| Material Information |
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Title: |
Development of an index of landscape development intensity for predicting the ecological condition of aquatic and small isolated palustrine wetland systems in Florida |
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Physical Description: |
Archival |
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Language: |
English |
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Creator: |
Vivas, Manuel Benjamin |
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Publisher: |
University of Florida |
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Place of Publication: |
Gainesville, Fla |
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Publication Date: |
2007 |
| Subjects |
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Subjects / Keywords: |
Ecological, Florida, lakes, land, landscape, LDI, streams, water, wetlands
Dissertations, Academic -- Environmental Engineering Sciences -- UF
Environmental Engineering Sciences thesis, Ph. D |
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Genre: |
government publication (state, provincial, terriorial, dependent) ( marcgt )
bibliography ( marcgt )
theses ( marcgt )
non-fiction ( marcgt ) |
| Notes |
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Abstract: |
ABSTRACT: Freshwater ecosystems, while vital components of landscapes and essential for human well-being, are increasingly threatened by the ever-escalating intensity of human development. In this study, the main objective was to analyze the influence of human development intensity on the ecological condition and water quality of isolated forested wetlands, streams, and lakes in Florida. An index of Landscape Development Intensity (LDI), derived from the non-renewable areal empower density of land use, was used as a measure of the human disturbance gradient against which the ecological condition and water quality of 118 isolated palustrine forested wetlands, 69 streams, and 54 lakes were analyzed at different landscape scales. Landscape pattern metrics were also calculated for study ecosystems and tested for relationships with indicators of ecosystem condition and water quality. Overall, the LDI had the greatest predictive ability for bioindicators of ecological condition in wetlands and streams, explaining up to 30% and 27% of variability, respectively. The LDI was a significant factor in explaining the variability of water quality variables only for streams. Changes in landscape scale (grain and extent) had small effects on the LDI. Differences in LDI scores were noticeable when developed lands were added with increasing area. |
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Abstract: |
The use of distance-weighting functions provided little enhancement of the predictive power of the LDI; distance-weighted LDIs did increase by 7% the predictive power for bioindicators for streams. Landscape pattern metrics explained up to 44% of variability in bioindicators of wetland condition, and 22% and 42% for stream and lakes. They also accounted for up to 60% and 39% in the variance of water quality variables for streams and lakes, respectively. When included with the LDI in multiple regressions they increased by 25% the amount of variance explained in bioindicators of wetland condition and 52% for lakes. In general, the LDI had higher predictive power for bioindicators of ecosystem condition than for chemical constituents of the ecosystems studied, which are more variable with season, time of day, and hydrologic conditions. The LDI may have greater correlation with bioindicators because they may be more integrative of anthropogenic impacts and have higher correlation with ecological condition. |
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Thesis: |
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Florida, 2007. |
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Bibliography: |
Includes bibliographical references. |
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System Details: |
System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. |
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System Details: |
Mode of access: World Wide Web. |
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Statement of Responsibility: |
by Manuel Benjamin Vivas. |
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General Note: |
Title from title page of source document. |
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General Note: |
Document formatted into pages; contains 341 pages. |
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General Note: |
Includes vita. |
| Record Information |
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Source Institution: |
University of Florida |
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Rights Management: |
All rights reserved by the source institution and holding location. |
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Resource Identifier: |
aleph - 003904717
oclc - 660156469 |
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System ID: |
AA00003991:00001 |
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