Morphological Spatial Pattern Research Articles

Green Infrastructure Fluctuations in Urban Agglomeration of Shanxi Province, China: Implications for Controlling Ecological Crises

The rapid urbanization process means that even moderate-sized cities can quickly become part of larger urban agglomerations, creating new urban zones. Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) plays a crucial role in these clusters, acting as precious green spaces essential for maintaining ecological safety. This study combines fluctuation analysis based on Morphological Spatial Pattern with traditional landscape pattern analysis, comprehensively addressing the evolution of UGI in terms of quantity, characteristics, and morphology. We selected the Taiyuan-Jinzhong agglomeration as our study area, which is currently in an agglomeration process. The results demonstrated the critical role of surrounding mountains as natural ecological barrier zones. During urban agglomeration, management strategies focused on large-scale afforestation to ensure the quantity of UGI. However, this approach also led to a more clustered landscape with reduced connectivity. Additionally, linear or small-scale UGI types such as branch and islet have seen reductions over the past decade. Changes in internal morphological and complex fluctuations within UGI can harm the formation of ecological networks and potentially negatively affect biodiversity and ecological safety. The research highlights how ecological protection and urban planning policies can influence UGI fluctuations. Therefore, urban managers should not just concentrate on maintaining the quantity of UGI, but also give consideration to changes in its internal features and morphology. Before cities further agglomerate into larger urban clusters, it is crucial to address deficiencies in UGI, continuously improving type configurations and functional structures at the landscape scale. Through strategic planning of UGI, cities can mitigate ecological risks and foster sustainable urban development.

Forest Connectivity Evaluation by Integrating a Habitat Suitability Index, a Morphological Spatial Pattern and Network Analysis Under Season and Disturbance Variations

Forest Connectivity Evaluation by Integrating a Habitat Suitability Index, a Morphological Spatial Pattern and Network Analysis Under Season and Disturbance Variations

Assessing spatio-temporal changes in forest cover and fragmentation under urban expansion in Nanjing, eastern China, from long-term Landsat observations (1987–2017)

Assessing changes in forest cover and fragmentation under urban expansion and the correlation analysis between these changes can provide decision support for urban forest managers. In this study, forest cover and morphological spatial patterns (cores, islets, perforations, edges, loops, bridges, and branches) were firstly mapped by the vegetation change tracker (VCT) algorithm and morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA) respectively in Nanjing from 1987 to 2017. Next, the visible red and near-infrared-based built-up index (VrNIR-BI) was derived to extract urban impervious surface (UIS) areas, and the neighbourhood-based urban expansion model was proposed to describe the expansion types (edge-expansion, infilling and outlying). Finally, the relationships among the forest cover, fragmentation changes and urban expansion were determined using the Pearson correlation coefficient (r). The results showed that the distribution of forest cover in Nanjing was relatively scattered and it decreased by 94 km2, while the UIS area increased by 893 km2 from 1987 to 2017, resulting in some forests being gradually surrounded or encroached upon by UIS areas. The main forest morphological spatial pattern was identified as cores, with many small-area cores. Moreover, islets exhibited a higher proportion of 0.18, and these suggested that the fragmentation of Nanjing's forests was severe. Forest net changes had the higher correlation with cores, edges and branches. In addition, there were strong correlations between edge-expansion and cores, edges, branches with the r values greater than 0.75, which meant that most of the urban areas extended to core regions from the forest edges or branches. The derived information will help forest managers monitor forest dynamics in response to urban expansion and achieve sustainable development.

Yards increase forest connectivity in urban landscapes

Tree canopy connectivity is important for supporting biodiversity. In urban landscapes, empirical examinations of habitat connectivity often overlook residential land, though yards and gardens often comprise a large portion of urban forests. We quantify structural composition (patches and paths), connectivity and fragmentation of an entire tree canopy network spanning 1220 Boston’s neighborhoods to assess the configuration of the urban forest potentially affecting tree-dependent wildlife species, such as some birds and arboreal mammals. The urban landscape was classified by land use, and residential yards were further subdivided into front yards, backyards, and corner yards. Structural composition, connectivity and fragmentation of the tree canopy was assessed using morphological spatial pattern and network analysis. Canopy metrics were then related to the land use of 349,305 property parcels. Back yard tree canopy cover was 65.23%. The majority of canopy links were on residential land (60.95% total), and particularly in backyards. Back yards contained the highest number of canopy fragments (48.65% total). Fragmentation of the canopy network peaked at ~ 23% of total canopy cover. Canopy fragmentation, distance among patches and their shape complexity were lower in neighborhoods with more tree canopy. The important role that yards have in sustaining canopy connectivity across urban landscapes poses challenges and opportunities. Urban land management and planning need to protect connectivity links within urban forests when located on private residential realm. A prioritization strategy aimed at expanding urban tree cover could focus on yards to ensure that urban landscape connectivity is maintained and increased.

Impact of scale on morphological spatial pattern of forest

Assessing and monitoring landscape pattern structure from multi-scale land-cover maps can utilize morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA), only if various influences of scale are known and taken into account. This paper lays part of the foundation for applying MSPA analysis in landscape monitoring by quantifying scale effects on six classes of spatial patterns called: core, edge, perforation, branch, connector and islet. Four forest maps were selected with different forest composition and configuration. The sensitivity of MSPA to scale was studied by comparing frequencies of pattern classes in total forest area for various combinations of pixel size (P) and size parameter (S). It was found that the quantification of forest pattern with MSPA is sensitive to scale. Differences in initial composition and configuration influence the amount but not the general tendencies of the variations of morphological spatial pattern (MSP) class proportions with scale. Increase of P led to data generalization resulting in either a removal of the small size features or their potential transformation into other non-core MSP classes, while an increase of S decreases the MSP core area and this process may transform small core areas into the MSP class islet. We established that the behavior of the MSPA classes with changing scale can be categorized as consistent and robust scaling relations in the forms of linear, power, or logarithmic functions over a range of scales.