Landscape ecology investigates spatial patterns of natural and anthropo-genic ecosystems (anthromes). However, most studies focused on terres-trial environment, while submarine landscape (seascape) was poorly tak-en into account. This study represents a first attempt to perform an inte-grated landscape/seascape spatial analysis of the densely populated Gulf of Naples. Multivariate analyses on landscape metrics were used to detect differences in the spatial patterns of ecosystem patches between land-scape and seascape and to compare the effects of anthropogenic impact in terms of spatial heterogeneity. Results showed that landscape, mainly composed by humans perturbed ecosystems, presents higher patch edge dimension, diversity and evenness, and a lower fractal dimension than seascape. Significant differences on edges, diversity metrics, and hetero-geneity among patches were also detected between land- and seascape. Landscape showed low γ-variability (a measure of heterogeneity) due to the highly homogenous distribution of ecosystem patches, a characteristic feature of impacted anthropogenic system with low resilience. Converse-ly, seascape showed high γ-variability, a feature of systems with low an-thropogenic impact and high resilience. These outcomes suggest that an-thropogenic impact on integrated territorial systems is inversely related to γ-variability, and consequently to resilience. In addition, they also sug-gest that seascape is more resilient than landscape, also in a highly ex-ploited and overcrowded territorial system like the gulf of Naples. Such findings can also be useful in support of environmental accounting and management at landscape scale.

Spatial Analyses of An Integrated Landscape-seascape Territorial System: The Case of The Gulf of Naples, Southern Italy

Appolloni Luca;Sandulli Roberto;Russo Giovanni Fulvio
2018-01-01

Abstract

Landscape ecology investigates spatial patterns of natural and anthropo-genic ecosystems (anthromes). However, most studies focused on terres-trial environment, while submarine landscape (seascape) was poorly tak-en into account. This study represents a first attempt to perform an inte-grated landscape/seascape spatial analysis of the densely populated Gulf of Naples. Multivariate analyses on landscape metrics were used to detect differences in the spatial patterns of ecosystem patches between land-scape and seascape and to compare the effects of anthropogenic impact in terms of spatial heterogeneity. Results showed that landscape, mainly composed by humans perturbed ecosystems, presents higher patch edge dimension, diversity and evenness, and a lower fractal dimension than seascape. Significant differences on edges, diversity metrics, and hetero-geneity among patches were also detected between land- and seascape. Landscape showed low γ-variability (a measure of heterogeneity) due to the highly homogenous distribution of ecosystem patches, a characteristic feature of impacted anthropogenic system with low resilience. Converse-ly, seascape showed high γ-variability, a feature of systems with low an-thropogenic impact and high resilience. These outcomes suggest that an-thropogenic impact on integrated territorial systems is inversely related to γ-variability, and consequently to resilience. In addition, they also sug-gest that seascape is more resilient than landscape, also in a highly ex-ploited and overcrowded territorial system like the gulf of Naples. Such findings can also be useful in support of environmental accounting and management at landscape scale.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11367/70689
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