Ecological Indicators 31 (2013) 49–58 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Ecological Indicators jou rn al h om epage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind Mountain vegetation change quantification using surface landscape metrics in Lancang watershed, China Zhiming Zhang a,∗ , Frieke Van Coillie b , Eva M. De Clercq c , Xiaokun Ou a , Robert De Wulf b a Institute of Ecology and Geobotany, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China b Laboratory of Forest Management and Spatial Information (FORSIT), Ghent University, Ghent 9000, Belgium c Earth and Life Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Louvain-La-Neuve 1348, Belgium a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 5 December 2011 Received in revised form 6 November 2012 Accepted 7 November 2012 Keywords: Mountains Planimetric landscape pattern indices DEM Surface landscape pattern indices Vegetation change quantification a b s t r a c t Land cover and vegetation change are among the most important aspects of environmental change. Vegetation change can be quantified by landscape pattern indices (LPI). Landscape indices are routinely calculated using planar land use/land cover (LU/LC) maps, obtained by the projection of a non-flat land- scape surface into a two-dimensional Cartesian space. Especially in mountainous areas, quantification on planar maps can lead to underestimation of vegetation and land cover changes. Hoechstetter et al. (2008) developed a method to compute LPIs in a surface structure by calculating landscape patch surface area and surface perimeter from digital elevation models (DEM). As yet there have been no applications of these surface landscape indices on land use/land cover and vegetation change quantification. The objec- tives of this study are to (1) choose a LPI method (surface metrics pattern analysis or common planimetric metrics pattern analysis) for vegetation change quantification; and (2) employ the selected surface LPI method to assess vegetation pattern change in two mountainous areas of the Lancang watershed, Yun- nan Province, China. The results show that the surface approach to estimate changes of class area (CA), mean patch area (MPA), and mean Euclidean Near-Neighbor distance (MENN) may obtain more accurate results for quantifying vegetation change in steep mountain areas. Forest fragmentation increased sig- nificantly over time in the two different mountainous study areas. The patches of two land cover classes, (i) agricultural land and (ii) low density forest and tall shrubs, became more aggregated in the northern (temperate) study area. In the southern (tropical) study area, rubber plantations increased considerably in size and became more aggregated. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Land cover change is one of the most important aspects of envi- ronmental change and represents the largest threat to ecological systems for this century (Foody, 2003). Habitat loss and fragmen- tation have been directly linked to biodiversity loss and species extinction (Laurance et al., 1997; Pimm, 1998; Brook et al., 2003; Hanski et al., 2007) and can severely alter the physical or biotic con- ditions of habitat, directly influence species distribution patterns, and even induce species loss (Laurance et al., 1998; Linera et al., 1998; Sala et al., 2000; Hanski et al., 2007). Mountains are impor- tant sources of water, energy, minerals, forest and agricultural products; sites of recreation; and also storehouses of biological diversity, home to endangered species and an essential part of the global ecosystem (UN, 1992). Mountain vegetation has been rapidly deteriorating during the past several decades (UN, 1992), ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 871 5165581; fax: +86 871 5165581. E-mail address: zhiming zhang76@hotmail.com (Z. Zhang). with considerable impact on biodiversity, livelihood, and ecosys- tem services (Xu et al., 2006). Developing concepts and tools to describe and quantify vegeta- tion or landscape patterning is essential to the study of change in vegetation patterns (Forman, 1995; Turner et al., 2001; Ivits et al., 2005). Remote sensing has been widely used to monitor major land cover changes such as those associated with deforestation and forest fragmentation (Frohn, 1998; Wulder and Franklin, 2003; Newton et al., 2009). Due to the difficulty of accessing many moun- tain regions, remote sensing has been employed as an important tool to carry out ecological studies and for mapping, monitoring and modeling mountain environments (Aplin, 2005; Joshi et al., 2001; Dorner et al., 2002; Munsi et al., 2010). Vegetation and land cover maps, often derived from remote sensing data, are used to characterize the spatial arrangement of vegetation and forest fragments within landscapes (Read and Lam, 2002; De Clercq et al., 2006). To express this spatial arrange- ment numerically, quantitative measurements of landscape or vegetation pattern have been defined, referred to as landscape pat- tern indices (LPIs) (De Clercq et al., 2006). However, to quantify 1470-160X/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2012.11.013