Róbert PAZÚR, Ján OŤAHEĽ, Pavol HURBÁNEK

Analysis of land cover structure: example on se-lected natural landscape types

Pazúr, R., Oťaheľ, J., Hurbánek, P.: Analysis of land cover structure: example on se-lected natural landscape types. Kartografické listy, 2010, 18, 2 figs., 2 tabs., 19 refs.

Abstract: The main purpose of this study is the investigation of landscape spatial structure properties through the analysis of 50 m spatial resolution CORINE land cover dataset using several class level landscape metrics at different spatial resolutions. Four different study areas were used to represent four different types of natural landscapes. To investigate the response of landscape structure to changing resolution, raster land cover dataset in initial 50 meters resolution on all study areas was systematically aggregated by majority rule up to 1000 meters. Results of our analysis shows that in case of scale dependencies only few metrics describing geometrical and topological structures have significantly predictable behaviour. Fact that landscape structure at coarser resolution strongly depends on spatial composition and configuration of the landscape at the finer resolutions, which was validated here, underline the further necessity of scale dependence investigation in landscape structure analysis.

Keywords: land cover, scale dependence, natural landscape, landscape metrics