Estimation of Ecological Connectivity in a City Based on Land Cover and Urban Habitat Maps

Dohee Kim, Wonhyeop Shin, Heejoon Choi, Jihwan Kim and Youngkeun Song
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Dohee Kim: Department of Landscape Architecture, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Wonhyeop Shin: Transdisciplinary Program in Smart City Global Convergence, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Heejoon Choi: Interdisciplinary Program in Landscape Architecture, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Jihwan Kim: Transdisciplinary Program in Smart City Global Convergence, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Youngkeun Song: Department of Landscape Architecture, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 22, 1-14

Abstract: Anthropogenic land use has led to the loss and fragmentation of native habitats and disruption to ecosystem processes, resulting in a decline in landscape connectivity and biodiversity. Here, in order to find the potentials of improvements in ecological connectivity, we provide a spatial analysis to present differences in ecological connectivity based on land cover maps and urban habitat maps in Suwon city, Republic of Korea. We generated two permeability maps for use in a network analysis, one being land cover and the other urban habitat, including a 5-km buffer area from the city boundary. We then determined the current-flow betweenness centrality (CFBC) for each map. Our results indicate that forests are typically the most highly connected areas in both maps. However, in the land cover map results, nearly all high-priority areas were in the mountainous region (CFBC value: 0.0100 ± 0.0028), but the urban habitat indicated that grasslands and rivers within the city also significantly contribute to connectivity (CFBC value: 0.0071 ± 0.0022). The CFBC maps developed here could be used as a reference when introducing green infrastructure in cities. Before establishing ecological networks for urban areas, future work should integrate the land use and ecological data of different administrative districts with continuous ecological connection.

Keywords: ecological connectivity; landcover map; urban habitat map (UH); current-flow betweenness centrality (CFBC) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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