Monitoring Landscape Spatial Pattern Changes Based on Ecological Metrics

The use of land without considering landscape topography and climate of the region, can lead to disastrous consequences, such as erosion, desertification and environmental degradation. The present study aimed to investigate the landscape spatial pattern changes using ecological metrics in Chaharmahal Bakhtiari province between 1997 and 2011. After providing the land cover maps in four categories of residential, forest, rangeland, and agriculture, ecological metrics at the class level including class area, edge density, largest patch index, patch density and number of patches were analyzed. The results showed that according to the class area metric in the studied period, the rangeland area decreased compared to the other three land uses. The edge density metric for the four land uses increased, which means increase in the fragmentation of these land uses. According to the largest patch metric, the rangeland has been significantly reduced, indicating the fragmentation of this land use. The patch density metric has increased for all land uses, which is higher for rangeland. Also, the amount of the number of patches metric increased for four land uses, which is more evident for rangeland. In general, based on the findings of this study, rangeland had the highest degree of degradation and fragmentation during the studied period.