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Fragmentation

Informally Refereed

Abstract

Effective resource management takes into account the administrative and biophysical settings within which natural resources occur. A setting may be described in many ways; for example, by forest land ownership, by reserved and roadless designation, or by the distribution of human populations in relation to forest (chapter 3). The physical arrangement of forest in a landscape—popularly referred as “forest fragmentation”—is another aspect of setting. The Forest Service (2004) used high-resolution satellite imagery to answer the question of how much forest land experiences different types and degrees of fragmentation. This section summarizes an assessment of landscape “context”—an aspect of setting that describes the proximate causes of fragmentation and thus indicates the types of risk associated with fragmentation.

Citation

Riitters, K.H. 2009. Fragmentation. In: Smith, W.B.; Miles, P.D.; Perry, C.H.; Pugh, S.A. eds. Forest Resources of the United States, 2007. Gen. Tech. Rep. WO-78. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington Office. 22-26.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/36773