Historical landscape structures of the eastern part of upper Medzibodrožie region

Muchova Z., Petrovic F.: Changes in the landscape due to land consolidations. Ekologia (Bratislava), Vol. 29, No. 2, p. , 2010. The aim of this paper is the analysis of changes in the secondary landscape structure caused by comprehensive land consolidation processes. For a more detailed survey, three cadastral areas have been selected. In those areas, the land consolidation projects are undergone and are currently in draft stage for the general principles of functional organization of the landscape and form different geomorphologic types of georelief. In the territory of Hajske, the georelief prevalent type is lowland, in the cadastral area of Veľke Vozokany upland and Kanianka represents typical hills. We evaluated the landscape structure of the territory under consideration in three levels: historical landscape structure (2. Austro-Hungarian military mapping), current landscape structure ( analytical part − the results of a dedicated planimetric mapping in land consolidation projects), and the new structure of the country (evaluation and design part − results of the draft of the general principles of functional organization of the territory). As indicators of changes in the landscape the elements characterizing the land use have been selected: arable land, forest land, vineyards, gardens, orchards, permanent grassland, water areas, urbanized areas and other areas. In the paper, we focus on an aggregated balance of types of plots in all three areas and three selected horizons. We present the evolution of landscape structure and we have also tried to propose clear landscape structure changes (size and location), in line with the trend of sustainable land use. In the areas of interest, there are proposed new landscape elements to enhance the landscape diversity and also positively influence the species diversity of flora and fauna, enhance the landscape ecological stability and prevent the destructive processes in the landscape.

This is the core chapter of the book dealing with the theoretical principles of the geosystems. Defines the topical and choric models of geosystems, as well as the simplified model of the geocomplexes. There is explained the difference between state variables and typological characteristics of the elements of geosystems. Specific respect is given to the definition of the structures of the landscape. According to the genesis, physical character of the elements and according to the relation of structures to their role and management in planning processes we divide the landscape as geosystem to three substructures. Primary landscape structure is a set of material elements of the landscape and their relations that constitute the original and permanent foundation for other structures. These elements are mainly the elements of the abiotic sphere—the geological base and subsoils, soils, waters, georelief, air. Secondary landscape structure is constituted by human-influenced, reshaped and created material landscape elements that currently cover the Earth’s surface. These are the elements of land use, real biota, man-made objects and constructions. Tertiary (socio-economic) landscape structure is a set intangible (non-material) socio-economic factors/phenomena displayed to the landscape space as interests, manifestations and consequences of the activities of individual sectors that are relevant to landscape. These are the protection and other functional zones of nature and natural resources protection, hygienic and safety zones of industrial and infrastructure objects, zones of declared zones of specific environmental measures, administrative boundaries, etc. Finally, the chapter gives the geosystem definition of the landscape and its reflection in the law in Slovakia. This definition reeds: “Landscape is a complex system of space, location, georelief and other mutually, functionally interconnected material natural elements and elements modified and created by a man, in particular the geological base and soil creating substratum, soil, water bodies, air, flora and fauna, artificial structures and the elements of land use, as well as their connections, which determine also the socio-economic factors related to landscape. Landscape is the environment of man and other living organisms.” The chapter is illustrated by figures and graphics explaining the structure of the geosystem.

Implications of changes in land cover and landscape structure for the biocontrol potential of stemborers in Ethiopia

In recent years, land use (LU) and landscape structure in ecoregions around the world have been faced with enormous pressures, from rapid population growth to urban sprawl. A preliminary account of changes in land cover (LC) and landscape structure in the ecoregions of Ghana is missing from the academic and research literature. The study therefore provides a preliminary assessment of the changing LU and landscape structure in the ecoregions of Ghana, identifying the causes and assessing their impact on land-based resources, and on urban and agricultural development. LU/LC maps produced from 30 m resolution Landsat TM5 in 1990 and ETM+ in 2000 were classified into dominant land cover types (LCTs) and used to survey the changing landscape of Ghana. LC-changemap preparation was done with change detection extension “Veränderung” (v3) in an ArcGIS 10.1 environment. At the class level, Patch Analyst version 5.1 was used to calculate land use (LU) statistics and to provide landscape metrics for LU maps extracted from the satellite imagery. The results showed that commonly observed LCCs in the ecoregions of Ghana include conversion of natural forest land to various forms of cultivated lands, settlements, and open land, particularly in closed and open forest and savannah woodland. The dominant LU types in the ecoregions of Ghana are arable lands, which increased by 6168.98 km2. Forest and plantation LCTs decreased in area and were replaced by agricultural land, forest garden, and open land. Afforestation rarely occurred except in the rainforests. The mean patch size (MPS), ameasure of fragmentation, was generally reduced consistently from 1990 to 2000 in all the ecoregions. Similar results that indicated increased fragmentation were an increased number of patches (NumP) and the Shannon diversity index (SDI). Habitat shape complexity inferred from mean shape index (MSI) decreased in all ecoregions except for rainforest and wet evergreen. The SDI and Shannon evenness index (SEI) showed that habitat diversity was highest in the coastal savannah and the deciduous forest ecoregions. The main drivers of changes in the LUs and landscape structure are demand for land and land-based natural resources to support competing livelihoods and developmental activities in the different ecoregions.

Landscape structure, habitat fragmentation, and the ecology of insects

Landscape structural changes between 1950 and 2012 and their role in wildlife–vehicle collisions in the Czech Republic

Responses of landscape structure to the ecological restoration programs in the farming-pastoral ecotone of Northern China

Changes in landscape structure and ecosystem services since 1850 analyzed using landscape metrics in two German municipalities

In the southern Rocky Mountains of temperate North America, the effects of Euro-American activities on disturbance regimes and landscape patterns have been less ubiquitous and less straightforward in high-elevation landscapes than in low-elevation landscapes. Despite apparently little change in the natural disturbance regime, there is increasing concern that forest management activities related mainly to timber harvest and to the extensive network of roads constructed to support timber harvest, fire control, and recreation since the late 1800s have altered disturbance regimes and landscape structure. We investigated the magnitude of change in landscape structure resulting from roads and logging since the onset of timber harvest activities in 1950. We found limited evidence for significant impacts in our study area when all lands within the landscape were considered. The relatively minor changes we observed reflected the vast buffering capacity of the large proportion of lands managed for purposes other than timber (e.g., wilderness). Significant changes in landscape structure and fragmentation of mature forest were, however, evident on lands designated as suitable timberlands. Roughly half of the mature coniferous forest was converted to young stands; mean patch size and core area declined by 40% and 25%, respectively, and contrast-weighted edge density increased 2- to 3-fold. Overall, roads had a greater impact on landscape structure than logging in our study area. Indeed, the 3-fold increase in road density between 1950–1993 accounted for most of the changes in landscape configuration associated with mean patch size, edge density, and core area. The extent of area evaluated and the period over which change was evaluated had a large impact on the magnitude of change detected and our conclusions regarding the ecological significance of those changes. Specifically, the cumulative impact on landscape structure was negligible over a 10-year period, but was notable over a 40-year period. In addition, the magnitude of change in landscape structure between 1950–1993 varied as a function of landscape extent. At the scale of the 228 000 ha landscape, change in landscape structure was trivial, suggesting that the landscape was capable of fully incorporating the disturbances with minimal impact. However, at intermediate scales of 1000–10 000 ha landscapes, change in landscape structure was quite evident, suggesting that there may be an optimal range of scales for detecting changes in landscape structure within the study area.

The Impact of Tourism Development on Landscape Structure in South Kuta District, Badung Regency, Bali. South Kuta District is one of the sub-districts in Badung Regency, Bali, which is located in a coastal area and is a tourism center. Its presence in a coastal area makes this subdistrict rich (ecosystem services) and vulnerable (change, damage and loss) simultaneously. As a tourism center, development in South Kuta District increases from year to year, especially in the tourist accommodation sector. This development development causes changes in the landscape structure. This research aims to analyze changes in landscape structure that occur and analyze the influence of tourism aspects on changes in landscape structure. The methods used in this research are spatial analysis, binary logistic regression analysis and SBE analysis. Spatial analysis is used to analyze landscape structure (patches) and its changes using Landsat 7 ETM+ imagery for 2010 and Landsat 8 OLI imagery for 2022. Binary logistic regression analysis to analyze the influence of tourism aspects on changes in landscape structure. The tourism aspect used is tourist accommodation data (lodging, restaurants, banking and health centers). Scenic Beauty Estimation (SBE) analysis is used as an assessment of areas experiencing changes in landscape structure. The urgency of this research is to prevent or minimize the impact of ecological damage from tourism development, especially the decline in environmental and visual quality due to changes in landscape structure that occur in South Kuta District.

Landscape structure, or the spatial organization of different land units, has an impact on erosion and sedimentation on agricultural land. However, current erosion models emphasize the temporal, and less the spatial, variability of relevant parameters so that the effects of changes in landscape structure have hitherto not been studied in detail. Therefore, a spatially distributed water and tillage erosion model that allows the incorporation of landscape structure is presented. The model is applied to three study sites in the Belgian Loam Belt where significant changes in landscape structure occurred over the last fifty years. Erosion rates were shown to change by up to 28% however, with decreases as well as increases occurring. These could be explained by the interaction of changes in land use with changes in the position of field boundaries. Thus, landscape structure is an important control when the effect of environmental change on erosion risk is to be assessed.

The assessment of the spatial structure the land cover has great significance for the research of landscape especially from the aspect of the maintaining landscape ecological stability and the sustainable development as well as the landscape potential. At the same time it has an important role in identifying of impacts the industry on the landscape. The classes of land cover layers can be considered as the basis for other analyses of landscape. Purpose.: In the contribution we decided to compare the changes in landscape structure between the years 1958 - 2009 in territory of city Krompachy. Methods: field, analytical and mathematical. Results: For evaluating changes in the landscape structure we used topographic map from 1958 and orthophotomaps of the actual situation in 2009. The changes in the landscape structure were evaluated through GIS technologies in time horizon 1958 - 2009. Absolute and percentage differences in the land cover classes for the time horizon 1958 - 2009 are expressed by means of contingency tables transformation. The trends in the development classes of land cover are documented by the graph of the land cover classes on the second hierarchical level.

Forests are under pressure from land use change due to anthropogenic activities. Land use change and harvest are the main disturbances of forest landscape changes. Few studies have focused on the relative contributions of different disturbances. In this study, we used the CA-Markov model, a land-use change model, coupled with a forest landscape model, LANDIS-II, to simulate dynamic change in Taihe County, China, from 2010 to 2050. Scenarios analysis was conducted to quantify the relative contributions of land use change and harvest. Our results show that forestland and arable land will remain the primary land-use types in 2050, whereas the built-up land will sprawl drastically. Land use change and harvest may result in the significant loss of forest area and changes in landscape structure. The simulated forest area will increase by 16.2% under the no disturbance scenario. However, under harvest, forest conversion, and integrated scenario, the area will be reduced by 5.2%, 16.5%, and 34.9%, respectively. The effect of harvest is gradually enhanced. The land use change will account for 60% and harvest will account for 40% of forest landscape change in 2050, respectively. Our results may benefit from the integration of regional forest management and land-use policy-making, and help to achieve a trade-off between economy and ecological environment.

Human activities have fragmented habitats around the world. In this case, understanding the links between landscape structures and ecosystem service value (ESV) is important because the provision of ecosystem services could be affected by landscape structural changes. The main objective of this study was to evaluate how the landscape structures affect multiple ESVs. This paper examined the influences of landscape structural changes on ESV by analyzing the changes in land use and landscape metrics in the Chaohu Lake Basin, China. Principal component analysis and multivariate regression were used to determine the relationships between landscape metrics and ESVs, while considering spatial autocorrelation. The results revealed significant differences in the ESV across the study area. Regulating services provided more than 58.8 % of the total ESV of the study area in 2007, followed by supporting, provisioning and cultural services. Patch sizes can significantly affect landscape metrics at the landscape level, and consequently, influence the relationships between landscape metrics and ESV. The fragmentation metrics were critical to the ESVs in the small patches. Moreover, the diversity, density, and connectivity metrics were important to the ESVs in the medium and great patches. In the large patches, the fragmentation, density, area and richness, and connectivity metrics were critical to multiple ESVs. The application of landscape metrics in landscape planning should receive particular attention because of the complexity of the impacts of landscape structural changes on the provision of ecosystem services are complex. These results could advance the understanding of the relationships between landscape structures and ecosystem services and guide landscape planning, management and restoration.

In order to clarify the effects of both the social and natural environment on the changes in landscape structure we analyzed landscape elements using aerial photographs taken in different years in the primary and coppice forests in the Fagus crenata forest region of central Japan. The present landscape diversity calculated by Shannon's diversity index (H′) appeared to be higher than that observed in photographs from the earlier year. The site with no residential areas and dominated by primary forests had a lower level of landscape diversity than the site which included some residential areas and coppice forests. These results show that the intensity of human activities contributes to changes in landscape diversity. The landscape diversity on private land was higher than that in the national forest, and the changes in landscape structure in the national forest were different from those seen on private land. This suggests that land ownership significantly affects the changes in landscape structure. Topographic factors also affect the changes in landscape structure. Consequently, not only the natural environment (topography), but also the social environment (intensity of human activity and land ownership) strongly influence the changes in landscape structure.