Landscape Pattern Analysis for Assessing Ecosystem Condition

About this book

One of our greatest current challenges is the preservation and remediation of ecosystem integrity. This requires monitoring and assessment over large geographic areas, repeatedly over time, and cannot be practically fulfilled by field measurements alone. Remotely sensed imagery plays a crucial role by its ability to monitor large spatially continuous areas. This technology increasingly provides extensive spatial-temporal data; however, the challenge is to extract meaningful environmental information from such extensive data. This book presents a new method for assessing spatial pattern in raster land cover maps based on satellite imagery in a way that incorporates multiple pixel resolutions. This is combined with more conventional single-resolution measurements of spatial pattern and simple non-spatial land cover proportions to assess predictability of both surface water quality and ecological integrity within watersheds of the state of Pennsylvania (USA).

Contents

Introduction.- Methods for Quantitative Characterization of Landscape Pattern.- Illustrations.- Classifying Pennsylvania Watersheds.- Predictability of Surface Water Pollution.- Predictability of Bird Community-Based Ecological Integrity.- Summary and Future Directions.- References.- Index.

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Biography

Glen Johnson is a Research Scientist with the New York State Department of Health and an Assistant Professor in the University at Albany, State University of New York, School of Public Health in Albany, New York. He holds a PhD in Quantitative Ecology, a Masters in Statistics and a Masters in Ecology. With a cross-disciplinary background, Glen has been involved with environmental issues ranging from toxicology to landscape ecology. He has since ventured into public health and currently specializes in observational epidemiological studies using large databases and spatial analysis of environmental and public health data. As part of this activity, he teaches "GIS and Public Health" each year and serves on several interagency GIS workgroups within New York State. G.P. Patil is know to everyone as "GP". He is Distinguished Professor of Mathematical and Environmental Statistics in the Department of Statistics at the Pennsylvania State University, and is a former Visiting Professor of Biostatistics at Harvard University in the Harvard School of Public Health. He has a Ph.D. in Mathematics, D.Sc. in Statistics, one Honorary Degree in Biological Sciences, and another in Letters. GP is a Fellow of American Statistical Association, Fellow of American Association of Advancement of Science, Fellow of Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute, Founder Fellow of the National Institute of Ecology and the Society for Medical Statistics in India. GP has been a founder of Statistical Ecology Section of International Association for Ecology and Ecological Society of America, a founder of Statistics and Environment Section of American Statistical Association, and a founder of the International Society for Risk Analysis. He is founding editor-in-chief of the international journal, Environmental and Ecological Statistics and founding director of the Penn State Center for Statistical Ecology and Environmental Statistics. He has published thirty volumes and three hundred research papers. GP has received several distinguished awards which include: Distinguished Statistical Ecologist Award of the International Association for Ecology, Distinguished Achievement Medal for Statistics and the Environment of the American Statistical Association, Distinguished Twentieth Century Service Award for Statistical Ecology and Environmental Statistics of the Ninth Lukacs Symposium, Best Paper Award of the American Fisheries Society, and lately, the Best Paper Award of the American Water Resources Association, among others. Currently, GP is principal investigator of a multi-year NSF grant for surveillance geoinformatics for hotspot detection and prioritization across geographic regions and networks for digital government in the 21st Century. The project has a dual disciplinary and cross-disciplinary thrust. You are invited to do a live case study important for your in-house work.