6533b829fe1ef96bd128a42f
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Beware of contagion!
Carlo RicottaMarco MarchettiPiermaria Coronasubject
shannon's entropyGeographic information systemEcologyPixelEcologybusiness.industryComputer scienceLandscape epidemiologycategorical maps; evenness; fragmentation; shannon's entropy; shannon’s entropycomputer.file_formatManagement Monitoring Policy and Lawcategorical mapsUrban Studiesshannon’s entropyfragmentationAdjacency listEntropy (information theory)evennessRaster graphicsLandscape ecologybusinessCartographyCategorical variablecomputerNature and Landscape Conservationdescription
Landscape ecology starts from the assumption that diversity and spatial arrangement of ecosystem mosaics has ecological implications and tries to understand the interactions between diversity and structure of large spatially heterogeneous areas and its ecological functions. This approach implies effective use of earth observation techniques and geographic information systems, enabling a global view of the landscape mosaics. Consequently, a large number of indices has been used to quantify the structure of categorical maps as a surrogate of actual landscapes and correlate them to ecological processes. In particular, the entropy-based contagion index has been extensively used to summarize the amount of clumping or fragmentation of patches on raster categorical maps. However, despite its widespread application, the contagion index is very dependent on pixel resolution. This effect may render it inadequate as a meaningful measure of landscape structure. To overcome this major shortcoming, in this short note we propose to quantify pixel adjacency with a bivariate summary statistics that is not adversely influenced by pixel resolution. L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.elsevier.com
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003-02-01 |