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LANDSCAPE METRICS TEMPORAL DYNAMICS IN A MEDITERRANEAN AREA

Maria Teresa Carone1 and Tiziana Simoniello2
1 2

ARPAB, Potenza, Italy

IMAA-CNR, Potenza, Italy

ABSTRACT
Monitoring forest temporal dynamics is a very important tool since forests are a fundamental element for landscapes equilibrium, particularly in fragile Mediterranean environments that are vulnerable to both natural and human-induced perturbations. In this work, the approach of landscape metrics has been chosen for analyzing the forest temporal dynamics of a high heterogeneous Mediterranean territory situated in Southern Italy. A chosen set of landscape indices has been calculated for land-cover maps of the area obtained by classifying satellite Landsat-TM multi-temporal imagery (1993, 1995, 1998). The analyses reveal a slight interannual variability among the different land cover of the studied landscape, but suggest an important sensitivity for natural forest edges and enhance a localized degradation for these classes. More in general, the obtained results confirm the usefulness of landscape metrics for forest monitoring providing an important screening for subsequent field surveys.
Keywords: Landscape metrics; Remote Sensing; Landsat-TM; Forested areas

INTRODUCTION
Forested areas play a fundamental role in landscapes: for example, they allow for animal movements and for the biodiversity improvement directly and contribute in maintaining the cleanness of fluvial waters by filtering surface runoff indirectly. Under these circumstances, it is intuitive that for such ecosystems is fundamental to preserve an acceptable balance. This latter is strictly related to the temporal dynamics, thus, in order to achieve a correct management of forested areas an efficient assessment of their temporal changes is mandatory. Landscape ecology methodologies can be a powerful tool for this particular purpose by considering its topical interest for the study of landscape patterns and their changing in time. Furthermore, this discipline focuses on interpreting and solving real-world problems, as underlined by recent applications (Leito and Ahern, 2002), particularly when there is the integration with remote sensing techniques (Narumalani et al., 2004). In this work, a landscape ecology approach applied to multi-temporal satellite data has been used to analyze the temporal dynamics of a high heterogeneous Mediterranean territory, particularly for assessing the environmental status of forested areas.

METHODOLOGY
The study area is focused on a Mediterranean mountainous area, which also comprehends alluvial planes. This particular configuration allows for the presence of a very rich faunal and vegetation biodiversity and it is possible to find rare or threatened species. All these peculiarities have led to the institution of a National Park for a part of the territory, particularly for the habitats belonging to the highest altitudes. The territory also shows many anthropogenic activities (e.g. oil drilling, agriculture, etc), which represent critical elements.

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LAND COVER MAPS FROM REMOTE SENSING DATA A simple definition of Remote Sensing is a technique that allows for collecting information about an object without any contact with it. Such a technique is based on sampling radiation on the Earths surface and atmosphere and it is now widely used to observe and monitor important natural and anthropogenic phenomena of the Earths surface. It represents a useful instrument for vegetation analyses because of its numerous advantages, for example: observation of wide areas in short times at relatively low costs; repetition of the observation (monitoring of the phenomena); availability of multi-spectral data useful to derive parameters related to different vegetation aspects (species, density, volume, etc.); possibility of different image resolutions (multi-scale analyses); digital format of the image (mathematical analyses).

For the present study, sub-sets of three summer scenes acquired by the Landsat-TM (Thematic Mapper) sensor for the years 1993-1995-1998 have been used. The sub-sets (1321 x 1269 pixel) cover an area of about 15,000 ha. The land cover maps have been obtained by applying a hybrid unsupervised-supervised classification. As a first step, the unsupervised ISODATA classification (Richards, 1994) algorithm has been applied. For the second step, the best signature carried out with this classification, and training areas individuated on the basis of the territory knowledge, have been used for the supervised classification performed by applying the Maximum Likelihood algorithm (Richards, 1994).

LANDSCAPE ECOLOGICAL ANALYSIS Landscape ecology is a discipline that mainly focuses on the spatial dimension (texture and levels) of the ecological processes and on the relationship between natural environment and human environment as belonging to the same system. The studies of environmental landscapes that use landscape ecology methodologies are now widely diffused and they have produced a widespread literature (e.g. Turner and Gardner, 1991; Gardner et al., 1993; Naveh and Lieberman, 1994; Farina, 1998, Ingegnoli, 2002). Recent applications of this discipline underlined the advantages of such methodology for purposes of environmental management and planning (Bastin et al. 2002; Lausch and Herzog, 2002), mainly if supported by remote sensing techniques (Millington et al. 2001, Millington et al. 2003). The study of landscape patterns and their changing in time and the analysis of spatial heterogeneity dynamics so as of its influence on ecological processes is a topical interest for the landscape ecology. Furthermore, such a discipline involves the application of its principles for interpreting and solving real-world problems. For this reason, a great emphasis has been placed on developing methods to quantify landscape structure, and a wide number of indices have been developed for this specific aim. Because of their purpose to measure landscape properties, such indices have been also called landscape metrics, and they can be calculated at patch, class and landscape level, respectively. For analysing the landscape structure of the study area, a selected set of landscape metrics, based on patch number, size, shape and arrangements of different land cover types has been applied to the three land cover maps obtained from the satellite imagery classification. For the calculation of the landscape metrics has been used one of the most popular software on the matter, such as the FRAGSTATS program (Mc Garigal et al., 2002)..

Patterns and processes in forest landscapes. Consequences of human management R. Lafortezza and G. Sanesi (eds.) 2006 Accademia Italiana di Scienze Forestali

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RESULTS
The land cover maps produced for three years have been classified in 8 classes for land plus a class of water (see Figure 1). Two of these classes represent the most important forest typologies of the area (broad-leaved mixed forests and beech forests), two represent transitional areas (transitional woodland-shrubs and shrubs) and the others mainly belong to the anthropogenic part of the environmental system. The coniferous forests also are planted vegetation with the exception of a very little native area; bare soils and arable lands represent different seasonal steps of the agricultural portion of the landscape. By observing the land cover maps, it is possible to notice that the territory is mainly covered by a vegetation structure influenced by the human activities and that the most consistent part of forested area is concentrated at the highest altitudes (DEM in Figure 1), whereas the bottom part of the valleys and the lowest altitude show only little scattered forested patches. By observing the landscape metrics values (Table 1 and Table 2), it is possible to see that the MPS (Mean Patch Size) and MNN (Mean Nearest Neighbor) indices suggest a slight temporal trend toward the fragmentation for the natural forested vegetation. In particular, the MPS shows a decrement in size for the natural forested areas (mainly beeches) and an increment for anthropogenic vegetation (both agricultural areas and coniferous forest) and the MNN shows an estrangement among the patches of primary vegetation and a shortening of the distances for the anthropogenic patches. Such trend seems to be confirmed by the values of the indices that evaluate the patches shapes. In fact, it is possible to see that the only class having an increment of the AWMSI (Area Weighted Mean Shape Index) and AWMPFD (Area Weighted Mean Patch Fractal Dimension) indices is Arable land and sparsely vegetated areas, which improve also its interspersion (IJI). This class represents, for the time of acquisition of the imagery (July), the most important portion of the agricultural part of the landscape. Furthermore, it is fundamental to notice that for broad-leaved forests the CAD (Core Area Density) index shows some important variations, which seem to be compensated by the value of shrubs and transitional areas. Finally, in the considered temporal interval, the landscape shows a good territory distribution among the different land cover classes (Shannon Evenness values), even if it has not a so satisfactory level of habitats diversity (Shannon Diversity values) (Table 3).
Table 1: Mean Patch Size (MPS); Area Weighted Mean Shape Index (AWMSI); Area Weighted Mean Patch Fractal Dimension (AWMPFD)

93 Landscape 4,12 Broad-leaved 9,31 Beeches 7,79 Trans.woodlands-shrubs 2,39 Shrubs 3,45 Coniferous 2,57 Cultivations 1,97 Arables lands/ sparsely vegetated areas 4,01 Bare soils 6,90 Waters 73,77

Land cover classes

MPS 95 4,67 11,15 10,54 2,60 5,03 2,72 2,60 4,29 6,49 93,61

98 3,13 9,62 6,88 1,84 1,75 3,06 1,63 6,10 3,27 101,83

93 5,63 7,77 3,92 2,56 4,01 1,91 8,14 4,75 5,35 2,81

AWMSI 95 98 5,59 7,28 6,19 6,49 4,44 3,50 2,76 2,70 6,20 2,76 2,15 2,43 5,14 3,84 5,44 14,32 6,52 3,49 2,86 2,90

AWMPFD 93 95 98 1,19 1,19 1,20 1,22 1,20 1,21 1,17 1,18 1,16 1,14 1,14 1,15 1,18 1,21 1,15 1,10 1,11 1,12 1,20 1,18 1,16 1,18 1,20 1,28 1,19 1,19 1,15 1,14 1,14 1,14

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Figure 1: Land cover maps obtained from the classification of Landsat-TM imagery (1993 top left, 1995 top right, 1998 bottom left) and Digital Elevation Model (bottom right)

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Table 2: Mean Nearest Neighbor (MNN); Interspersion Juxtaposition Index (IJI); Core Area Density (CAD)

Land cover classes Landscape Broad-leaved Beeches Trans. woodlands-shrubs Shrubs Coniferous Cultivations Arables lands/sparsely veg. Bare soils Waters

93 90,40 106,37 156,26 119,42 74,56 374,21 80,96 72,46 91,89 9477,82

MNN 95 94,80 119,28 144,95 100,95 87,20 291,68 93,67 72,29 93,59 3482,30

98 76,70 111,62 195,23 73,86 61,12 228,06 71,71 53,97 96,52 5706,49

93 67,32 67,37 29,98 62,60 68,52 46,75 66,66 61,58 47,30 83,68

IJI 95 68,54 62,10 37,33 68,55 74,74 48,02 71,64 56,24 47,41 49,06

98 66,89 66,25 39,44 65,52 68,15 66,49 47,58 66,40 40,77 57,40

93 18,51 1,80 0,19 1,39 4,69 0,13 3,54 4,34 2,42 0,00

CAD 95 17,02 1,22 0,17 2,64 3,35 0,19 2,91 4,08 2,46 0,00

98 22,89 1,36 0,28 3,86 5,04 0,38 4,17 5,36 2,44 0,00

Table 3: Shannon Diversity Index (SDI); Shannon Evenness Index (SEI)

Land cover classes Landscape

93 1,83

SDI 95 1,87

98 1,86

93 0.83

SEI 95 0.85

98 0.85

DISCUSSION
The obtained results show a landscape that presents an important agricultural background, which strongly influences the primary structure of the vegetation. In such a landscape, the forested areas seem to have a trend that led them towards the fragmentation. Notwithstanding, it is important to take into account the time of the imagery acquisition and to consider that the studied period is very short. Under these circumstances, the variations on the Shapes, Core density and Mean Patch Size of forested areas, seems to be most probably related to a change in the radiative vegetation response for the satellite sensor, due to a vegetation stress, that to a patches change spread all over the territory. A probably reason of this stress could be linked to meteorological conditions; July 1998 is the warmest and the driest of the three considered years (data from ARPAB-SIMN archive). There are small areas strongly degraded also in this short period, but they are very localized and represent a little portion of the landscape. The negative forest vegetation response and the improvement of the transitional areas values allow for thinking that in the studied landscape the forested patches have particularly sensitive borders. Such a characteristic in a territory with a background so strongly affected by the human activities represents an important problem because it may lower the connectivity between forested patches, which might increase their border sensitivity, priming a vicious circle. For these reasons, it might be very helpful in term of forest management to intervene on the landscape portions in which the forest borders periodically and critically belong to the classified transitional areas. Moreover, the localized strongly degraded areas could represent a study site for detailed field surveys for evaluating the real cause of such degradation and planning subsequent interventions.

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In conclusion, the study was able to point out an important element of sensitivity for the forested areas of a landscape with precious characteristics and critical aspects, confirming the validity of an approach based on landscape metrics in term of management purposes.

REFERENCES
Bastin G.N., Ludwig J.A., Eager R.W., Chewings V.H. and Liedloff A.C., 2002. Indicators of Landscape Function: Comparing Patchiness Metrics Using Remotely Sensed Data from Rangelands. Ecological Indicators, 1(4), 247-260. Farina A,. 1998. Principles and Methods in Landscape Ecology. Chapman & Hall. Gardner R.H., ONeill R.V. and Turner M.G., 1993. Ecological Implications of Landscape Fragmentation. In S.T.A. Pickett and M. G. McDonnell (Eds.) Humans as Components of Ecosystems: Subtle Human Effects and Ecology of Population Areas. New York, Springer-Verlag: 208-226. Ingegnoli V., 2002. Landscape Ecology: a Widening Foundation. Springer-Verlag, Berlin. Lausch A. and Herzog F., 2002. Applicability of landscape metrics for the monitoring of landscape change: issues of scale, resolution and interpretability. Ecological Indicators, 2(1-2): 3-15. Leito B. A., and Ahern, J., 2002. Applying landscape ecological concepts and metrics in sustainable landscape planning. Landscape and Urban Planning, 59: 65-93. McGarigal K., Cushman S. A. and Neel M. C., Ene E., 2002. FRAGSTATS: Spatial Pattern Analysis Program for Categorical Maps. Computer Software Program Produced by the Authors at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Available at the following web site: www.umass.edu/landeco/research/fragstats/fragstats.html Millington A.C., Velez-Liendo X.M. and Bradley A.V., 2003. Scale dependence in multitemporal mapping of forest fragmentation in Bolivia: implications for explaining temporal trends in landscape ecology and applications to biodiversity conservation. Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 57(4): 289-299. Millington A.C., Walsh S.J. and Osborne P.E. (Eds), 2001. GIS and Remote Sensing Applications in Biogeography and Ecology. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston. Narumalani, S., Mishra, D. R., and Rothwell, R. G., 2004. Change detection and landscape metrics for inferring anthropogenic processes in the greater EFMO area. Remote Sensing and Environment, 91: 478-489. Naveh Z. and Lieberman A.S., 1994. Landscape Ecology: Theory and Application. Springer. Richards J. A., 1994. Remote Sensing Digital Image Analysis. Springer-Verlag, Berlin. Turner M.G. and Gardner R.H. (Eds), 1991. Quantitative methods in landscape ecology. Springer-Verlag, New York.

Patterns and processes in forest landscapes. Consequences of human management R. Lafortezza and G. Sanesi (eds.) 2006 Accademia Italiana di Scienze Forestali