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Remote sensing and the future of landscape ecology

School of Conservation Sciences, Bournemouth University, Talbot Campus, Poole BH12 5BB, UK, anewton{at}bournemouth.ac.uk

Ross A. Hill

School of Conservation Sciences, Bournemouth University, Talbot Campus, Poole BH12 5BB, UK

Cristian Echeverría

Departamento Manejo de Bosques y Medio Ambiente, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad de Concepción, Casilla 160-C, Concepción, Chile

Duncan Golicher

School of Conservation Sciences, Bournemouth University, Talbot Campus, Poole BH12 5BB, UK

José M. Rey Benayas

Departamento de Ecología, Universidad de Alcalá, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Spain

Luis Cayuela

Departamento de Ecología, Universidad de Alcalá, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Spain, Departamento de Ecología, Centro Andaluz de Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Granada, Junta de Andalucía, Avenida del Mediterráneo S/N, 18006, Granada, Spain

Shelley A. Hinsley

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Maclean Building, Benson Lane, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford OX10 8BB, UK

Landscape ecology focuses on the analysis of spatial pattern and its relationship to ecological processes. As a scientific discipline, landscape ecology has grown rapidly in recent years, supported by developments in GIS and spatial analysis techniques. Although remote sensing data are widely employed in landscape ecology research, their current and potential roles have not been evaluated critically. To provide an overview of current practice, 438 research papers published in the journal Landscape Ecology for the years 2004—2008 were examined for information about use of remote sensing. Results indicated that only 36% of studies explicitly mentioned remote sensing. Of those that did so, aerial photographs and Landsat satellite sensor images were most commonly used, accounting for 46% and 42% of studies, respectively. The predominant application of remote sensing data across these studies was for thematic mapping purposes. This suggests that landscape ecologists have been relatively slow to recognize the potential value of recent developments in remote sensing technologies and methods. The review also provided evidence of a frequent lack of key detail in studies recently published in Landscape Ecology , with 75% failing to provide any assessment of uncertainty or error relating to image classification and mapping. It is suggested that the role of remote sensing in landscape ecology might be strengthened by closer collaboration between researchers in the two disciplines, by greater integration of diverse remote sensing data with ecological data, and by increased recognition of the value of remote sensing beyond land-cover mapping and pattern description. This is illustrated by case studies drawn from Latin America (focusing on forest loss and fragmentation) and the UK (focusing on habitat quality for woodland birds). Such approaches might improve the analytical and theoretical rigour of landscape ecology, and be applied usefully to issues of outstanding societal interest, such as the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Key Words: biodiversity conservation • ecosystem services • Landsat • spatial dynamics • theory.

Progress in Physical Geography, Vol. 33, No. 4, 528-546 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0309133309346882


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