Implications of shared edge length between land cover types for landscape quality: the case of Midwestern US, 1940-1998

The north-central region of Indiana in the Midwestern United States was covered by deciduous forest, but was largely cleared for agriculture during the 1800s. The landscape has experienced tremendous change due to forest restoration, urban expansion, and reservoir construction since the early 1900s. At the same time, ecological health and environmental quality have been dramatically degraded in the region. We used simple landscape indices, such as land proportion, TE, and Shared Edge Length (SEL) between any two classes, to examine changes in the spatial patterning of six land cover types, including agriculture, grassland, closed-canopy forest, open-canopy forest, urban, and water, using aerial photographs dating from 1940 to 1998. The landscape's domination by agriculture did not change (65% in 1940 and 57% in 1998), but there were net gains in area for closed-canopy forest (79%), urban (256%), and water (125%). Several landscape indices did not change much but SEL between closed-canopy forest and urban increased over seven fold, and SEL between water and urban increased over eight fold from 1940 to 1998. More forestlands and water bodies were exposed to human activities. The clumped pattern of forest, water, and urban in a landscape can be ecologically detrimental and should be considered in future land-use decisions.