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Environmental Assessment ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT DOI: 10.1007/s00267-005-0077-6 Assessing Impacts of Typhoons and the Chi-Chi Earthquake on Chenyulan Watershed Landscape Pattern in Central Taiwan Using Landscape Metrics YU-PIN LIN* rainfall that fell across the eastern and central parts of Taiwan TSUN-KUO CHANG on November 2000 and July 2001. This study uses remote Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering sensing data,landscape metrics,multivariate statistical National Taiwan University analysis,and spatial autocorrelation to assess how earth- 1 Sec. 4 Roosevelt Rd. quake and typhoons affect landscape patterns. It addresses Taipei 106,Taiwan variations of the Chenyulan watershed in Nantou County,near the earthquake's epicenter and crossed by Typhoon Toraji. CHEN-FA WU The subsequent disturbances have gradually changed Graduate Institute of Urban Planning landscape of the Chenyulan watershed. Disturbances of National Taipei University various types,sizes,and intensities,following various tracks, 69 Sec. 2 Chien Kwo Rd. have various effects on the landscape patterns and variations Taipei 104,Taiwan of the Chenyulan watershed. The landscape metrics that are TE-CHIH CHIANG obtained by multivariate statistical analyses showed that the Department of Geography disturbances produced variously fragmented patches, Chinese Culture University interspersed with other patches and isolated from patches of 55 Hwa-Ken Rd. the same type across the entire Chenyulan watershed. The Yangming Shan disturbances also affected the isolation,size,and shape- Taipei 111,Taiwan complexity of patches at the landscape and class levels. The disturbances at the class level more strongly affected spatial SHIN-HWEI LIN variations in the landscape as well as patterns of grasslands Department of Soil and Water Conservation and bare land,than variations in the watershed farmland and National Chung Hsing University forest. Moreover,the earthquake with high magnitude was a 250 Kuo Kuanfg Rd. starter to create these landscape variations in space in the Taichung City 402,Taiwan Chenyulan watershed. The cumulative impacts of the distur- bances on the watershed landscape pattern had existed, especially landslides and grassland in the study area,but ABSTRACT / The Chi-Chi earthquake (ML = 7.3) occurred in the central part of Taiwan on September 21,1999. After the were not always evident in space and time in landscape and earthquake,typhoons Xangsane and Toraji produced heavy other class levels. Physical disturbances, such as fires, hurricanes, tor- structures, affecting the substrate, the physical envi- nadoes, typhoons, landslides, and earthquakes, are ronment, and the availability of resources (White and characterized by a large amount of energy change and Pickett 1985). The width of a disturbance almost always may arrive from various directions and in various forms changes as the disturbance moves, leaving a distinctive (Forman 1995). These widespread natural phenomena squiggly bordered signature on the land (Forman may be defined as discrete events in time that change 1995), but sometimes it does not significantly influence landscapes, ecosystems, communities, and population the landscape. For example, when hurricanes strike a mountainous landscape, the wind intensity, the pre- KEY WORDS: Landscape pattern; Landscape metrics; Chi-Chi cipitation, and the subsequent storm damage vary earthquake; Typhoon; Disturbance impact; Watershed; Taiwan across it, and landslides may occur in some areas (Lugo and Waide 1993; Boose and others 1994; Turner and Published online April 21, 2006 others 1998). Moreover, hurricanes, tornadoes and *Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; email: downbursts exhibit extreme gradients of size and [email protected] severity of wind damage; however, all storms have gra- Environmental Management Vol. 38,No. 1,pp. 108–125 ª 2006 Springer Science+Business Media,Inc. How Earthquake and Typhoons Affect Landscape Patterns 109 dients of intensity and severities, and cause damage to landscape patterns of the Rocky Mountain’s coniferous various spatial extents (Foster and others 1998; Turner forest that have been subjected to intensive timber and others 2001). Landslides are susceptible to being harvest. Baldwin and others (2004) tested the suite triggered by the combined effects of steep topography, landscape pattern indices’ sensitivity, which is useful for weak geological formations, typhoons with torrential disturbance emulation strategy development and eval- rainfall, and earthquakes. Earthquakes, shaking the uation of spatial extent, spatial resolution, and thematic ground, can trigger all types of landslide, all of which resolution using land cover data for a managed forest can therefore occur without seismic triggering (Jibson case study in Ontario, Canada. Cifaldi and others 1996). Therefore, these disturbances may dominate (2004) used landscape metrics to quantify spatial pat- the creation of a complex landscape or cause a certain terns and gradients of land cover variation of exur- change to the land surface in disturbed regimes. banizing southeastern Michigan’s watersheds. Zhang However, understanding the impacts of the distur- and others (2004) used remote sensing images with bance on the landscape patterns is an essential task for landscape metrics to quantify landscape patterns and its managing or restoring the disturbed area. gradients of the Shanghai metropolitan area, China. Landscape pattern refers to the number, size, and More information on multiple-metrics could pro- juxtaposition of landscape elements or patches, which vide insight into landscape patterns in time and space. are important contributors to overall landscape pattern Multivariate statistics provided a measure of figuring and interpret action of the ecological processes out multiple-metrics, such as factor analysis and prin- (Gardner and others 1987; O’Neill and others 1988). cipal components analysis (Cifaldi and others 2004; Landscape indices reflect ‘‘cross-cutting’’ interaction Hudak and others 2004; Venema and others 2005). A between ecosystems, either directly through energy small set of uncorrelated metrics is much easier to flow measures, nutrients, or hydrology, or through the understand and use in further analysis than a larger set biological conditions of a subsystem that serves as a of correlated landscape metrics. Each factor containing sentinel for larger landscape conditions (Raport and a number of landscape indices may present the land- others 1998). These metrics may include area, shape, scape pattern’s characters. Such typical studies of using edge, nearest neighbor, diversity, interspersion, and landscape metrics with multivariate analysis include contagion metrics. For example, the disturbance re- Riitters and others (1995), Cain and others (1997), gimes can be measured using various indices, e.g., de- Tinker and others (1998), Cushman and Wallin gree of fragmentation, fractal dimension, contagion, (2000), Griffith and others (2000), Johnson and others juxtaposition, evenness, and patchiness (Li and Rey- (2001), Cumming and Vernier (2002), Lausch and nolds 1994). There are numerous landscape ecological Herzog (2002), Lin and others (2002), Honnay and reports that use landscape indices and discuss the use others (2003), Cifaldi and others (2004), and Hudak of indices. Typical examples include Obeysekera and and others (2004). Rutchey (1997), Collins and Barrett (1997), Gustafson Spatial autocorrelation is a useful tool for analyz- (1998), Aguiar and Sala (1999), Hokit and others ing spatial patterns of values. Spatial structures are (1999), Cushman and Wallin (2000), Weinstoerffer first described by so-called structure functions and Girardin (2000), Lausch and Herzog (2002), (Legendre 1993). One of the spatial autocorrelation Remmel and Csillag (2003), and Li and Wu (2004). methods is Moran’s I correlogram. Moran’s I ranges More recently, landscape ecological research using between )1 and +1. Moran’s I is high and positive landscape indices in natural disturbance studies in- when one value is similar to adjacent values. A low cludes wildfires (Moreira and others 2001; Hansen and Moran’s I value is dissimilar to adjacent values. A others 2001; Hudak and others 2004), wildfires and correlogram is a graph in which autocorrelation val- insects (Hessburg and others 2000), deforestation ues are plotted on the ordinate against distance (Fitzsimmons 2003; Venema and others 2005), and ice classes among localities on the abscissa (Legendre storms (Faccio 2003). 1993). Therefore, Moran’s I correlogram has been Current studies of land use/cover change and widely used to analyze spatial patterns associated with landscape fragmentation rely on land cover classifica- ecological phenomena. tions derived from remotely sensed images in GIS. Liu Taiwan has a subtropical environment. It is located and others (2003) examined the landscape dynamics at on the Philippine plate and at the Euro-Asian Plate a watershed scale using Landsat TM imagery with junction (DeMets and others 1990). Disastrous landscape indices for the discovery of wintering Hoo- earthquakes occasionally affect Taiwan because of the ded Crane Decline in Yashiro, Japan. Tinker and others plate convergence and typhoons. In this study, remote (2003) used GIS and landscape metrics to evaluate sensing data, landscape metrics, one-way ANOVA, 110 Y.-P. Lin and others Figure 1. Disturbances and study area. factor analysis, and spatial autocorrelation are used to the disturbances affect the landscape and class levels assess
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