Linking landscape pattern and human disturbance on a regional level : a case study in Beira Interior region, Portugal

The land use and land cover pattern of landscapes are key elements of basic landscape structure; accordingly, his pattern has an important role in landscape management, nature conservation and preservation. In the other hand the human impact on the ecological environment has attracted a significant amount of attention. In this study, hemeroby index (HI) was used to quantify the degree of human disturbance, and the relationship between HI and landscape pattern metrics was explored in a region of Central Portugal. The main objectives of this study were to analyze the temporal and spatial characteristics of landscape pattern, and its relationship with different degrees of human disturbance. The Spearman’s correlations were determined to reveal the statistical connections between the landscape metric parameters and the HI values. At a landscape level the Mean Perimeter-Area Ratio (MPAR) showed a significant statistical connection with the HI. At a class level most of the metrics can be used to estimate the spatial changes of the hemeroby level, with Mean Patch Size (MPS) and Mean Perimeter-Area Ratio (MPAR) showing significant statistical connection with the hemeroby index, for agricultural areas, pastures and seminatural areas.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Phytoindication assessment of the effect of reconstruction on the light regime of an urban park

The ecological restoration of urban parks is used to increase their recreational attractiveness, improve air quality, mitigate urban heat island effects, improve stormwater infiltration, and provide other social and environmental benefits. The dynamics of plant communities after urban forest restoration requires investigation. The study assessed the impact of urban park reconstruction on the state of grass cover, phytoindication of changes in light regime caused by park reconstruction and found out the dependence of reliability of phytoindication assessment on the number of species in the relevant area. The study was conducted in the recreational area of the Botanical Garden of the Oles Honchar Dnipro National University (Ukraine). A tree plantation was created after the Second World War in the location of a natural oak forest. In 2019, a 2.8 ha area of the park was reconstructed. The samples were taken within polygons, two of which were placed in the reconstruction area and two of which were placed in a similar section of the park where no reconstruction was performed. During the reconstruction process, walkways were rebuilt, shrubs were removed, old, damaged trees were removed, and tree crowns were trimmed. Juvenile trees were planted in place of the removed old trees. Old outbuildings, which greatly impaired the aesthetic perception of the park, were also removed. Transport and construction machinery was involved in the reconstruction. A total of 65 plant species were found within the studied polygons. The number of herbaceous species in the park area after reconstruction was higher than without reconstruction. The crown closure in the reconstructed area was significantly lower than that in the untreated conditions. The phytoindication assessment showed that the light regime varies from the conditions suitable for the scyophytes (plants of typical foliage forests) to the conditions suitable for the sub-heliophytes (plants of light forests and shrubberies, or high herbaceous communities; lower layers are in the shade). The light regime in the park area after reconstruction was statistically significantly different from the regime in the untreated park area. The lighting regime after the reconstruction was favourable to sub-heliophytes, and without reconstruction the regime favoured hemi-scyophytes. Tree canopy crown closure negatively correlated with grass height and herbaceous layer projective cover. The tree canopy crown closure, grass height, and herbaceous layer projective cover were able to explain 86% of the phytoindication assessment of the lighting regime variation. These parameters negatively affected the light regime. The prospect of further research is to investigate the dependence of indicative reliability of the assessment of other environmental factors with the help of phytoindication depending on the number of species. In addition to the indication of traditional ecological factors it is of particular interest to clarify the aspect of the dynamics of hemeroby indicators as a result of park reconstruction

Applying plant disturbance indicators to reveal the hemeroby of soil macrofauna species

Hemeroby is an integrated indicator for measuring human impacts on environmental systems. Hemeroby has a complex nature and a variety of mechanisms to affect ecosystems. Hemeroby is often used to assess disturbances in different vegetation types but this con-cept has seldom been evaluated for animals. The role of the hemeroby gradient in structuring the soil macrofauna community was inves-tigated. The experimental polygon was located in Botanical Garden of the Oles Honchar Dnipro National University (Dnipro City, Ukraine). There were 20 sites within the polygon. On each of them at 105 points samples of soil macrofauna were taken, soil penetration resistance, electrical conductivity of soil, depth of litter, height of grasses were measured. Within each site, a description of the vegetation cover was made. Based on the description of the vegetation, an indication of the level of ecosystem hemeroby within the polygons was conducted. In total, 48,457 invertebrate (Annelida, Arthropoda, and Mollusca) individuals of 6 classes, 13 orders, 50 families and 83 species or parataxonomic units were recorded. Phytoindication reveals that the level of hemeroby within the studied polygons varies from 34.9 to 67.2. The model V and VI from the HOFJO-list were the most optimal model of the species response to hemeroby gra-dient. The weighted average factor value was used to assess the optimal factor level for the species in a symmetrical bell-shaped re-sponse model. The optimal factor level of the hemeroby for the soil macrofauna species ranges from 34.9 to 66.0. Species also differ in degree of specialization to the factor of hemeroby. There was a regular change in the soil macrofauna community size and diversity in the hemeroby gradient. The limiting influence of anthropogenic transformation of the environment on the abundance of soil macrofauna community is clearly marked at the level of hemeroby above average. Species diversity of the community is greatest at moderate heme-roby level. Both relatively little transformed habitats and strongly transformed ones are characterized by lower species richness of the soil macrofauna community. The Shannon index shows a clear upward trend with increasing hemeroby. The Pielou index indicates that the main reason for this trend is an increase in community evenness with increasing hemeroby. The intermediate disturbance hypothesis was fully supported with respect to species richness. For the number of species, there is indeed a certain level of heterogeneity at which the number of species is highest. For another aspect of diversity, evenness, this pattern is not true. The evenness increases with increas-ing habitat disturbance. This result is due to a decrease in the abundance of dominant species. Keywords: diversity; urbanization; bioindication; canonical correspondance analysis; variation fractioning

Micro-topography associated to forest edges

Forest edges are often defined as the discontinuity between the forest habitat and an adjacent open habitat, thus they are based on a clear difference in the structure of the dominant vegetation. However, beside this very general definition, in the field we can observe a large diversity of edges, with often different kinds of micro-topography features: bank, ditch, stone wall, path, etc. As these elements are rather common in many temperate forest edges, it seems important to start to characterize them more clearly and with consistency. From a set of observations in south-western France, we build a first typology of the micro-topographic elements associated to forest edges. For each of them we describe the process, natural or human induced, at their origin, and according to the literature available, we identify some of their key ecological roles. Banks, generated by the differential erosion between forest and crops along slopes, are especially analyzed since they are the most common micro-topographic element in our region. It offers many micro-habitat conditions in the soil used by a wide range of species, notably by several bee species. More research is required to study in details the importance of such micro-topographic elements

Spatial Interaction of Agricultural Land Uses and their Impacts on Ecosystem Service Provision at the Landscape Scale

The relationship between agricultural land use and it impact on ecosystem services, including nutrient cycling and biodiversity conservation, is extremely complex. This complexity has been augmented by isolated research on the impact of agriculture land uses on the landscape's capacity to provide ecosystem services (ES) particularly in most vulnerable areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. Though a considerable number of studies emphasize the nexus between specific land use types and their impact on N-deposition across agriculture landscapes, a sufficient modeling basis for an empirical consideration of spatial interactions between different agricultural land use types at the landscape scale across rural-urbanizing areas in Sub-Saharan Africa is consistently missing. In view of this, the motivation to understand, assess and address significant roles that size, shape, spatial location, and interactivity of different land use patch types play in assessing land use interactions and their impact on ecosystem service provision and the overall landscape resilience necessitated the core of this PhD thesis. This thesis aimed at finding answers to the question of which assessment framework could be employed to understand the interaction of land use types and their impact on ecosystem services, the present thesis introduces a semi-quantitative assessment framework implemented in the GISCAME suite to provide scientific and practical answers to this question. Ahead of the framework development, a thorough review of land use planning documents from selected countries within the WASCAL project area to uncover the key relevance government places on incorporating the ES concept was undertaken. This was with the view that mentioning the concept in such legal document alone does not suggest its relevance if road maps for their implementation is not sufficiently provided, with laid down institutional provisions, roles, responsibilities, support systems and commitments. The outcome of this objective significantly influenced the subsequent objectives of this thesis. Subsequently, I employed Voronoi tessellation and midpoint displacement algorithms implemented in the Structure Generator (SG4GISCAME) to generate alternative land use mosaics to mimic the patchy agricultural landscape character of the study area. The key objective here was to present the output of this alternative landscape as a partial solution to the data scarcity issue which hinders mapping and hypothetical testing of the landscape structure and their role in landscape resilience. To achieve the objective of identifying core sets of landscape indicators to explore the significant influence of the landscape structure and pattern as an influence on landscape resilience, I employed analytical and statistical multivariate principal component and factor analysis to eliminate the landscape metric redundancy. The outcome helped to propose core set as indicators capable to be used for ecosystem services assessment and land use planning. The result revealed that only 6 landscape metrics had the capacity to explicitly define the configuration and compositional landscape character of the Vea catchment area. This result served a critical input into the development of the assessment framework. In developing a framework to assess the contribution of the landscape spatial structure to the resilience of the socio-ecological system (SES), I mapped the capacity of the landscape structure to provide regulating ecosystem services with the aid of land use maps as proxies. Analytical Hierarchical Processes and Expert stakeholder approaches were used to identify and subsequently map key regulating ES identified from the catchment area. Following, a multi-criteria analysis was employed to link stakeholder mapping and landscape metrics to provide a functional understanding of the interrelationship of both methods and how they provide integrative insights into the landscape resilience and ES trade-off concepts respectively. This assessment was undertaken using a 2012 multi-temporal RapidEye land use classification data and implemented with the aid of the cellular automaton module in GISCAME. In the absence of explicit ecological modeling and spatial data, the result of this methodology provides a comprehensively rich ES assessment approach not only for the research area, but for transferability across West Africa. The result of this assessment is to inform, across governance levels, different planning, and development scenarios with the potential to alter the landscapes structural character and thereby impede ES flow and resilience of the SES. Indirectly, the relevance of the landscape structure to land use planning was significant across the outcomes of the thesis. Further, the approach establishes potential trade-offs and synergies across the agricultural landscapes structure and thereby suggest planning and management supports to optimize agricultural production and improve ecosystem service flows in Sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, the implementation of the multi-criteria evaluation function in GISCAME demonstrated beyond question, the functional relevance of the GISCAME software tool as the only tried and tested ES integration framework implemented within the WASCAL project area

Phytoindication assessment of the effect of reconstruction on the light regime of an urban park

The ecological restoration of urban parks is used to increase their recreational attractiveness, improve air quality, mitigate urban heat island effects, improve stormwater infiltration, and provide other social and environmental benefits. The dynamics of plant communities after urban forest restoration requires investigation. The study assessed the impact of urban park reconstruction on the state of grass cover, phytoindication of changes in light regime caused by park reconstruction and found out the dependence of reliability of phytoindication assessment on the number of species in the relevant area. The study was conducted in the recreational area of the Botanical Garden of the Oles Honchar Dnipro National University (Ukraine). A tree plantation was created after the Second World War in the location of a natural oak forest. In 2019, a 2.8 ha area of the park was reconstructed. The samples were taken within polygons, two of which were placed in the reconstruction area and two of which were placed in a similar section of the park where no reconstruction was performed. During the reconstruction process, walkways were rebuilt, shrubs were removed, old, damaged trees were removed, and tree crowns were trimmed. Juvenile trees were planted in place of the removed old trees. Old outbuildings, which greatly impaired the aesthetic perception of the park, were also removed. Transport and construction machinery was involved in the reconstruction. A total of 65 plant species were found within the studied polygons. The number of herbaceous species in the park area after reconstruction was higher than without reconstruction. The crown closure in the reconstructed area was significantly lower than that in the untreated conditions. The phytoindication assessment showed that the light regime varies from the conditions suitable for the scyophytes (plants of typical foliage forests) to the conditions suitable for the sub-heliophytes (plants of light forests and shrubberies, or high herbaceous communities; lower layers are in the shade). The light regime in the park area after reconstruction was statistically significantly different from the regime in the untreated park area. The lighting regime after the reconstruction was favourable to sub-heliophytes, and without reconstruction the regime favoured hemi-scyophytes. Tree canopy crown closure negatively correlated with grass height and herbaceous layer projective cover. The tree canopy crown closure, grass height, and herbaceous layer projective cover were able to explain 86% of the phytoindication assessment of the lighting regime variation. These parameters negatively affected the light regime. The prospect of further research is to investigate the dependence of indicative reliability of the assessment of other environmental factors with the help of phytoindication depending on the number of species. In addition to the indication of traditional ecological factors it is of particular interest to clarify the aspect of the dynamics of hemeroby indicators as a result of park reconstruction. Keywords: recreation; diversity; indicator reliability; hemeroby; ecosystem transformation; plant community

Analyzing spatial patterns and dynamics of landscapes and ecosystem services – Exploring fine-scale data and indicators

In den vergangenen Jahrzehnten hat der Einfluss des Menschen auf Ökosysteme stark zugenommen. Tendenzen der Landnutzungsänderung, darunter die Ausdehnung von Städten und die Intensivierung der Landwirtschaft als Folge des Bevölkerungsanstiegs und damit des Nahrungsmittel- und Energiebedarfs, führen zu Umweltproblemen wie dem Verlust von Lebensraum und biologischer Vielfalt. Die zunehmende Verfügbarkeit von Daten mit feiner räumlicher Auflösung kann die Analyse von Merkmalen und Prozessen in Landschaften mit Hilfe von räumlichen Metriken unterstützen. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, feinskalige Daten und räumliche Metriken zu integrieren, um Indikatoren zur Messung und Bewertung von Landnutzung, Ökosystemdienstleistungen und deren räumlichen Mustern zu entwickeln und folgende Fragen zu beantworten: Wie können Landnutzungsänderungen und Ökosystemleistungen einer Landschaft beschrieben und analysiert werden? Und, wie kann die Landschaftsperspektive zu unserem Verständnis von Landsystemen beitragen? In zwei verschiedenen Weltregionen werden Landschaften mit Hilfe von Hexagonen als räumliche Einheiten untersucht. Diese dienen zur Analyse von räumlichen Mustern und Beziehungen zwischen verschiedenen Indikatoren (z. B. Ökosystemdienstleistungen) und die Konzeptualisierung von Prozessen auf Landschaftsebene. Obwohl sich einige Phänomene auf feinen räumlichen Skalen manifestieren, ist es für die Operationalisierung und Überwachung dieser Prozesse notwendig, ‚herauszuzoomen‘. Der Landschaftsansatz im Zusammenhang mit Ökosystemleistungen bietet wichtige Perspektiven im Hinblick auf Umweltauswirkungen, die durch Landnutzungsänderungen verursacht werden. Dabei können Indikatoren, die die ökologische, ökonomische und soziale Dimension verknüpfen, dazu beitragen, regionalspezifisches Wissen über Landschaftsdynamiken zu erlangen und dieses Wissen an Entscheidungsträger weiterzugeben, um gezielte Maßnahmen für ein nachhaltiges Landmanagement zu entwickeln.Over the last decades, anthropogenic pressures on ecosystems have been increasing. Trends of land use change including urban expansion and agricultural intensification driven by population increase, and hence food and energy demand, cause environmental challenges including habitat and biodiversity loss. Analyzing major trends of land use change requires additional metrics to capture local processes on a landscape spatial scale. Increasing fine-scale data availability can support analyses of characteristics and processes of landscapes with the help of spatial metrics, e.g. distance or density measures. The aims of this thesis are to incorporate fine-scale data and spatial metrics to develop indicators to measure and assess land-use, ecosystem services (ESS) and their spatial patterns to answer the following questions: How can land use change and ecosystem services of landscapes be described and analyzed? And how can the landscape perspective contribute to our understanding of land systems? The thesis includes three case studies in two different world regions: 1) characteristics of land use within a peri-urban gradient in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2) characteristics of agricultural landscapes in Brandenburg, Germany, and 3) ecosystem service relationships at different spatial units and scales. In both regions, landscapes are investigated with hexagons as spatial units for the analysis of spatial patterns and relationships among different indicators (i.e., ESS) and conceptualize processes on a landscape level. The landscape approach in context with ecosystem services offers important perspectives regarding environmental impacts caused by land use change. Thereby, metrics integrating the ecological, economic, and social dimensions can support obtaining region-specific knowledge on landscape dynamics and transferring this knowledge to decision-makers to design targeted measures towards sustainable land management

Spatial Metrics of Structure and Diversity:Calculation from Earth Observation and Map Data, for Use as Indicators in Environmental Management.

The use of spatial metrics for characterisation of landscape structure was investigated, and their application as indicators for biological diversity, sustainable land use and forest management evaluated. The main objective was to define and select spatial metrics to be derived through processing of satellite images and from map data existing in Geographical Information Systems. Metrics applied as indicators should be insensitive or predictable with respect to scale changes, appropriate for description of landscape diversity and structure and mutually uncorrelated, thus ensuring that they describe different aspects and functions of landscapes. From eight types of spatial metrics identified in the literature survey, five were applied in this study, namely Area, Edge, Shape, Patch (count) and Diversity metrics. EO based forest maps and land use/land cover data, mainly from Italy and Denmark, were analysed. Shape metrics, especially the Matheron index, proved usable for quantification of fragmentation, while Patch metrics should be used with care due to sensitivity to grain size. The hierarchical structure of landscapes and the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem were addressed through application of the Moving Windows method. No direct solutions to the effects of these phenomena on the values of metrics of landscapes and their representation in images and maps could be devised. Rather, it was found that multi-level descriptions of landscapes using presence-absence masks from different window sizes, metrics from a number of watershed-levels and scalograms provide useful information on forests and landscapes. A Hemeroby index was introduced for assessment of degree of disturbance at landscape spatial and thematic level. The thematic resolution of the forest classes was however found insufficient to allow calculations of Hemeroby of forests per se. However, the Hemeroby index appeared to be a promising tool for summarising the amount of human influence expressed in land use maps

Forest landscapes and global change. New frontiers in management, conservation and restoration. Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference

This volume contains the contributions of numerous participants at the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference, which took place in Bragança, Portugal, from 21 to 24 of September 2010. The conference was dedicated to the theme Forest Landscapes and Global Change - New Frontiers in Management, Conservation and Restoration. The 128 papers included in this book follow the structure and topics of the conference. Sections 1 to 8 include papers relative to presentations in 18 thematic oral and two poster sessions. Section 9 is devoted to a wide-range of landscape ecology fields covered in the 12 symposia of the conference. The Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference register the growth of scientific interest in forest landscape patterns and processes, and the recognition of the role of landscape ecology in the advancement of science and management, particularly within the context of emerging physical, social and political drivers of change, which influence forest systems and the services they provide. We believe that these papers, together with the presentations and debate which took place during the IUFRO Landscape Ecology Working Group International Conference – Bragança 2010, will definitively contribute to the advancement of landscape ecology and science in general. For their additional effort and commitment, we thank all the participants in the conference for leaving this record of their work, thoughts and science