methods
We sampled bee communities using aerial netting and pan trapping in 85 sites over 3 years.
Results
We found that both landscape composition and configuration are important factors for bee diversity and abundance at the landscape scale, though interestingly many landscape factors showed contrasting directional responses for diversity versus abundance. Removing the four most common species, all in the genus
Lasioglossum
(and which comprised ~ 45% of all specimens) largely harmonized the results between diversity and abundance. In addition, we found several interactions between local management and landscape factors, all consistent with the idea that compositional heterogeneity and configurational complexity are more important for bee communities in poorer-quality local habitat.
Conclusions
Our results underscore the importance of considering (1) both landscape configuration and composition in analyses, and (2) interactions between local management and landscape factors. The interactions in particular highlight the need to maintain landscape compositional heterogeneity and configurational complexity, particularly in heavily managed landscapes.
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