Author: Xijun Yu

Publisher: Open Dissertation Press

Published: 2017-01-27

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781361475430

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This dissertation, "A Landscape Approach to Strategic Environmental Assessment for Spatial Planning" by Xijun, Yu, 于錫軍, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled A Landscape Approach to Strategic Environmental Assessment for Spatial Planning Submitted by YU Xijun for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Hong Kong in May 2007 To achieve sustainable land use, Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for the future spatial planning must be considered in decision making. Landscape ecology can help to quantify spatial patterns of land use and to monitor their environmental consequences at a broader scale. Using Panyu as an empirical case study, this study develops a conceptual framework for SEA based on landscape ecological principles and landscape metrics analysis. The results of this study show that urban area has significantly increased at the expenses of cultivated land, yuandi, and forest in Panyu between 1988 and 2002. This process has also resulted in an obvious change in landscape matrix. The landscape was dominated by agricultural land in 1988, but then became more fragmented and heterogeneous between 1988 and 1998. A combination of gradient analysis and landscape metrics can clearly characterize the complex spatiotemporal pattern of urbanization in Panyu, which can be described as a diffusion-coalescence process with a multi-nucleated pattern. In the planning context, maintaining the pre- urban natural remnants and protecting cultivated land is very important in any effort to mitigate the potential impacts of urbanization. Minimum Mapping Unit (MMU) is a key issue in SEA for spatial planning because this process is related to generating land cover maps from remote sensing data and planning maps. This study analyses the behavior and sensitivity of landscape metrics to changing MMU based on a real landscape. The results show that landscape metrics will vary with increasing MMU, with higher variations in area/density/edge metrics and core area metrics, as well as some shape metrics. Thus, these kinds of metrics are not appropriate for landscape comparison generated from different data sources. The results also show that there are some differences in landscape metrics behavior to changing MMU and changing grain size. Thus, any landscape analysis should select the appropriate metrics based on the specific landscape application. In order to make data comparable in the context of SEA, some guidelines and criteria are proposed in the study. Strategic Landscape Pattern (SLP) is identified to enhance the effectiveness of the scoping process in SEA which is based on gradient analysis with moving window, emipirical data, and local protection targets. SLP is composed of strategic patches, strategic subregional corridors, and strategic regional corridors. Using two planning alternatives in Panyu, the impacts of each plan are systematically evaluated with respect to the impacts on landscape metrics variation, the impacts on each of the six development regions, and the impacts on each strategic element. The results show that the Urban Plan (UP) will have a greater impact on landscape pattern. It also have high impacts on the strategic patches and their two buffer zones, especially at the southern areas of Panyu. However, the Land Use Plan (LP) has higher impacts on strategic corridiors than the UP, except for two buffer zones of the strategic regional corridors. The study demonstrates that the proposed framework to integrate landscape ecology into SEA has a good potential to

Download or read book A Landscape Approach to Strategic Environmental Assessment for Spatial Planning written by Xijun Yu and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "A Landscape Approach to Strategic Environmental Assessment for Spatial Planning" by Xijun, Yu, 于錫軍, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled A Landscape Approach to Strategic Environmental Assessment for Spatial Planning Submitted by YU Xijun for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Hong Kong in May 2007 To achieve sustainable land use, Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for the future spatial planning must be considered in decision making. Landscape ecology can help to quantify spatial patterns of land use and to monitor their environmental consequences at a broader scale. Using Panyu as an empirical case study, this study develops a conceptual framework for SEA based on landscape ecological principles and landscape metrics analysis. The results of this study show that urban area has significantly increased at the expenses of cultivated land, yuandi, and forest in Panyu between 1988 and 2002. This process has also resulted in an obvious change in landscape matrix. The landscape was dominated by agricultural land in 1988, but then became more fragmented and heterogeneous between 1988 and 1998. A combination of gradient analysis and landscape metrics can clearly characterize the complex spatiotemporal pattern of urbanization in Panyu, which can be described as a diffusion-coalescence process with a multi-nucleated pattern. In the planning context, maintaining the pre- urban natural remnants and protecting cultivated land is very important in any effort to mitigate the potential impacts of urbanization. Minimum Mapping Unit (MMU) is a key issue in SEA for spatial planning because this process is related to generating land cover maps from remote sensing data and planning maps. This study analyses the behavior and sensitivity of landscape metrics to changing MMU based on a real landscape. The results show that landscape metrics will vary with increasing MMU, with higher variations in area/density/edge metrics and core area metrics, as well as some shape metrics. Thus, these kinds of metrics are not appropriate for landscape comparison generated from different data sources. The results also show that there are some differences in landscape metrics behavior to changing MMU and changing grain size. Thus, any landscape analysis should select the appropriate metrics based on the specific landscape application. In order to make data comparable in the context of SEA, some guidelines and criteria are proposed in the study. Strategic Landscape Pattern (SLP) is identified to enhance the effectiveness of the scoping process in SEA which is based on gradient analysis with moving window, emipirical data, and local protection targets. SLP is composed of strategic patches, strategic subregional corridors, and strategic regional corridors. Using two planning alternatives in Panyu, the impacts of each plan are systematically evaluated with respect to the impacts on landscape metrics variation, the impacts on each of the six development regions, and the impacts on each strategic element. The results show that the Urban Plan (UP) will have a greater impact on landscape pattern. It also have high impacts on the strategic patches and their two buffer zones, especially at the southern areas of Panyu. However, the Land Use Plan (LP) has higher impacts on strategic corridiors than the UP, except for two buffer zones of the strategic regional corridors. The study demonstrates that the proposed framework to integrate landscape ecology into SEA has a good potential to