Landscape Ecology

The science of landscape ecology is a comparatively young knowledge discipline that is concerned with the variation in types of landscape or land cover and the implications that this variation has on human settlement, land use, and planning. Landscape ecology and the tools it provides may be used as a means of envisioning and conducting spatial planning through such parameters as heterogeneity, fragmentation, and connectivity. Heterogeneity refers to the degree to which different types of land cover exist within a particular area. Fragmentation refers to the degree to which individual areas of heterogeneous land are or become insufficiently large to maintain the biodiversity that might otherwise obtain. Connectivity refers to the extent to which heterogeneous or fragmented pieces of land with similar land cover may ...