Landscape patterns and parcel boundaries: an analysis of composition and configuration of land use and land cover in south-central Indiana

In many areas of the world, socioeconomic and political factors are increasingly impacting spatial patterns of land use and land cover in the landscape. Much of the land in the United States has been divided using a grid-based system that was implemented to realize socioeconomic and political goals rather than to protect and conform to biophysical differences. The borders of individual parcels of land often reflect the boundary lines created by this system. These borders are important components of policies related to land management such as zoning and private land use decisions. The potential impact this system of land division may have on spatial patterns in a landscape remains unclear. The majority of landscape research has focused exclusively on biophysical differences occurring over relatively large areas of land and ignored possible finer-scale, human impacts on landscape composition and configuration. There is a need for research on spatial patterns occurring over areas that match socioeconomically or politically important units of land in order to improve understanding of relationships between human related processes and ecosystem functions and to create better management policies. This research explores whether the system of land parcelization is evident in patterns of land use and land cover in the landscape of south-central Indiana. In particular, it investigates whether parcel boundaries correspond to distinct changes in the composition and configuration of forest, developed, and agricultural lands. This research uses theory and methodology from geography, geographic information science, and landscape ecology to analyze patterns of land use and land cover in a rural to semi-rural county in south-central Indiana. A classification of a remotely sensed image is used as a basis for calculating metrics of landscape composition and configuration with the use of a geographic information system. The metrics are calculated for areas of forest, developed, and agricultural land associated with a sample of parcels chosen to represent all the parcels within Monroe County. The values for areas near the parcel boundaries are compared with the values for areas at relatively short distances from the parcel boundaries. This comparison indicates whether there is a distinct change in the composition or configuration of the landscape occurring at approximately the parcel boundaries. The results suggest that in Monroe County, Indiana, changes in the composition of the landscape, particularly the amount of area covered by agriculture and forest, correspond with parcel boundaries. Changes in the configuration of agricultural and, to a lesser extent, developed lands also occur near parcel boundaries. The results support the hypothesis that the grid-based system of parcelization has affected spatial patterns of land use and land cover. These results illustrate the potential impact socioeconomic and political systems may have on spatial patterns in a landscape. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.