1 Department of Geography, Faculty of History and Geography, “Ștefan cel Mare” University of Suceava,
No. 13, Universității Street, Suceava, Romania 2Regional Meteorological Centre of Moldova, National Meteorological Administration, No. 10,
Vascăuțeanu Street, Iași, Romania
Pages:
12 - 30
Publishing date:
28 September 2019
Abstract:
This paper is intended to evaluate the effects of the development
of anthropogenic activities on changes in the way of land is use and in the
fragmentation of the landscape in the tourism areas of Cacica and Vatra
Dornei (Suceava county). The proposed methodology includes the
combination of geographic and cartographic data available, geographic
information systems and landscape metrics. Using patches as landscape
elements, a series of two-level (class and landscape) hierarchical landscape
metrics were chosen to quantify the surface, number and size of landscape
units that define the surveyed territory, homogeneity or diversity of the
landscape. The ArcGis 10.2.2 software was employed to present the spatial
distribution of land use changes over the 22 years (1990-2012) following the
processing of the database provided by the European CORINE Land Cover
project. The statistical results of the landscape metrics were obtained using
the FRAGSTATS 4.2.1 software. The results highlight that, in Cacica landscape,
the spatial pattern of land use and cover was dominated by a broadening of
agriculture and semi-natural areas to the detriment of artificial surfaces and
forests lands. On the other side, in the case of Vatra Dornei, the most
prominent landscape changes were represented by afforestation and
urbanization. The present study reveals a decrease of fragmentation for
Caccia and an increase of fragmentation for Vatra Dornei which obviously
contributed to the modification of the local landscape structure. Therefore,
research findings underline the importance of supporting the geo-diversity of
landscapes as they can provide additional tourist income and support the
proper use of land.
Keywords:
land use, landscape metrics, conversion, fragmentation, patch.