Scale dependent effects in resource selection by crop-raiding Japanese macaques in Niigata Prefecture,Japan

A resource selection function is one that yields values proportional to the probability of use of a resource unit. This quantity is influenced by the heterogeneity of landscape structures, which occurs over multiple spatial scales. To provide input into wildlife management strategies, we investigated the scale dependency and functional responses of Japanese macaques using multiple scale analysis. The multiple buffers with radii of 100, 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, and 2500 m were defined as the spatial scale. Crop damage was predicted at the within-home range scale, using the Random Forests algorithm with environmental variables linked to resource selection of Japanese macaques. Sixteen environmental variables were defined, covering aspects of landscape configuration, human disturbance, topography, and adopted countermeasures. Crop damage was most accurately predicted within a buffer zone of 1000 m, although radii exceeding 1000 m were also highly accurate. Although the importance of variables differed among spatial extents, the functional responses for each environmental variable were independent of spatial extent. These results suggest that the limiting factors of crop damage depend on spatial extent, while functional responses in resource selection remain constant across spatial extents. We also compared a multi-scale gradient map with a typical binary map to demonstrate the uncertainty in damage predictions at different spatial scales. Our results may aid wildlife management planning, for which differences in resource selection across different spatial scales are critically important.     

Exploring spatial data uncertainties in land‐use change scenarios

This paper evaluates errors and uncertainties in representing landscapes that arise from different data rasterization methods, spatial resolutions, and downscaled land‐use change (LUC) scenarios. A vector LU dataset for Luxembourg (minimum mapping unit: 0.15 ha; year 2000) was used as the baseline reference map. This map was rasterized at three spatial resolutions using three cell class assignment methods. The landscape composition and configuration of these maps were compared. Four alternative scenarios of future LUC were also generated for the three resolutions using existing LUC scenarios and a statistical downscaling method creating 37 maps of LUC for the year 2050. These maps were compared in terms of composition and spatial configuration using simple metrics of landscape fragmentation and an analysis of variance (ANOVA). Differences in landscape composition and configuration between the three cell class assignment methods and the three spatial resolutions were found to be at least as large as the differences between the LUC scenarios. This occurred in spite of the large LUC projected by the scenarios. This demonstrates the importance of the rasterization method and the level of aggregation as a contribution to uncertainty when developing future LUC scenarios and in analysing landscape structure in ecological studies.     

平原地区基本农田土地整治景观生态规划与设计——以新泰市楼德镇基本农田土地整治项目为例

景观生态规划与设计必须在综合考虑土地整治具体工程与生态环境的基础上,合理的规避导致生态破坏的农田设计,科学规划能够促进生态系统的自身维持与修护的工程设计。该文基于农田景观规划与设计的思想,探讨了山东平原地区基本农田景观规划设计的重点,以新泰市楼德镇基本农田土地整治项目做为案例进行景观规划设计,设计内容主要包括土地平整、农田水利、田间道路、生态防护等几方面,通过探讨和摸索,为下一步土地整治规划设计和生态环境保护提供了可靠的科学依据。     

The response of soil erosion and sediment export to land-use change in four areas of Europe: The importance of landscape pattern

The response of erosion and sediment export to past land-use change has been studied in four agricultural areas of Europe. Three of these areas were subject to land abandonment or de-intensification and one to intensification of land-use practices. Erosion and sediment yield were modeled using the WaTEM/SEDEM model, which combines the RUSLE equation with a sediment routing algorithm. Spatial relationships between the RUSLE C-factor (i.e. land-use) and other erosion and sediment export-determining factors (slope, soil erodibility and distance to rivers) were investigated, as these account for non-linearity in the response of erosion and sediment export to land-use change.Erosion and sediment export have decreased enormously in the de-intensified areas, but slightly increased in the intensively cultivated area. The spatial pattern of land-use change in relation to other erosion and sediment export-determining factors appears to have a large impact on the response of soil erosion and sediment export to land-use change. That the drivers of abandonment of arable land and erosion coincide indicates that de-intensification leads to a more favourable landscape pattern with respect to reduction of erosion and sediment export. This mechanism applies not only within the study areas, but also among the European study areas where the process of intensification of some areas and de-intensification of others might result in an overall decrease of erosion and sediment yield through time.     

Small valley glaciers and the effectiveness of the glacial buzzsaw in the northern Basin and Range, USA

The glacial buzzsaw hypothesis suggests that efficient erosion limits topographic elevations in extensively glaciated orogens. Studies to date have largely focussed on regions where large glaciers (tens of kilometres long) have been active. In light of recent studies emphasising the importance of lateral glacial erosion in lowering peaks and ridgelines, we examine the effectiveness of small glaciers in limiting topography under both relatively slow and rapid rock uplift conditions. Four ranges in the northern Basin and Range, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, USA, were chosen for this analysis. Estimates of maximum Pleistocene slip rates along normal faults bounding the Beaverhead–Bitterroot Mountains (~ 0.14 mm y^− 1), Lemhi Range (~ 0.3 mm y^− 1) and Lost River Range (~ 0.3 mm y^− 1) are an order of magnitude lower than those on the Teton Fault (~ 2 mm y^− 1). We compare the distribution of glacial erosion (estimated from cirque floor elevations and last glacial maximum (LGM) equilibrium line altitude (ELA) reconstructions) and fault slip rate with three metrics of topography in each range: the along-strike maximum elevation swath profile, hypsometry, and slope-elevation profiles. In the slowly uplifting Beaverhead–Bitterroot Mountains, and Lemhi and Lost River Ranges, trends in maximum elevation parallel ELAs, independent of variations in fault slip rate. Maximum elevations are offset ~ 500 m from LGM ELAs in the Lost River Range, Lemhi Range, and northern Beaverhead–Bitterroot Mountains, and by ~ 350 m in the southern Beaverhead–Bitterroot Mountains, where glacial extents were less. The offset between maximum topography and mean Quaternary ELAs, inferred from cirque floor elevations, is ~ 350 m in the Lost River and Lemhi Ranges, and 200–250 m in the Beaverhead–Bitterroot Mountains. Additionally, slope-elevation profiles are flattened and hypsometry profiles show a peak in surface areas close to the ELA in the Lemhi Range and Beaverhead–Bitterroot Mountains, suggesting that small glaciers efficiently limit topography. The situation in the Lost River Range is less clear as a glacial signature is not apparent in either slope-elevation profiles or the hypsometry. In the rapidly uplifting Teton Range, the distribution of ELAs appears superficially to correspond to maximum topography, hypsometry, and slope-elevations profiles, with regression lines on maximum elevations offset by ~ 700 and ~ 350 m from the LGM and mean Quaternary ELA respectively. However, Grand Teton and Mt. Moran represent high-elevation “Teflon Peaks” that appear impervious to glacial erosion, formed in the hard crystalline bedrock at the core of the range. Glacier size and drainage density, rock uplift rate, and bedrock lithology are all important considerations when assessing the ability of glaciers to limit mountain range topography. In the northern Basin and Range, it is only under exceptional circumstances in the Teton Range that small glaciers appear to be incapable of imposing a fully efficient glacial buzzsaw, emphasising that high peaks represent an important caveat to the glacial buzzsaw hypothesis.     

永定河流域石景山段湿地景观规划设计研究

通过系统地对永定河流域石景山段的基础资料调研,科学分析了该区段的环境现状与整体景观不协调,以及部分区段存在污染和现有自然山水资源利用不足等主要景观问题,并提出了相应的解决措施,如平整河道、优化区域内生态结构、治理污染,完善湿地生态景观等。制定了"一轴二带三线四区五类型多节点"的景观规划方案,分析指出永定河湿地景观的发展方向。     

海南东寨港红树林景观变化与原因分析

以TM遥感卫星影像为数据源,借助GIS和RS技术获得海南东寨港红树林3个时期红树林分布图;进一步运用景观指数定量分析红树林在不同时期的变化特征。结果表明,近20年来,东寨港红树林各景观指数均有明显变化。其中,表征面积变化特征的景观相似性指数(LSI)和平均斑块面积(APA)有明显的下降趋势;而表征破碎化程度的单位周长斑块数(NPUP)和边界密度(PERD)呈上升趋势;形状指标(SI)也有下降趋势。说明东寨港的红树林在过去的20年,经历了衰减和破碎化过程;从不同角度,进一步分析了变化产生的主要驱动因子。     

Violent morphologies: Landscape, border and scale in Ahmedabad conflict

Conflicts produce violence through death, confinement, torture, and control of spaces of everyday life. This paper investigates how spatial morphologies, like landscapes, borders and scales, are re-ordered and re-imagined to materialize violence. A Hindu–Muslim conflict in the globalizing city of Ahmedabad, India in 2002 is used as a case study. The conflict unfolded in a dying industrial city, now being re-envisioned through neoliberal urban entrepreneurialism into a ‘global city’. During and after the riots, the majority Hindu community, and the local Hindu fundamentalist government, annihilated the life spaces of the minority Muslim community. Through a combination of Hindu rioting and urban renewal, landscapes were destroyed, new spaces produced, borders re-imagined, and new ones imprinted on the landscape, to segregate previously co-existing communities. Local government and Hindu ideologues creatively juxtaposed neoliberal economic polices, global discourses of Islamophobia, local ethnocentrism to alter the spatial morphologies of Ahmedabad. Justice entails the democratization of space by altering the violent morphologies of Ahmedabad.