Landscape Fragmentation Geoprocessing Tool™

A geoprocessing tool that allows communities, researchers and others to chart the impact of development on forest resources.

Placeways and the University of Connecticut Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR) have collaborated to create a new computer tool to measure the impact of new roads, buildings and other development on the natural landscape.

Fragmentation - the breaking up of the natural landscape into ever-smaller pieces - is widely considered by researchers to have negative impacts on ecosystem health, wildlife, and water quality. In much of the country, the landscape being fragmented is forest. "Forest fragmentation not only has a direct impact on wildlife through its altering of habitat," notes UConn Extension Forester Tom Worthley, "but it affects the critical 'ecological services' that healthy forests provide, such as clean air and clean water."

Over the years, the scientific literature has outlined many different methods to measure fragmentation. The UConn-Placeways effort focused on creating a tool that could be easily used within the context of the computerized mapping technology known as a geographic information system, or GIS, and applied to widely-available land cover data, derived from satellite-based information.

The research analysis upon which the tool is based was developed by CLEAR as a follow-up to their Connecticut's Changing Landscape project, which charts the growth of development from 1985 to the present. "Our Changing Landscape project has focused primarily on the amount of new development, but with the fragmentation analysis tool, we are finally starting to characterize specific impacts of that development - in this case on forest resources," said CLEAR Director Dan Civco. "Our analysis has generated a lot of interest within the state, and now, by turning our research into an easy-to-use GIS tool, people will be able to do their own analyses in other areas around the country."

The tool systematically analyzes a huge amount of data in ways that would be impossible without GIS technology. It looks at each and every picture element, or "pixel," of satellite-derived land cover data and compares what it sees to the pixels surrounding it. It then characterizes the state of the forest on a scale from "core forest" (forest completely surrounded by more forest) to "patch forest" (forest completely surrounded by development). The analysis is based on a technique developed by the U.S. Forest Service for analyzing forests on a global scale.

The year-long private-public sector partnership with Placeways takes the dissemination of the UConn tool to a whole new audience. Placeways designs, develops, and distributes interactive analysis and visualization software. Placeways' flagship product, CommunityViz, is a GIS-based software package developed in partnership with the Orton Family Foundation that is widely used by land use planners and resource managers to analyze and visualize potential development scenarios.

The new fragmentation tool is being made available in two forms. It has been incorporated into the Version 3.3 of CommunityViz in the form of a largely-automated "wizard" that makes it easy for CommunityViz users to apply. The core functionality is also available as an "ArcToolbox" geoprocessing tool suitable for use by more advanced users of ESRI's ArcGIS software. "Landscape fragmentation is an important effect of urban growth, but in the past it has been hard for non-specialists to measure and quantify," says Placeways President Doug Walker. "Through our collaboration with CLEAR, we are hoping to make it easier for planners and resource managers to take advantage of these advanced models without having to be experts themselves."

The Landscape Fragmentation geoprocessing tool, suitable for use with ArcGIS 9.2 software, can be downloaded at no charge from the CLEAR web site at clear.uconn.edu or the Placeways website at www.placeways.com. The CommunityViz Landscape Fragmentation Wizard is included in some versions of CommunityViz 4.0, available for purchase.