Context

Urban-rural gradients are useful tools when examining the influence of human disturbances on ecological, social and coupled systems, yet the most commonly used gradient definitions are based on single broad measures such as housing density or percent forest cover that fail to capture landscape patterns important for conservation.

Objectives

We present an approach to defining urban–rural gradients that integrates multiple landscape pattern metrics related to ecosystem processes important for natural resources and wildlife sustainability.

Methods

We develop a set of land cover composition and configuration metrics and then use them as inputs to a cluster analysis process that, in addition to grouping towns with similar attributes, identifies exemplar towns for each group. We compare the outcome of the cluster-based urban-rural gradient typology to outcomes for four commonly-used rule-based typologies and discuss implications for resource management and conservation.

Results

The resulting cluster-based typology defines five town types (urban, suburban, exurban, rural, and agricultural) and notably identifies a bifurcation along the gradient distinguishing among rural forested and agricultural towns. Landscape patterns (e.g., core and islet forests) influence where individual towns fall along the gradient. Designations of town type differ substantially among the five different typologies, particularly along the middle of the gradient.

Conclusions

Understanding where a town occurs along the urban-rural gradient could aid local decision-makers in prioritizing and balancing between development and conservation scenarios. Variations in outcomes among the different urban-rural gradient typologies raise concerns that broad-measure classifications do not adequately account for important landscape patterns. We suggest future urban-rural gradient studies utilize more robust classification approaches.

中文翻译：

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使用景观指标来表征沿城乡梯度的城镇

语境

在检查人类干扰对生态、社会和耦合系统的影响时，城乡梯度是有用的工具，但最常用的梯度定义基于单一的广泛测量，例如住房密度或森林覆盖百分比，这些指标未能捕捉到重要的景观模式为保护。

目标

我们提出了一种定义城乡梯度的方法，该方法整合了与对自然资源和野生动物可持续性很重要的生态系统过程相关的多个景观模式指标。

方法

我们开发了一组土地覆盖组成和配置指标，然后将它们用作聚类分析过程的输入，除了对具有相似属性的城镇进行分组之外，还为每个组识别示例城镇。我们将基于集群的城乡梯度类型学的结果与四种常用的基于规则的类型学的结果进行比较，并讨论对资源管理和保护的影响。

结果

由此产生的基于集群的类型学定义了五种城镇类型（城市、郊区、郊区、农村和农业），并特别确定了沿梯度区分农村森林城镇和农业城镇的分叉。景观模式（例如，核心和小岛森林）会影响各个城镇沿梯度下降的位置。在五种不同的类型中，城镇类型的名称有很大不同，特别是在梯度的中间。

结论

了解城镇在城乡梯度上的位置可以帮助当地决策者在开发和保护场景之间进行优先排序和平衡。不同城乡梯度类型之间结果的差异引起了人们的担忧，即广泛的分类没有充分考虑重要的景观模式。我们建议未来的城乡梯度研究使用更强大的分类方法。