The incidence function model as a tool for landscape ecological impact assessments
Landscape-scale approaches to assessing the impact of land-use change on species' persistence are necessary because species depend on processes acting at varying scales, yet existing approaches to ecological impact assessment tend only to be site-based. A further major criticism of current ecol...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2018
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48019/ |
| _version_ | 1848797673316941824 |
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| author | Graham, Laura J. Haines-Young, Roy Field, Richard |
| author_facet | Graham, Laura J. Haines-Young, Roy Field, Richard |
| author_sort | Graham, Laura J. |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Landscape-scale approaches to assessing the impact of land-use change on species' persistence are necessary because species depend on processes acting at varying scales, yet existing approaches to ecological impact assessment tend only to be site-based. A further major criticism of current ecological impact assessments is that they tend to be qualitative. Here we develop methods that apply the Incidence Function Model (IFM) in real urban planning contexts, by generating repeatable and comparable quantitative measures of ecological impacts. To demonstrate the methods for a case study (Nottingham, UK), we estimated landscape-scale measures of species' persistence that indicate metapopulation viability. We based these on Nottingham’s landscape when urban developments were recently proposed, then adjust the land cover to include the proposed developments, and also for two projected landscapes where 10% and 20% of the original natural or semi-natural land cover is lost. We find that the IFM shows promise as a tool for quantitative landscape-scale ecological impact assessment, depending on the size of the impact. We detected minimal differences in the species' viability measures between the original and post-development landscapes. This suggests that for small (around 2%) cumulative losses of natural/ semi-natural space, current site-based approaches are sufficient. However, when the cumulative effect of continued development was modelled by increasing the losses of natural/semi-natural land cover to 10–20% of existing cover, the impact on many of the species studied was more substantial. This indicates that a landscape-scale approach is necessary for larger, prolonged and cumulative habitat losses. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:07:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-48019 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:07:37Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-480192017-12-07T20:59:38Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48019/ The incidence function model as a tool for landscape ecological impact assessments Graham, Laura J. Haines-Young, Roy Field, Richard Landscape-scale approaches to assessing the impact of land-use change on species' persistence are necessary because species depend on processes acting at varying scales, yet existing approaches to ecological impact assessment tend only to be site-based. A further major criticism of current ecological impact assessments is that they tend to be qualitative. Here we develop methods that apply the Incidence Function Model (IFM) in real urban planning contexts, by generating repeatable and comparable quantitative measures of ecological impacts. To demonstrate the methods for a case study (Nottingham, UK), we estimated landscape-scale measures of species' persistence that indicate metapopulation viability. We based these on Nottingham’s landscape when urban developments were recently proposed, then adjust the land cover to include the proposed developments, and also for two projected landscapes where 10% and 20% of the original natural or semi-natural land cover is lost. We find that the IFM shows promise as a tool for quantitative landscape-scale ecological impact assessment, depending on the size of the impact. We detected minimal differences in the species' viability measures between the original and post-development landscapes. This suggests that for small (around 2%) cumulative losses of natural/ semi-natural space, current site-based approaches are sufficient. However, when the cumulative effect of continued development was modelled by increasing the losses of natural/semi-natural land cover to 10–20% of existing cover, the impact on many of the species studied was more substantial. This indicates that a landscape-scale approach is necessary for larger, prolonged and cumulative habitat losses. Elsevier 2018-02-28 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48019/8/Incidence%201-s2.0-S0169204617302876-main.pdf Graham, Laura J., Haines-Young, Roy and Field, Richard (2018) The incidence function model as a tool for landscape ecological impact assessments. Landscape and Urban Planning, 170 . pp. 187-194. ISSN 0169-2046 Ecological impact assessment; Incidence function model; Landscape scale; Habitat loss; Decision making tool; Species persistence https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204617302876 doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2017.10.008 doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2017.10.008 |
| spellingShingle | Ecological impact assessment; Incidence function model; Landscape scale; Habitat loss; Decision making tool; Species persistence Graham, Laura J. Haines-Young, Roy Field, Richard The incidence function model as a tool for landscape ecological impact assessments |
| title | The incidence function model as a tool for landscape ecological impact assessments |
| title_full | The incidence function model as a tool for landscape ecological impact assessments |
| title_fullStr | The incidence function model as a tool for landscape ecological impact assessments |
| title_full_unstemmed | The incidence function model as a tool for landscape ecological impact assessments |
| title_short | The incidence function model as a tool for landscape ecological impact assessments |
| title_sort | incidence function model as a tool for landscape ecological impact assessments |
| topic | Ecological impact assessment; Incidence function model; Landscape scale; Habitat loss; Decision making tool; Species persistence |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48019/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48019/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48019/ |