Quantifying spatio-temporal patterns of forest fragmentation in Hymettus Mountain, Greece Dimitrios Gounaridis a , George N. Zaimes b,⇑ , Sotirios Koukoulas a a SAGISRS Lab, Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, Mytilene 81100, Lesvos, GREECE b Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology (EmaTTECH), Department of Forestry and Management of the Natural Environment, Laboratory of Mountainous Waters Management and Control, Drama Annex, 1st km Drama-Mikrohoriou, Drama 66100, Greece article info Article history: Received 11 May 2012 Received in revised form 5 April 2014 Accepted 5 April 2014 Available online xxxx Keywords: Forest fragmentation Change detection Landsat Post classification comparison Landscape metrics abstract The rapid land use/cover change (LUCC) and landscape fragmentation occurring around the world is lar- gely attributed to human induced factors. Landscape fragmentation has become a central issue in land- scape ecology and conservation policies due to its direct influence on biodiversity which consequently endangers the sustainability of ecological goods and ecosystem services. Thus, fragmentation monitoring and assessment is a critical issue in land use planning and sustainable environmental management in order to avoid any irreversible negative consequences. This research explores the application of method- ologies that employ multi-temporal satellite imagery, combined with geographical information systems and landscape metrics, to assess forest fragmentation. The objective is to determine spatio-temporally the LUCCs focusing on the woody vegetation in Hymettus Mountain of Greece over the last decades. The study area, which has been designated as a Natura 2000 site, is situated near the city of Athens. It faces various perturbations triggered by socio-economic factors and the absence of an ongoing contextual appraisal for conservation. To quantify the LUCCs, nine Landsat images spanning 28 years are classified. Post classification comparison is applied to generate transition maps. Additionally, eight landscape met- rics are calculated. The change detection results identify hot-spots of forest fragmentation where mitiga- tion measures should be taken, so that further irreversible alteration of the ecosystem is prevented. The landscape metrics advocate that, during the last three decades, the woody vegetation have steadily been more fragmented. The primary direct causes are economic driven intense anthropogenic activities along with frequent wildland fires whereas the indirect cause is the absence of a sustainable environmental management and conservation strategy. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Socioeconomic development in Greece has considerably been influenced by land-based economic activities. These are closely related to the structure and function of landscapes, as long as agri- culture, grazing, forest harvesting and mining still constitute par- tially income source for its residents (Papanastasis, Mantzanas, Dini-Papanastasi, & Ispikoudis, 2008). Landscape refers to a mosaic of heterogeneous territory composed of sets of interacting ecosys- tems (Forman, 1995). It is characterized by dynamics, composition and configuration that are governed by natural processes and human activities (Forman, 1995). The term composition describes the abundance and variety of different patch types, while configu- ration refers to the physical distribution and spatial character of patches within a landscape mosaic (McGarigal & Marks, 1995). Over the last century, natural ecosystems in Europe have been substantially transformed because of socio-economic and political changes (Reger, Otte, & Waldhardt, 2007). These transformations are expected to continue. More specifically the structure of for- ested landscapes has changed as a result of natural and anthropo- genic disturbances, ecological succession and degenerative trends (Ji, Ma, Twibell, & Underhill, 2006; Lambin & Meyfroidt, 2010). Human activities have modified the environment to the extent that landscapes are increasingly becoming dominated by human settle- ments, artificial cultivation fields with only scattered fragments of natural ecosystems (Vitousek, Mooney, Lubchenco, & Melillo, 1997). Most natural conservation reserves are progressively being surrounded by intensively modified environments and in the long- term, are deemed to function as isolated natural ecosystems (Wolter & White, 2002). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2014.04.003 0198-9715/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +30 25210 60416 E-mail addresses: zaimesgeorge@gmail.com, zaimesg@teikav.edu.gr (G.N. Zaimes). Computers, Environment and Urban Systems xxx (2014) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computers, Environment and Urban Systems journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compenvurbsys Please cite this article in press as: Gounaridis, D., et al. Quantifying spatio-temporal patterns of forest fragmentation in Hymettus Mountain, Greece. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2014.04.003