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Measuring Landscapes: A Planner's Handbook

by Andre Botequilha Leitao, Joseph Miller, Jack Ahern and Kevin McGarigal

Island Press, 2006
eISBN: 978-1-59726-772-4 | Paper: 978-1-55963-899-9 | Cloth: 978-1-59726-086-2
Library of Congress Classification QH541.15.L35M43 2006
Dewey Decimal Classification 333.9516

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK

This practical handbook bridges the gap between those scientists who study landscapes and the planners and conservationists who must then decide how best to preserve and build environmentally-sound habitats. Until now, only a small portion of the relevant science has influenced the decision-making arenas where the future of our landscapes is debated and decided.

The authors explain specific tools and concepts to measure a landscape's structure, form, and change over time. Metrics studied include patch richness, class area proportion, patch number and density, mean patch size, shape, radius of gyration, contagion, edge contrast, nearest neighbor distance, and proximity. These measures will help planners and conservationists make better land use decisions for the future.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Joseph Miller is in private practice as a landscape architect and ecologist with The Faux Group in Annapolis, Maryland. Jack Ahern is Professor of landscape architecture at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. André Botequilha Leitão is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Planning at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Resources (FERN), University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal. Kevin McGarigal is Associate Professor of Landscape Ecology at the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

REVIEWS

"Lack of planning generally leads to unsuitable spaces, such as fishing spots that become polluted, building sites that flood, and wildlife reserves cutoff by busy highways. But a completely designed place seems sterile, controlled, boring. Measuring Landscapes reveals a rich array of insights and an important big-picture perspective. Planners and ecologists, and indeed all who think about changing the land, will be enriched by the exploration ahead."
— Richard T. T. Forman, Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, Harvard University, from his foreword

"Measuring Landscapes: A Planner's Handbook is an important addition to the reference material, allowing practitioners to understand landscape ecology and its associated tools. This book introduces the concepts of landscape ecology, has a strong focus on how planning relates to these concepts, and is a real practical exploration of the tools of landscape metrics. Overall, the book is well written and provides the readers with key information on the concepts and practical issues in using landscape metrics. Measuring Landscapes is compact but still comprehensive. Its length makes it very suitable for a single term course in landscape ecology in a planning or natural resource program. Additionally, the book's length makes it very suitable for practitioners. I also recommend this book to all related fields (wildlife management, parks management, geography, geology, and forestry) that have an interest in researching, managing, conserving, and protecting healthy landscapes. Changing the way we view, measure, and think about these landscapes is an important step in making them sustainable."
— Natural Areas Journal

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Landscape Ecology: A Spatial and Human-Oriented Ecology
Chapter 2. Planning the Landscape: A Spatial Ecological Approach
Chapter 3. The Selected Set of Landscape Metrics
Chapter 4. Applications of Landscape Metrics in Planning and Management
Chapter 5. Recommendations on the Use of Landscape Metrics to Support the Planning of Sustainable Landscapes

Glossary
References
Author Bios
Index

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