Walt Klenner. 1998. Changing Landscapes in Smith, I.M., and G.G.E. Scudder, eds. Assessment of species diversity in the Montane Cordillera Ecozone. Burlington: Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network, 1998.

CHANGING LANDSCAPES

Monitoring forested habitats in the Montane Cordillera Ecozone
across large spatial and temporal scales

Walt Klenner

3. SUMMARY

The landscape habitat criteria discussed above are consistent with the recommendations outlined by Noss (1990) for suitable biodiversity indicators. The landscape habitat indicators: 1. can be evaluated across a range of spatial scales, 2. provide information that anticipates ecological changes, 3. can use established and repeatable Geographical Information Systems (GIS) procedures, 4. are cost effective since much of the necessary information resides in existing databases or can be accessed with satellite image technology, and 5. are causally related to or correlated with ecological processes. The above indicators do not necessarily represent new initiatives or innovative approaches, and are already being assessed in some areas at a local scale (e.g. Mladenoff et al. 1993) or through periodic reports (Harding and McCullum 1994a, Smith 1996) that represent well established initiatives to track and assess change. However, the ability to assess and evaluate landscape changes over time would be enhanced if a comprehensive and systematic approach were adopted.

The implementation of a systematic monitoring program for landscape habitat indicators is not a trivial task, but is achievable with current inventories and information processing technology. A major challenge will be to choose a suite of indicators that can be reliably assessed within and between ecozones, to define procedures that are compatible with the range of existing databases, as well as future inventories, and which capture unique or critical ecological characteristics of an ecozone but do not burden the reporting mechanism with excessive detail.

Acknowledgements

D. Huggard and G. Scudder provided helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.