Abstract
Quantifying landscape dynamics is a central goal of landscape ecology, and numerous metrics have been developed to measure the influence of human activities on natural landscapes. Composite scores that characterize human modifications to landscapes have gained widespread use. A parsimonious alternative is to estimate the proportion of a cover type (i.e. natural) within a spatial neighborhood to characterize both compositional and structural aspects of natural landscapes. Here I extend this approach into a multi-scale, integrated metric and apply it to national datasets on land cover, housing density, road existence, and highway traffic volume to measure the dynamics of natural landscapes in the conterminous US. Roughly one-third of the conterminous US (2.6 million km2) in 1992 was classified as human-dominated. By 2001 this expanded by 80,800 km2, and forecasted residential growth by 2030 will potentially lead to an additional loss of up to 92,200 km2. Wetland cover types were particularly affected. The natural landscapes metric developed here provides a simple, robust measure of landscape dynamics that has a direct physical interpretation related to proportion of natural habitat affected at a location, represents landscapes as a gradient of conditions rather predicated on patch/matrix definition, and measures the spatial context of natural areas.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexander SM, Waters NM, Paquet PC (2005) Traffic volume and highway permeability for a mammalian community in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Can Geogr 49(4):321–331
Aplet G, Thomson J, Wilbert M (2000) Indicators of wildness: using attributes of the land to assess the context of wilderness. In: McCool SF, Cole DN, Borrie WT, O’Loughlin J (2000) Wilderness science in a time of change conference—Volume 2: wilderness within the context of larger systems; 1999 May 23–27; Missoula, MT. Proceedings RMRS-P-15-VOL-2. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, pp 89–98
Bosworth D (2004) Four threats to the Nation’s forest and grasslands. Idaho Environmental Forum, Boise, Idaho
Chruszcz B, Clevenger AP, Gunson KE, Gibeau ML (2003) Relationships among grizzly bears, highways, and habitat in the Banff-Bow Valley, Alberta, Canada. Can J Zool 81(8):1378–1391
Crooks KR, Sanjayan MA (eds) (2006) Connectivity conservation. Cambridge University Press, New York
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI). 2007. GDT Streetmap 2006 database
Fancy SG, Gross JE, Carter SL (2008) Monitoring the condition of natural resources in US National Parks. Environ Monit Assess 151:161–174
Foley JA, DeFries R, Asner GP, Barford C, Bonan G, Carpenter SR (2005) Global consequences of land use. Science 309:570–574. doi:10.1126/science.1111772
Forman RTT, Alexander LE (1998) Roads and their major ecological effects. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 29:207–231
Forman RTT, Sperling D, Bissonette JA, Clevenger AP, Cutshall CD, Dale VH, Fahrig L, France R, Goldman CR, Heanue K, Jones JA, Swanson FJ, Turrentine T, Winter TC (2003) Road ecology: science and solutions. Island Press, Washington, DC
Fortin MJ, Olson RJ, Ferson S (2000) Issues related to the detection of boundaries. Landscape Ecol 15:453–466
Gardner RH, Urban DL (2007) Neutral models for testing landscape hypotheses. Landscape Ecol 22:15–29
Gardner RH, Milne BT, Turner MG, O’Neill RV (1987) Neutral models for the analysis of broad-scale landscape pattern. Landscape Ecol 1:19–28
Gaucherel C (2007) Multiscale heterogeneity map and associated scaling profile for landscape analysis. Landsc Urban Plan 82:95–102
Girvetz EH, Thorne JH, Berry AM, Jaeger JAG (2008) Integration of landscape fragmentation analysis into regional planning: a statewide multi-scale case study from California, USA. Landsc Urban Plan 86:205–218
Gonzalez-Abraham CE, Radeloff VC, Hammer RB, Hawbaker TJ, Stewart SI, Clayton MK (2007) Patterns of houses and habitat loss from 1937 to 1999 in northern Wisconsin, USA. Ecol Appl 17(7):2011–2023
Gross JE, Goetz SJ, Cihlar J (2009) Application of remote sensing to parks and protected area monitoring: Introduction to the special issue. Remote Sensing Environ 113:1343–1345
Gustafson EJ (1998) Quantifying landscape spatial pattern: what is the state of the art? Ecosystems 1:143–156
Hajkowicz S, Collins K (2007) A review of multi-criteria analysis for water resource planning and management. Water Resour Manage 21(9):1553–1566
Hannah L, Carr JL, Lankerani A (1995) Human disturbance and natural habitat: a biome level analysis of a global data set. Biodivers Conserv 4:128–155
Hansen AJ, DeFries R (2007) Ecological mechanisms linking protected areas to surrounding lands. Ecol Appl 17:974–988
Hansen AJ, Knight RL, Marzluff JM, Powell S, Brown K, Gude PH, Jones K (2005) Effects of exurban development on biodiversity: patterns, mechanisms, and research needs. Ecol Appl 15(6):1893–1905
Heinz Center (2008) The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems 2008: measuring the land, waters, and living resources of the United States. Island Press, Washington, DC
Hilty JA, Lidicker WZ, Merenlender AM (2006) Corridor ecology: the science and practice of linking landscapes for biodiversity conservation. Island Press, Washington, DC
Irwin EG, Bockstael NE (2007) The evolution of urban sprawl: evidence of spatial heterogeneity and increasing land fragmentation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104(52):20672–20677
Jaeger JAG (2000) Landscape division, splitting index, and effective mesh size: new measures of landscape fragmentation. Landscape Ecol 15(2):115–130
Jaeger JAG, Bowman J, Brennan J, Fahrig L, Bert D, Bouchard J, Charbonneau N, Frank K, Gruber B, von Toschanowitz KT (2005) Predicting when animal populations are at risk from roads: an interactive model of road avoidance behavior. Ecol Modell 185:329–348
Kindlmann P, Burel F (2008) Connectivity measures: a review. Landscape Ecol 23:879–890
Kliskey AD (1998) Linking the wilderness perception mapping concept to the recreation opportunity spectrum. Environ Manage 22(1):79–88
Kupfer JA, Malanson GP, Franklin SB (2006) Not seeing the ocean for the islands: the mediating influence of matrix-based processes on forest fragmentation effects. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 15:8–20
Leinwand I (2009) Land use patterns and trends in the Southern Rocky Mountains, US at the public-private interface. MS Thesis, Colorado State University
Lesslie RG, Mackey BG, Preece KM (1988) A computer-based method of wilderness evaluation. Environ Conserv 15(3):225–232
Leu M, Hanser SE, Knick ST (2008) The human footprint in the West: a large-scale analysis of anthropogenic impacts. Ecol Appl 18(5):1119–1139
Li BL, Archer S (1997) Weighted mean patch size: a robust index for quantifying landscape structure. Ecol Modell 102:353–361
McGarigal K, Tagil S, Cushman SA (2009) Surface metrics: an alternative to patch metrics for the quantification of landscape structure. Landscape Ecol 24:433–450
Merenlender AM, Reed SE, Heise KL (2009) Exurban development influences woodland bird composition. Landsc Urban Plan 92:255–263
NatureServe 2009. Terrestrial ecological systems of the United States. http://www.natureserve.org/getData/USecologyData.jsp
Neel MC, McGarigal K, Cushman SA (2004) Behavior of class-level landscape metrics across gradients of class aggregation and area. Landscape Ecol 19:435–455
Noss RF (1990) Indicators for monitoring biodiversity: a hierarchical approach. Conserv Biol 4(4):355–364
Reed SE, Merenlender AM (2008) Quiet, non-consumptive recreation reduces protected area effectiveness. Conserv Lett 1:146–154
Riitters KH, Wickham JD, O’Neill RV, Jones KB, Smith ER, Coulston JW, Wade TG, Smith JH (2002) Fragmentation of continental United States forests. Ecosystems 5:815–822
Riitters KH, Wickham JD, Wade TG (2009a) An indicator of forest dynamics using a shifting landscape mosaic. Ecol Indic 9(1):107–117
Riitters KH, Wickham JD, Wade TG (2009b) Evaluating anthropogenic risk of grassland and forest habitat degradation using land-cover data. Landsc Online 13:1–14
Sanderson EW, Jaiteh M, Levy MA, Redford KH (2002) The human footprint and the last of the wild. Bioscience 52(10):891–904
Schultz MT (2001) A critique of EPA’s index of watershed indicators. J Environ Manage 62:429–442
Scott JM, Davis FW, McGhie G, Groves C (2001) Nature reserves: do they capture the full range of America’s biological diversity? Ecol Appl 11:999–1004
Stoms DM (2000) GAP management status and regional indicators of threats to biodiversity. Landscape Ecol 15:21–33
Svancara LK, Scott JM, Loveland TR, Pidgorna AB (2009) Assessing the landscape context and conversion risk of protected areas using satellite data products. Remote Sensing Environ 113:1357–1369
Theobald DM (2003) Targeting conservation action through assessment of protection and exurban threats. Conserv Biol 17(6):1624–1637
Theobald DM (2005) Landscape patterns of exurban growth in the USA from 1980 to 2020. Ecol Soc 10(1):32
Theobald DM, Hobbs NT (2002) Functional definition of landscape structure using a gradient-based approach. In: Scott JM, Heglund PJ, Morrison ML, Haufler JB, Raphael MG, Wall WA, Samson FB (eds) Predicting species occurrences: issues of accuracy and scale, pp 667–674
Theobald DM, Miller JM, Hobbs NT (1997) Estimating the cumulative effects of development on wildlife habitat. Landsc Urban Plan 39(1):25–36
Theobald DM, Norman JB III, Newman P (2010) Estimating visitor use of protected areas by modeling accessibility: a case study in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA. J Conserv Plan 6:1–20
Turner MG (2005) Landscape ecology: what is the state of the science? Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 36:319–344
US Department of Transportation (USDOT) (2007) National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD) 2007 CD. Research and Innovative Technology Administration/Bureau of Transportation Statistics, January 2007
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA; Bierwagen B, Theobald DM, Pyke CR, Choate A, Groth P, Thomas JV, Morefield P) (2009) Land-use scenarios: national-scale housing-density scenarios consistent with climate change storylines. Global change research program, National Center for Environmental Assessment, Washington, DC; EPA/600/R-08/076F. http://www.epa.gov/ncea
US General Accounting Office (GAO) (1994) National Park Service: activities outside park borders have caused damage to resources and will likely cause more. US General Accounting Office, Washington, DC
Wade AA, Theobald DM (2010) Residential encroachment on U.S. protected areas. Conserv Biol 24(1):151–161
Wade TG, Wickham JD, Zacarelli N, Riitters KH (2009) A multi-scale method of mapping urban influence. Environ Modell Softw 24:1252–1256
Western Governors Association (WGA) (2008) Western Governors Association Wildlife Corridors Initiative Report. 29 June. http://www.westgov.org/wga/initiatives/corridors/index.htm Accessed 12 Oct 2008)
Wickham JD, Riitters KH, Wade TG, Homer C (2008) Temporal change in fragmentation of continental US forests. Landscape Ecol 23:891–898
Woolmer G, Trombulak SC, Ray JC, Doran PJ, Anderson MG, Baldwin RF, Morgan A, Sanderson EW (2008) Rescaling the human footprint: a tool for conservation planning at an ecoregional scale. Landsc Urban Plan 87:42–53
Zaccarelli N, Riitters KH, Petrosillo I, Zurlini G (2008) Indicating disturbance content and context for preserved areas. Ecol Indic 8:841–853
Zurlini G, Riitters KH, Zaccarelli N, Petrosillo N (2007) Patterns of disturbance at multiple scales in real and simulated landscapes. Landscape Ecol 22(4):705–721
Acknowledgements
Thanks to F. Davis, J. Evans, J. Gross, S. Litschert, S. Reed, and A. Wade for comments on earlier drafts, and for insightful and helpful comments from the reviewers. This work was supported in part by a NASA Decision Support award through the Earth Science Research Results Program, and as a Visiting Researcher at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Theobald, D.M. Estimating natural landscape changes from 1992 to 2030 in the conterminous US. Landscape Ecol 25, 999–1011 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-010-9484-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-010-9484-z