Analysis of the Spatial Continuity of Vegetation-covered Areas

Recently, it is required to investigate the distribution of vegetation-covered areas on a regional scale for not only the improvement of urban environment but also the conservation of ecosystem. The spatial continuity of vegetation-covered areas like a green corridor plays an important role for the preservation of ecological balance especially. For the analysis of the spatial distribution of vegetation-covered areas on a regional scale, we defined the NDVI calculated from Landsat ETM+ data as the potential of the existence of vegetation-covered areas, and applied them to the analysis using local spatial autocorrelation. The areas that showed the positive spatial autocorrelation from a narrow range to a wide range were interpreted as high-potential areas on the spatial continuity of vegetation-covered areas. The new map of Spatial Scale of Clumping vegetation-covered areas (SSC), which presented contour lines based on fluctuations in the number of the range of the positive spatial autocorrelation, was proposed. We applied SSC to the hydrological analysis for extracting ridgelines that contained high spatial continuity of vegetation-covered areas. Through the comparison between the ridgelines and the green corridors in the master plans for parks and open spaces, it was obvious that the areas of high NDVI were dense along the ridgelines that played a role as bridges between core areas and sparse areas of vegetation cover.