Alix Hartmann

Winter 2015
ENVS 421

Project Proposal: Analyzing Patterns of Forest Fragmentation in the

Salish Sea Basin

Introduction
For my independent project in ENVS 422 (Advanced Spatial Analysis) at Western
Washington University, I will undergo an analysis of forest fragmentation within the
Salish Sea ecoregion. Forest fragmentation is a process that makes habitat patchy or
disconnected. Landscapes that are more fragmented are likely to face harmful
environmental effects, most notably a loss in biodiversity. There are several tools
available (developed in earlier studies and released to the public for free use) for
analyzing patterns of fragmentation on a regional scale. At the end of this project, I
hope to have information that will be useful to decision makers and a cartographic
product that will be illuminating to residents in the Pacific Northwest.

Forest Fragmentation
In landscape ecology, forest fragmentation (or habitat fragmentation) is a process that
creates patchiness and disconnectedness in the landscape. This can be caused by
natural or man-made processes. Natural processes include flooding, fire, and
geological features. Man-made causes include roads, logging, agriculture,
urbanization, and other changes in land use. Continuous, healthy forest landscape is
important for protecting biodiversity, wildlife corridors, and overall ecological health.
patches and edges and edge effect. consequences: poorer quality habitat,
disappearance of habitat, endangering species populations and biodiversity. Pacific
Northwest: Timber/ forest product extraction is a major driver of fragmentation. timber
harvest in a clearcutting or checkerboard style pattern means we lose interior forest.
Index for fragmentation>? Forest fragmentation may take many forms: reduction in
total forest area, increase in edge forest, loss of interior forest, forest patches
becoming more isolated, smaller, or disappearing altogether. On forest islands:
biodiversity loss, smaller islands have greater biodiversity loss, and islands that are
farther apart suffer greater biodiversity loss. It is important to track changes in forest
habitat over time so that we may be more conscious of human impact on the
landscape and be more equipped to make protective land management decisions.

Salish Sea Bioregion

fig. 1 - The Salish Sea ecoregion, outlined in red.

The analysis will be focused on the extent of the Salish Sea Basin. This area is defined
as the entire land region which drains into the Strait of Georgia in Canada and the
Puget Sound in Washington. The Salish Sea Basin is connected ecologically by
watersheds, but divided by the Canada-United States International Boundary. In my
work, I hope to promote a bioregional land ethic. Bioregionalism is an environmental
and social movement to promote sustainability and community by emphasising
ecological boundaries over political ones. A bioregion, or ecoregion, a land area
sharing many characteristics in the natural environment and functioning ecosystem.

The boundaries of a bioregion are the boundaries of the landscapes regional-level

ecosystem, often defined by watersheds. Scientists and land managers may make
more informed decisions when focused on the regional ecosystem rather than
individual parcels fragmented by political and land ownership boundaries. Residents of
a bioregion may be encouraged to live sustainably within their communities when they
can identify with the ecosystems they live and work in. My goal in this analysis will be
to create a holistic picture of forest fragmentation within the Salish Sea bioregion.
Analysis
In my analysis, I will utilize remotely sensed USGS land cover classification data. In
preparation for input into fragmentation analysis tools, I will subtract roads and other
man-made linear features that contribute to fragmentation but may not be captured by
land cover data. Water and other natural features that do not contribute to landscape
to forest disturbance will be classified as forest.
One tool for calculating forest fragmentation comes from the University of
Massachusetts Landscape Ecology Lab, known as FRAGSTATS. From the tools
documentation: FRAGSTATS is a spatial pattern analysis program for quantifying the
structure (i.e., composition and configuration) of landscapes. The landscape subject to
analysis is user-defined and can represent any spatial phenomenon. FRAGSTATS
simply quantifies the spatial heterogeneity of the landscape as represented in either a
categorical map (i.e., landscape mosaic) or continuous surface (i.e., landscape
gradient); it is incumbent upon the user to establish a sound basis for defining and

scaling the landscape in terms of thematic content and resolution and spatial grain.
The tool computes several statistics for each patch and patch type in the landscape.
Another tool comes from the University of Connecticut Center for Land Use Education
and Research, known as the Landscape Fragmentation Tool (version 2.0). The authors
describe the tool: The Landscape Fragmentation Tool (LFT v2.0) maps the types of
fragmentation present in a specified land cover type (i.e. forest). This land cover type is
classified into 4 main categories - patch, edge, perforated, and core - based on a
specified edge width. The edge width indicates the distance over which land covers
(i.e. urban) can degrade the land cover type of interest. The core pixels are outside the
edge effect and thus are not degraded from proximity to other land cover types. Core
pixels are subclassified into 3 categories - small core, medium core, and large core based in the area of a given core patch. Edge and perforated pixels occur along the
periphery of tracts containing core pixels. Edge pixels make up the exterior peripheries
of the tracts whereas perforated pixels make up small fragments that are completely
degraded by the edge effect.
The resulting data from the tools I have described will contain a wealth of landscape
metric information. My goal for this project is to interpret this data in a way that is
immediately accessible and meaningful to those unfamiliar with GIS tools and spatial
statistics. I hope to reach residents and land managers in the Salish Sea bioregion and
illuminate the issue of landscape fragmentation.

Both tools were designed for use in ArcMap and for forest landscape, though may be
used for classifying other land cover types as well. In my work next quarter, I will
experiment with these tools and others to find the single tool or combination of
methods for mapping fragmentation in my study area. Each tool available offers slightly
different outputs. FRAGSTATS appears to be more calculation-oriented,and may be a
better fit for quantifying many aspects of fragmentation. LFT 2.0 is a more
visually-oriented tool with more options for classifying forest patch type, and may be
better suited for transforming raster data.
I will perform a temporal analysis on this data, comparing results from different time
periods to track change in fragmentation metrics. I expect to see that fragmentation
has increased in recent decades due to agricultural and urban development in the
region. It may also be useful to combine this information with harvest records to see
where timber extraction has impacted the landscape in a noticeable way.

References:

"Bioregionalism." CascadiaNow. Web. Mar. 2015.

<http://cascadianow.org/about-cascadia/bioregionalism/>.

FRAGSTATS: Spatial Pattern Analysis Program for Categorical Maps. Web. Mar. 2015.
<
http://www.umass.edu/landeco/research/fragstats/fragstats.html
>.

Landscape Fragmentation Tool (LFT) v 2.0. Web. Mar. 2015. <http://clear.uconn.edu/tools/lft/lft2/>.

Forest Fragmentation Differentiating between human and natural causes. Environmental Protection
Agency. Web. Mar. 2015. <
http://www.epa.gov/mrlc/pdf/forest-factsheet.pdf
>.

Kohm, Kathryn A., and Jerry F. Franklin. Creating a Forestry for the 21st Century: The Science of
Ecosystem Management. N.p.: Island, 1997. Print.
National Research Council. Environmental Issues in Pacific Northwest Forest Management. Washington
D.C.: National Academy, 2000. Print.