Landscape Structure Model

摘要

To report on the state of the nature environment as requested for example by the sustainable development strategy of the European Union, information on the landscape and the underlying processes forming the landscape is needed. In principle we can differentiate two basic approaches to analyse the processes forming the landscape. These processes can be measured directly using measurements of energy- and nutrient flows. However, information on the processes can be derived indirectly using the landscape structure as main information source. The basic idea is, that the landscape structure, i.e., what we see today, was produced by flows yesterday, so there is a linkage between structure and processes (FORMAN, 1995). In this paper we give a review about the theory of landscape ecology, define the term "landscape structure" and discuss the processes occurring in the landscape.