Landscape metrics play an important role in pedodiversity studies. Despite considerable research on pedodiversity, there is a lack of standardised methods for assessing the degree of soil cover diversity, especially in the urban area. Hence, in this work, we propose a new approach for spatial analyses of the urban soils using landscape metrics. The aim of the study was to develop a qualitative-quantitative landscapemetrics-based method for the pedodiversity measurement and the degree of soils' transformation. The research included: selection of input data (cartographic materials), data digitisation, development of an urban soil map and a soil transformation map, creation of a hexagonal grid within the city's administrative boundaries, calculation of eight landscape metrics and their statistical selection, and finally, development of the maps based on original pedodiversity index. Despite the homogeneous initial soil cover of the city, the present, human-transformed soil cover is relatively heterogeneous by urban soil complexes and the degree of soil transformation. The developed method allows areas of greatest landscape fragmentation to be identified, and thereby to precisely indicate the areas of the most strongly human-transformed soils and fertile soil losses, which can support urban spatial planning and landscape design.
Geodiversity is understood as a variation of all abiotic components in geographical environment. Its evaluation in spatial analysis requires construction of a number of maps as well as data analysis. In these works GIS tools and programs are useful. In this study, many different tools were used: reclassification, vectorization, aggregation, intersection, as well as operations on attribute tables, for example field calculator or summarization. Using the possibilities of ArcInfo, ModelBuilder tool built GIS models that significantly improve work on the geodiversity valuing. Constructed models have been tested on the example of slopes. Once digitized, all the contour-lines (isohypses) from the map in a scale of 1:50 000, and the use of tools Raster to Topo, digital elevation model (DEM) with resolution of grid 20 m was made. DEM was the basis for generating digital terrain model (DTM) and maps of slopes. On the basis of these maps slope values were calculated (maximum, minimum, range), as well as number of classes (PR patch richness), number of units (NP number of patches), Shannon's diversity index (SHDI), Simpson's diversity index (SIDI) and roughness coefficients (R, Rw). Study area, covering an area of 288 km 2 , was a fragment of the Polish Lowland west of Toruń.Słowa kluczowe: georóżnorodność, podstawowe atrybuty topograficzne, Niż Polski, modele GIS
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