Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The restoration of forest landscape has drawn much attention since the catastrophic fire took place on the northern slope of Great Hing′an Mountains in 1987. Forest canopy density, which has close relation to forest productivity, was selected as a key factor to find how much the forest quality was changed 13 years after fire, and how fire severity, regeneration way and terrain factors influenced the restoration of forest canopy density, based on forest inventory data in China, using Kendall Bivariate Correlation Analysis, and Distances Correlation Analysis. The results showed that fire severity that was inversely correlated with forest canopy density grade was an initial factor among all that selected. Regeneration way which did not remarkably affect forest canopy density restoration in short period may shorten the cycle of forest succession and promote the forest productivity of conophorium in the future. Among the three terrain factors, the effect of slope was the strongest, the position on slope was the second and the aspect was the last

This paper will explain the key phrase of "Kyoto as a Garden City," as a secondary nature based on comprehending three ideas: one, the relationship between the landscape of Kyoto and the site of the Japanese garden, namely, the understanding of the garden culture as a part of the landscape. Two, garden, as secondary nature is the result of the continuous interaction of nature and the garden, rather than nature or the design intention itself. Lastly, the creation of Japanese gardens was based on the fractal property of unconsciously recreating nature. These discussions are inspired by ecological and landscape ecological concepts, such as edge effects, eco-tones, disturbance dependent ecosystems and hierarchical perception of ecosystems. The author concludes that the amenity of traditional Japanese garden is strongly related to the sustainability, which is clarified by landscape ecology.

People want to live in good environment. In Korea and China, ancient people tried to locate their housing and villages within good surrounding environment. This was named Poongsoo in Korea and Fengshui in China. The theory describes the harmonious spatial relationship between human settlements and natural environment. Because every place cannot have good conditions for residential location in terms of Poongsoo, ancient Koreans tried to improve their living environment by supplementing forests. It is based on Bee-Bo theory. In Korea, the landscape would be a part of total system that includes the man and nature. They thought the landscape could be damaged easily by improper land use and also be supplemented by careful landscape planning. To supplement insufficient landscape elements, Bee-Bo forest was created. It works as disaster prevention zone, microclimate control zone, biodiversity conservation patch and cultural landscape area. It is based on the philosophy that man and nature are parts of the universe and interaction between them should be managed based on energy equilibrium.

Rural landscapes are multi-functional systems. Environmental functions are influenced by both natural and cultural landscape patterns. Beyond the traditional productive functions, rural landscapes are increasingly being recognized as complementary sources of biodiversity and places for cultural identification. Rural landscapes can often be seen as a complex assemblage of structural elements (patches, corridors, and matrix) whose arrangement reflects the magnitude, intensity, and type of human intervention and influence. This chapter describes some of the cultural patterns inherent in selected rural landscapes. It outlines how cultural artifacts and remnant habitat patches can affect ecological functions in two contrasting landscapes: the relatively young agricultural landscapes of southern Ontario, Canada; and longer-established agricultural landscapes of the Apulia region in southern Italy. For these landscapes, we illustrate the effects of cultural settlement patterns on habitat patterns and discuss implications for enhancing ecological attributes through landscape planning and design

The Vistula River is considered one of the most valuable rivers in Western and Central Europe. The Vistula floodplain area forms an extensively managed landscape, with high nature values and biodiversity. This riverine landscape is rapidly undergoing changes in land use and spatial developments. The floodplain area from Warsaw to Płock was selected for an assessment of ecological impacts through scenario analysis. Five scenarios were developed which contain elements of expected or possible developments. Effects of each scenario on indicative fauna species were analyzed with the computer model LARCH, an expert system for scenario analysis and policy evaluation. The analysis shows that fragmentation presently does not threaten the favourable conservation status of the species assessed. Most of the species have either nearly sustainable, sustainable or highly sustainable networks. The analyses conducted for the 16 species characteristic for the Vistula valley show potential threats of infrastructure development reflected in scenario 1, "Maximum river regulation and infrastructure development". Scenario 1 showed pronounced effects on species dependent on steep banks and sandbanks. Scenario 3, "Renaturalisation" showed positive effects for most species, notably species of steep banks and sandbanks. Scenario 5, "Reforestation" showed positive effects on species depending on forest habitat, while species typical for meadows decreased. The designation of the 2 Natura 2000 areas has strongly reduced the options for building dams in the area, as interventions are only allowed if they have no significant effects on the area. An evaluation of developments that affect the biodiversity and spatial cohesion (fragmentation) of habitats is essential to come to balanced developments, taking into account both environmental and societal needs. Stakeholder involvement and scenario modelling should be widely used in the process of decision making for spatial development.

This paper reviews the essential planning process of green space design based on the concept of ecosystem management together with the recent technical trends and required data set applicable at each process. The techniques reviewed in this paper contribute toward the accomplishment of the goals of protecting the entire spectrum of biodiversity, ensure their persistence, and accommodate human use within these constraints; these are the three main goals of ecosystem management. The future researches to be carried out for supporting practical green space planning have also been discussed.

The physical characteristics of the ground surface are regarded as the main factors in the urban heat island phenomena. Over two seasons, this study spatially and quantitatively examines the influence of urban surface features on land surface temperature in Beijing, China through the use of remote sensing (RS) combined with geographic information systems (GIS). Primary data sources include: Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), SPOT, QuickBird and Beijing Road vector map. Variables extracted and considered in the study are: (1) percent (surface) imperviousness, (2) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), (3) ratio of water bodies, (4) ratio of tall-building areas, and (5) road density. Results indicate that Beijing’s urban spatial pattern presents a typical concentric distribution: NDVI values increase, but impervious surface and tall-building area decrease from inner city to outskirts. The land surface temperature (LST) pattern is non-symmetrical and nonconcentric, with relatively higher temperature zones clustered towards the south of the central axis and within the fourth ring road. Principal component regressions indicate that a strong linear relationship exists between LST and the studied urban parameters, such as percent imperviousness, NDVI, ratio of water cover, tall building and road density, though they do exhibit seasonal variations. In the August image, the percentage of impervious surfaces exhibits the largest positive correlation with LST, which is able to explain 81.7% of LST variance. NDVI follows in impact with a strong negative correlation. For analysis in May, with an R2 of 0.720, NDVI and water are the two features, which most negatively correlate with LST. As a practical result, these findings can be used to inform future design measures for mitigating urban heat island effects.

Some resident birds widen their habitat ranges during the non-breeding season. Their wintering habitats may be determined not only by quality of habitats but also by their connectivity to source habitats. In this study, we extract some possible stepping-stone corridors and evaluate which corridors explain the presence/absence of four resident birds–the Bush Warbler, Long-tailed Tit, Varied Tit, and Masked Grosbeak–in possible wintering habitats in Kyoto City. Bird surveys were conducted in 18 woods (> 0.6 ha): almost all-potential breeding patches for these four species in the urban area of Kyoto. I assume the mountain forests around the city and patches in which each bird species was recorded during the breeding season to be their source habitats, and assess whether corridors connect their source and possible wintering habitats. A 15 × 15 m resolution vegetation cover ratio (VCR) map was derived from Terra/ASTER and Quick Bird images. We assumed the minimum VCR for stepping-stones to be 0.25 and created buffer zones from each stepping-stone at four distances: 50 m, 75 m, 100 m, and 125 m. Four types of corridors were extracted from the contiguous buffer zones. The maximum interval between stepping-stones was twice the distance of the created buffer. The maximum interval for suitable corridors evaluated by maximum Cohen’s kappa, maximum overall prediction success, and minimum interval for which more than 80% of the actual wintering habitats connect to the source habitats were, respectively, 200m (kappa 0.25), 200- 250 m (75% success), and 200m (89% connection) for the Bush Warbler; 100 m (0.12, 58%) and 150 m (80%) for the Long-tailed Tit; 100 m (1.0, 100%, 100%) for the Varied Tit; 100 m (0.29, 64%) and 250 m (100%) for the Masked Grosbeak. Though further analysis may be necessary, these results give us some indication regarding the size of the interval between stepping-stones necessary for planning ecological corridors.

Rural landscapes have a long history of human impacts. The course of history was established by an interrelationship between nature and humans and rural landscape changes occur in the changing inter-relationship between them. In particular, changes in human impacts due to socio-economic changes have been the main driving force in the world since the industrial revolution. These have affected the rural ecosystem entity, such as by decreasing biodiversity, decreasing cultural diversity, destroying amenities, and so on. Theses changes have been occurring since about the 1950’s in European countries, and they led to the start of landscape ecological studies on the effects of rural land use changes. In current, the same phenomenon has also occurred in East Asian countries. Therefore, landscape ecological studies of rural land use changes in European countries give a basic model of Asian rural landscape studies. Korea and Japan is examined as examples of rural landscape studies in East Asian countries. Finally, we believed that this paper is helpful in the understanding of land history and policy of East Asian rural landscapes.

Of the various concepts of blue-green networking in man-nature systems suggested with regards to the sustainable use of Korea’s natural ecosystems, this paper, in an effort to complement existing theories, analyses the concept of blue-green networking from the standpoint of landscape ecological planning (LEP). In addition, information related to the sustainable conservation and management of natural ecosystems in Gyeonggi province will be presented through an analysis of similar cases in other countries. In particular, in conjunction with the task of formulating measures that can be used to complement and improve the ecological network in the Gyeonggi area, ecological network systems that have been implemented in Europe and Japan were introduced.