Abstract
Using the vegetation maps of island, inland and mountainous rural regions in Hiroshima Prefecture in western Japan, landscape structures in terms of the size and number of patches are compared, and the characteristics of the disturbance regimes creating each landscape are discussed. Landscape structure in the island rural region is the most heterogeneous, because factors which alter the landscape structure are the most complex. This heterogeneity is established and kept by the agricultural land uses and natural disturbances such as forest fire and pine-disease. At the mountainous rural region, the landscape mosaic is characterized by the relatively large patches composed of conifer plantations and secondary deciduous oak forests. This is the result of the forestry. The inland region landscape is the most homogeneous, because factors which alter landscape structure are now absent. The complex of the physical, biological and anthropogenic forces makes the landscape unique to each region.
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Kamada, M., Nakagoshi, N. Landscape structure and the disturbance regime at three rural regions in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. Landscape Ecol 11, 15–25 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02087110
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02087110