Landscape Ecology: Theory and Application

376 Pages·1990·9.836 MB·English

by  Zev Naveh, Arthur S. Lieberman (auth.)

Springer Series on Environmental
Management
Rohert S. DeSanto, Series Editor
Springer Series on
Environmental Management
Robert S. DeSanto, Series Editor
Disaster Planning: Organic Chemicals in Natural Waters:
The Preservation of Life and Property Applied Monitoring and Impact
Harold D. Foster Assessment
1980/275 pp./48 iIIus./c1oth lames W. Moore
ISBN 0-387-90498-0 S. Ramamoorthy
1984/282 pp./81 iIIus./c1oth
Air Pollution and Forests: ISBN 0-387-96034-1
Interactions between Air Contaminants
The Hudson River Eeosystem
and Forest Eeosystems
Karill E. Limburg
Wil/iam H. Smilh
Mary AIIII Moran
1981/379 pp./60 iIIus./c1oth
Wil/iam H. McDowell
ISBN 0-387-90501-4
1986/344 pp./44 iIIus./c1oth
ISBN 0-387-96220-4
Natural Hazard Risk Assessment
and Publie Poliey: Human System Responses to Disaster:
Anticipating the Unexpected An Inventory of Sociological Findings
Wil/iam I. Petak TllOmas E. Drabek
Arthur A. Atkissoll 1986/512 pp./c1oth
1982/489 pp./89 illus./c1oth ISBN 0-387-96323-5
ISBN 0-387-90645-2
The Changing Environment
lames W. Moore
Environmental EfTects
of OfT-Road Vehicles: 1986/256 pp./40 iIIus./c1oth
ISBN 0-387-96314-6
Impacts and Management
in Arid Regions
Balancing the Needs
R.H. Webb
ofWaterUse
H. G. Wilshire (Editors)
lames W. Moore
1983/560 pp./149 iIIus./c1oth
1988/280 pp./39 iIIus./c1oth
ISBN 0-387-90737-8
ISBN 0-387-96709-5
Global Fisheries: The Professional Practice of
Perspectives for the '80s Environmental Management
B. I. Rothschild (Editor) Robert S. Domry
1983/approx. 224 pp./11 ilIus./c1oth Lindsay Domey (Editors)
ISBN 0-387-90772-6 1989/248 pp.j23 iIIus./c1oth
ISBN 0-387-96907-1
Heavy Metals in Natural Waters:
Landscape Eeology:
Applied Monitoring and Impact
Theory and Applications
Assessment
(Student edition)
lames W. Moore
ZevNaveh
S. Ramamoorthy
An/lllr S. Liebemzall
1984/256 pp./48 ilIus./cloth
1990/384 pp./78 illus./pbk
ISBN 0-387-90885-4
ISBN 0-387-97169-6
Zev Naveh
Arthur S. Lieberman
Landscape Ecology
Theory and Application
Student Edition
With a Foreword by Arnold M. Schultz
With an Epilogue by Frank E. Egler
With 77 Figures
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Zev Naveh Arthur S. Lieberman
Professor Emeritus Professor Emeritus
Faculty of Agricultural Engineering Landscape Architecture Program
Technion-Israel Institute of New York State College of
Technology Agriculture and Life Sciences
Haifa 32000 Cornell University
Israel Ithaca, New York, 14853
U.S.A.
Oll the [rollt cover: The ecological hierarchy alld its scielltific
disciplilles as a tree and as a Chinese box with lalldscape ecology
as a Total Humall Ecosystem scicllce, linking bio-ecology with
human ecology (Figurc 2-11).
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Naveh, Zev.
Landscape ecology : theory and application / Zev Naveh, Arthur S.
Lieberman : with a foreword by Arnold M. Schultz ; with an epilogue
by Frank E. Egler. - [Student ed.)
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Landscape protection. 2. Ecology. r. Lieberman, Arthur S.
H. Tide.
QH75.N3594 1990 89-21840
333.7'2-dc20 CIP
Printed on acid-free paper
© 1984, 1990 by Springer Seienee+Business Media New York
Originally published by Springer-Verlag New York Ine. in 1990
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any
form without written permission from Springer Science+Business Media, LLC,
The use of general deseriptive trade names, trademarks, etc. in this publication,
even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that
such names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may
accordingly be used freely by anyone.
Typeset by MS Associates, Champaign, IIlinois
987654321
ISBN 978-0-387-97169-8 ISBN 978-1-4757-4082-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4757-4082-0
This book is dedicated to the memory of
Dr. R. H. Whittaker-
The great ecologist and human being
Series Preface
This series is dedicated to serving the growing community of scholars and
practitioners concemed with the principles and applications of environ
mental management. Each volume is a thorough treatment of a specific
topic of importance for proper management practices. A fundamental
objective of these books is to help the reader discem and implement
man's stewardship of our environment and the world's renewable re
sources. For we must strive to understand the relationship between man
and nature, act to bring harmony to it, and nurture an environment that is
both stable and productive.
These objectives have often eluded us because the pursuit of other
individual and societal goals has diverted us from a course of living in
balance with the environment. At times, therefore, the environmental
manager may have to exert restrictive control, which is usually best
applied to man, not nature. Attempts to alter or hamess nature have often
failed or backfired, as exemplified by the results of imprudent use of
herbicides, fertilizers, water, and other agents.
Each book in this series will shed light on the fundamental and applied
aspects of environmental management. It is hoped that each will help
solve a practical and serious environmental problem.
Robert S. DeSanto
East Lyme, Connecticut
Foreword to First Edition
As any new field develops through its various stages, the task falls upon someone
to consolidate the center, fold in the fringes, and weave in pertinent material from
other fields that had not been known or seen to fit before. Landscape ecology is
past the point where its basic premises need to be reaffirmed: the name is settled,
the field is recognized, justifications are no longer necessary, and dis agreements
on what belongs and what doesn 't are slight. The point has now been reached
where the working tools of landscape ecology need to be inventoried and expli
cated. These working tools are both conceptual and methodological in character,
and the task of weaving them into the existing framework of landscape ecology
has been carried out most successfully by Professors Naveh and Lieberman in
Landscape Ecology: Theory and Application.
Landscape ecology originated as a formal discipline in central Europe less
than 50 years aga; during tbis period the major literature was predominantly Dutch
and German. Thus, tbis book serves the purpose of introducing the field to North
American and other English-speaking readers. It is clear that the authors have
global experience and that they address good land management practices for any
country.
Collaborating were two people with entirely different backgrounds to produce
a cohesive book which exemplifies its main theme-namely, integration.
Professor Naveh had the difficult task of integrating disparate theories and
concepts, some of which are just barely "off the theorists' press," into models
useful to landscape ecologists. He also introduces his own thoughtfully developed
concept of the Total Human Ecosystem.
Naveh's observations and research in range management, vegetation science,
fire ecology, and landscape restoration extend over five continents. His studies
x Foreword to First Edition
of landscapes in Mediterranean elimates range from their evolution to rehabili
tation and management. Trained as an ecologist and range specialist, his approach
to science and to management has been interdisciplinary. In bis work he has long
recognized the human impact on landscapes, as weIl as the benefits to society
that derive from sound ecosystem management. Seeing the need for a holistic,
integrative approach for teaching and training teachers, Naveh became interested
in Environmental Education and followed the paradigmatic changes that were
occurring in many fields elosely. Only someone with Naveh's experience with
Mediterranean vegetation, soils, and human uses could have provided the excellent
example of dynamic management shown in Chapter 4. Only someone with the
imagination and the courage to look for and apply new ideas could have provided
the synthesis of integrating concepts shown in Chapter 2.
Professor Lieberman undertook the complex responsibility of describing the
newest advances in methodologies appropriate to landscape ecology. Many of the
tools and models discussed in Chapter 3 were not developed for landscape ecology
per se, but, as with the conceptual tools discussed above, he brought together the
technical tools and planning models and adapted them to the new field. Lieber
man's long experience in teaching, extension work in regional and community
resource development, and in research, has put hirn in elose, constant touch with
the users of remote sensing techniques, with land-use planners, and other prac
titioners, as weIl as educators in these same fields. He adeptly draws from his
work in regionallandscape planning, in which his emphasis is on biophysical
aspects ofland-use determinations and on information needs for physical planning,
to provide sharp understanding of the meaning and uses of the tools and models.
The authors are not afraid to use the term "holistic" to express the requirement
of total integration of the natural and man-made parts of the landscape and of the
social and physical parts of the environment. They show the necessity of con
ceiving, studying, and managing landscapes as wholes. In fact, it is this concept
of wholes which connects the ideas of the geographer-ecologist founders with
such theories as general systems and cybernetics, on the one hand, and on the
other, with such applications as landscape appraisal, land-use planning, and con
servation.
Arnold M. Schultz
Berkeley, California
Preface to Student Edition
Since the publication of the first edition of this book, landscape ecology has made
great strides. It has overcome its continental isolation and has established itself
also in the English speaking world. By attracting both problem inquiry and prob
lem solving oriented scientists with different cultural, academic, and professional
backgrounds from all over the world, it has broadened not only its geographical
but also its conceptual and methodological scopes.
In addition to a considerable number of articles (written in English) in diverse
scientific and professional journals, the recently founded Journal of Landscape
Ecology has opened also a special, permanent, and widely distributed forum for
current studies in the field of landscape ecology.
Its present status as aglobai ecological science was demonstrated at the Fourth
International Congress of Ecology (INTECOL) in 1986. where it was chosen as
one of the central themes of the five plenary lectures (Naveh, 1986) and presented
in a special symposium (Zonneveld and Forman, 1990) organized by the Interna
tional Association of Landscape Ecology (IALE). Also, in arecent important in
terdisciplinary workshop on desert ecology at the Desert Research Institute of
the Ben Gurion University, Sde Boqer Campus, in Israel, it occupied an important
place at the higher level of ecological integration, above populations, communi
ties, and ecosystems. In summary, the status of landscape ecology as a scientific
discipline in the eco logical hierarchy, as shown in Figure 2-11 , is now recognized
worldwide.
It was very gratifying for us to learn from the encouraging responses to this flIst
English-written monograph that it has contributed its share to these developments.
But we received special satisfaction in that it has reached not only the shelves of
libraries and academic researchers, but that it has appealed also to professional
practitioners and to teachers and their students in a broad range of fields related
xii Preface to Student Edition
to landscape ecology. We hope therefore that this paperbound edition will serve
its purpose as a special student edition. We believe that the contents of this book,
its basic conceptual and theoretical approaches as weH as their practical application
have not lost anything in the last five years. On the contrary: as the large scale
effects of influences such as acid rain, CO2 , global c1imatic changes and desertifi
cation, and other landscape degradation syndromes are being considered at re
gional, national, and international levels in relationship to land use and resources
management, it is increasingly recognized that the ecosystem does not represent
a sufficient or proper scale for assessment. A multidimensional landscape-wide
total human ecosystem level is called for as the meanings and implications of the
above influences are being studied. At the same time, there are accelerating con
cems relative to both solid and toxie waste disposal and atmospheric pollution in
industrial and developing nations (as a result of excessive packaging and consump
tion, much increased use of nonbiodegradable plastics, reduced land area available
for landfills, and uncontroHed emissions from industry and automobile traffic;
Brown et al., 1989).
The attendant problem of contaminants from these wastes serving to pollute
both groundwater and soils used for crops and human needs has received greater
attention from biological, ecological, and ecotoxicological researchers and official
decision makers, respectively. The rapidly vanishing coastline as a result of urbani
zation and recreation pressure and the highly apparent pollution washing up on
beaches, as weH as attempts by industrial nations to dispose of their wastes by
carting them by ship to developing countries, have begun to produce major public
reaction around the globe. The massive scale at which these problems are occur
ring, where whole seas and rivers, aquifers, subcontinental air masses, large-scale
tropical and temperate forested regions (examples are the alarming destruction
of the Amazon forest and the dec1ine in forests ranging from the southeastern to
northeastem United States in the mountainous areas, and large areas of forests in
West Germany), bespeak the need for applying holistic landscape-ecological in
sights. Understanding of the import of modification, conversion and replacement
of natural bioeeosystems by teehno-ecosystems, as explained in Chapter 2, is by
no means an esoterie matter. The use of biocybernetic principles as a basis to im
pose societal eonstraints and limitations (human produced negative feedback eou
plings to prevent degradation of land and resourees) is needed now more than
ever.
In view of these accelerating global rates of environmental degradation, and its
c10sely interwoven adverse impacts on natural and human systems, described in
Chapter 4 for mediterranean biomes, the need for a unifying paradigm to bridge
the communication gap between these disparate disciplines has become even more
urgent. In this book we have attempted to provide such a paradigm by using sys
tems theory, bioeyberneties and eeosystem science as theoretieal and methodo
logieal building blocks for landscape ecology as a transdisciplinary human ecosys
tem science.
Following the European tradition, we consider landscape ecology as the scien
tific basis for the study of landscape units from the smallest mappable landseape