Skip to main content

Accessibility as a determinant of landscape transformation in western Honduras: linking pattern and process

Landscape Ecology volume 18, pages 141–158 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

This study evaluates the relationship between landscape accessibility and land cover change in Western Honduras, and demonstrates how these relationships are influenced by social and economic processes of land use change in the region. The study area presents a complex mosaic of land cover change processes that involve approximately equal amounts of reforestation and deforestation. Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite imagery of 1987, 1991 and 1996 was used to create three single date classifications and a land cover change image depicting the sequence of changes in land cover between 1987–1991–1996. An accessibility analysis examined land cover change and landscape fragmentation relative to elevation and distance from roads. Between 1987 and 1991, results follow ‘expected’ trends, with more accessible areas experiencing greater deforestation and fragmentation. Between 1991 and 1996 this trend reverses. Increased deforestation is found in areas distant from roads, and at higher elevations; a result of government policies promoting expansion of mountain coffee production for export. A ban on logging, and abandonment of marginally productive agricultural fields due to agricultural intensification in other parts of the landscape, has led to increased regrowth in accessible regions of the landscape. Roads and elevation also present different obstacles in terms of their accessibility, with the smallest patches of cyclical clearing and regrowth, relating mostly to the agricultural fallow cycle, found at the highest elevations but located close to roads. This research highlights the need to locate analyses of land cover change within the context of local socio-economic policies and land use processes.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price includes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

REFERENCES

  • Foody G.M. 2002. Status of land cover classification accuracy assessment. Remote Sensing of the Environment 80: 185–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Forman R.T.T. 1995. Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geist H.J. and Lambin E.F. 2002. Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation. BioScience 52: 143–150.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Green G.M. and Sussman R.W. 1990. Deforestation history of the eastern rain forests of Madagascar from satellite images. Science 248: 212–215.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griffiths G.S. and Mather P.M. 2000. Remote sensing and landscape ecology: Landscape patterns and landscape change. In-ternational Journal of Remote Sensing 21: 2537–2539.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haines-Young R. and Chopping M. 1996. Quantifying landscape structure: a review of landscape indices and their application to forested landscapes. Progress in Physical Geography 20: 418–445.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall F.G., Strebel D.E. and Nickeson J.E. 1991. Radiometric rec-tification: Toward a common radiometric response among multidate, multisensor images. Remote Sensing of Environment 35: 11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Helmer E.H. 2000. The landscape ecology of tropical secondary forest in Montane Costa Rica. Ecosystems 3: 98–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Instituto Hondureño del Café 1997. Boletín Estadístico 1970–1996. Instituto Hondureño del Café, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jensen J.R. 1996. Introductory Digital Image Processing. Prentice-Hall, Inc, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA, pp. 318.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jensen J.R. 2000. Remote Sensing of the Environment: An earth resource perspective. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaimowitz D. 1997. Factors determining low deforestation: The Bolivian Amazon. Ambio 26: 537–540.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lambin E.F., Turner B.L., Geist H.J., Agbola S.B., Angelsen A., Bruce J.W. et al. 2001. The causes of land use and land-cover change: moving beyond the myths. Global Environmental Change 11: 261–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laurance W.F., Cochrane M.A., Bergen S., Fearnside P.M., Dela-monica P., Barber C. et al. 2001. The future of the Brazilian Amazon. Science 291: 438–441.

    PubMed  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laurance W.F. and Williamson G.B. 2001. Positive feedbacks among forest fragmentation, drought, and climate change in the Amazon. Conservation Biology 15: 1529–1535.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ludeke A.K., Maggio R.C. and Reid L.M. 1990. An analysis of anthropogenic deforestation using logistic regression and GIS. Journal of Environmental Management 31: 247–259.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maki S., Kalliola R. and Vuorinen K. 2001. Road construction in the Peruvian Amazon: process, causes and consequences. En-vironmental Conservation 28: 199–214.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGarigal K. and Marks B.J. 1995. FRAGSTATS: spatial pattern analysis program for quantifying landscape structure. USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-351. Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland, Oregon, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mertens B. and Lambin E.F. 1997. Spatial Modelling of Deforestation in Southern Cameroon. Applied Geography 17: 143–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mertens B. and Lambin E.F. 2000. Land-Cover-Change trajectories in Southern Cameroon. Annals of the Association of Amer-ican Geographers 90: 467–494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moran E.F., Brondizio E., Mausel P. and Wu Y. 1994. Integrating Amazonian vegetation, land-use, and satellite data. BioScience 44: 329–338.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Munroe D., Southworth J. and Tucker C. 2001. The dynamics of land-cover change in western Honduras: Spatial autocorrelation and temporal variation. In: Conference Proceedings. American Agricultural Economics Association. AAEA-CAES Annual Meeting. Chicago, Illinois, USA. August 2001.

  • Munroe D., Southworth J. and Tucker C. 2002. The Dynamics of Land-Cover Change in Western Honduras: Exploring Spatial and Temporal Complexity. Agricultural Economics 27: 355–369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nelson G.C. and Hellerstein D. 1997. Do roads cause deforestation? Using satellite images of econometric analysis of land use. American Journal Agricultural Economics 79: 80–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nepstad D., Carvalho G., Barros A.C., Alencar A., Capobianco J.P., Bishop J. et al. 2001. Road paving, fire regime feedbacks, and the future of Amazon forests. Forest Ecology and Management 154: 395–407.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ochoa-Gaona S. and Gonzalez-Espinosa M. 2000. Land use and deforestation in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Applied Geography 20: 17–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson D.M. 2002. The application of local measures of spatial autocorrelation for describing pattern in north Australian land-scapes. Journal of Environmental Management 64: 85–95.

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Petit C., Scudder T. and Lambin E. 2001. Quantifying processes of land-cover change by remote sensing: resettlement and rapid land-cover changes in south-eastern Zambia. International Journal of Remote Sensing 22: 3435–3456.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pineda Portillo and Noé 1984. Geografía de Honduras. 2nd edn. Editorial ESP, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riitters K., Wickham J., O'Neill R., Jones B. and Smith E. 2000. Global-scale patterns of forest fragmentation. Conservation Ecology 4: 3, [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol4/iss2/art3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sader S.A. and Joyce A.T. 1988. Deforestation rates and trends in Costa-Rica, 1940 to 1983. Biotropica 21: 11–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sader S.A. 1995. Spatial characteristics of forest clearing and vegetation regrowth as detected by Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 61: 1145–1151.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soares-Filho D.S., Assuncao R.M. and Pantuzzo A.E. 2001. Modeling the spatial transition probabilities of landscape dynamics in an Amazonian colonization frontier. BioScience 51: 1059–1067.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sokal R.R. and Rohlf F.J. 1987. Introduction to Biostatistics. 2nd edn. W. H. Freeman Company, San Francisco, California, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Southworth J. and Tucker C.M. 2001. Forest cover change in west-ern Honduras: the role of socio-economic and biophysical factors, local institutions, and land tenure. Mountain Research and Development 21 3: 276–283.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Southworth J., Nagendra J.H. and Tucker C.M. 2002. Fragmentation of a landscape: Incorporating landscape metrics into satellite analyses of land cover change. Landscape Research 27: 253–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stone T.A., Brown I.F. and Woodwell G.M. 1991. Estimation, by remote sensing, of deforestation in central Rhondonia, Brazil. Forest Ecology and Management 38: 291–304.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomlinson J.R., Bolstad P.V. and Cohen W.B. 1999. Coordinating methodologies for scaling landcover classifications from site-specific to global: steps towards validating global map products. Remote Sensing of the Environment 70: 16–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tucker C.M. 1996. The Political Ecology of a Lenca Indian Community in Honduras: Communal Forests, State Policy, and Processes of Transformation. PhD Dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tucker C.M. 1999a. Private vs. Communal Forests: Forest Condi-tions and Tenure in a Honduran Community. Human Ecology 27: 201–230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tucker C.M. 1999b. Manejo Forestal y Políticas Nacionales en La Campa, Honduras. Mesoamérica 37: 111–144.

    Google Scholar 

  • U.S. National Research Council 1999. Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams L.O. 1981. The Useful Plants of Central America. Ceiba 24: 3–342.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woods C.H. and Skole D. 1998. Linking satellite, census, and survey data to study deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. In: Liverman D., Moran E.F., Rindfuss R.R. and Stern P.C. (eds), People and Pixels: Linking remote sensing and social science. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, USA, pp. 70–93.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zúniga Andrade E. 1990. Las modalidades de la lluvia en Hondu-ras. Editorial. Guaymuras, Tegucigalpa, Honduras. 158

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change, Indiana University, 408 N. Indiana Ave, Bloomington, 47408, USA

    Harini Nagendra & Catherine Tucker

  2. Department of Geography & Land Use and Environmental Change Institute (LUECI), University of Florida, Gainesville, 32611-7315, USA

    Jane Southworth

Authors
  1. Harini Nagendra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jane Southworth
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Catherine Tucker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Nagendra, H., Southworth, J. & Tucker, C. Accessibility as a determinant of landscape transformation in western Honduras: linking pattern and process. Landscape Ecology 18, 141–158 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024430026953

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024430026953

  • Elevation
  • Honduras
  • Land cover trajectories
  • Land use change
  • Landscape metrics
  • Roads