Using of Landscape Metrics in Environmental Planning

Environmental sustainability is a fundamental goal for landscape ecology. Landscape ecology shows the connection between structure, function and change. Pattern (structure) and process (function) relationships are crucial to understand the functioning of landscapes. In this regard, landscape metrics are developed in order to describe landscapes’ ecological condition. One most important thing is that landscape pattern strongly influences the ecological processes and characteristics. The ability of quantitatively describe landscape structure is necessary to the study of landscape function and change and various metrics have emerged from landscape ecology for this purpose. landscape metrics describe the spatial structure of a landscape in time. Since many environmental students are unfamiliar with the concepts of landscape ecology and landscape metrics, the aim of this paper is to analyze the use of various landscape metrics for the characterization of landscape structure and various processes at both landscape and ecosystem level. A literature review showed that most of the landscape metrics and indices are used concerning biodiversity and habitat analysis, and also the evaluation of landscape pattern and its change (up to 25 articles per year). There are only a few articles on the relationships of landscape metrics and indices to social aspects and landscape perception.

Keywords:

Environment Landscape ecology , Landscape metrics , planning