Analyzing landscape diversity in time: the use of Rènyi generalized entropy function

This paper analyzes the use of Rènyi’s generalized entropy function to identify landscape temporal transformation. In order to demonstrate its application we analyze recent historic landscape diversity changes focusing on the evolution of boundaries between patches in the town of Isernia (central Italy). Firstly, three 1:25.000 land cover/vegetation raster maps (1955, 1981 and 1992) were produced. Next, changes in landscape diversity were measured analyzing the variation in the extension of boundary types between adjacent land cover categories (patches) from 1955 to 1992. To do this, Rènyi's diversity curves for each year were built and compared. The major advantage in applying the Rènyi generalized parametric diversity function to analyze landscape changes in time is that diversity profiles do not display a single index. In fact, a family of indexes is shown, many of which are currently applied and widely used in landscape ecology.