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I am currently looking for any GIS packages (or add-ons) that allow the simulation of landscape fragmentation on raster data. Maybe also other software than GIS tools?

Does anyone of you have had experience with that issue already and can suggest a good tool for that task? Info on tutorials etc. are also welcome!

ThanX! Jens

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What kind of "fragmentation" do you seek to simulate? Simulation requires a model, usually one with a random component. What model(s) do you specifically have in mind? – whuber♦ May 14 '12 at 16:17
i was thinking of an algorithm that creates some kind of fishbone pattern as one can find in tropical rain forest deforestation. however, it could be anything but perhaps not too randomly. We wanted to simulate "human impact on vegetation pattern" in the sense that some habitats get destroyed in a "strategical manner". I hope this explains it better? – Jens May 15 '12 at 12:12

2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

I would recommend either Qrule or SIMMAP. The suitability of a given model is dependent on what type of neutral landscape structure you wish to simulate (e.g., edge fractal dimension, mean patch size, juxtaposition, etc...).

Qrule: http://www.umces.edu/al/program/gardner/qrule

SIMMAP: http://www2.montes.upm.es/personales/saura/software.html

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I think SIMMAP will be exactly what I was looking for! Many thanks! – Jens Jun 30 '12 at 11:01
up vote 3 down vote

I am not sure what tools you are looking for (not sure what do you want to simulate) but there are few programs that deal with landscape indices:

Fragstats - http://www.umass.edu/landeco/research/fragstats/fragstats.html

Patch Analyst - ArcGIS add-on (link to presentation - http://www.cnr.uidaho.edu/rsgis/docs/Fragmentaiton.pdf)

GRASS GIS have a module for this- r.le or r.li.

SAGA GIS may have some tools, depending what indices you want to calculate (http://www.saga-gis.org/en/index.html).

LandFrag - is something you may have a look at as well (http://placeways.com/products/landfragtool.php)

Placeways does have also software that allows for more extensive calculation, so have look at theirs site.

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Tomek, there are no license restrictions in r.le/r.li, they are GPL'ed as all GRASS GIS. You may want to update your posting :) – markusN May 14 '12 at 15:59
FYI - We just published an article about the GRASS GIS possibilities: Rocchini, D., Delucchi, L., Bacaro, G., Cavallini, P., Feilhauer, H., Foody, G.M., He, K.S., Nagendra, H., Porta, C., Ricotta, C., Schmidtlein, S., Spano, L.D., Wegmann, M., Neteler, M. (2012). Calculating landscape diversity with information-theory based indices: A GRASS GIS solution. Accepted by Ecological Informatics. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2012.04.002 – markusN May 14 '12 at 16:00
Markus, it had to be some sort of bug than, as I am sure that I got an error window with information about licencing or something in this manner. I can not replicate now error for you, but probably its not an issue anymore. That's why I recommended to look further in to it. In fact, I was realy suprised back then, as GRASS is GLP licence. Of course I'll edit my post and gladly will read an article when released. Thanks for an update. – Tomek May 14 '12 at 18:55
Ok, article is released and available online as I see on Science Direct now. Thanks. – Tomek May 14 '12 at 19:21
You can find the publications also here: gis.cri.fmach.it/publications – markusN May 14 '12 at 20:22
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