PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #20: Urban Ecosystems: Comparisons Across Biomes, Patterns and process.
Presiding: M. Carreiro
Monday, August 5. 1:00 PM to 3:45 PM. Grand Ballroom West, Radisson.

A new urban land cover classification system: exploring patch dynamics in metropolitan Baltimore.

CADENASSO, MARY^*,1, PICKETT, STEWARD¹, ¹ Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY

ABSTRACT- Land cover is an aggregate descriptor used to characterize landscapes into discernable patches. The resource-oriented Anderson et al. (1976) land use classification standardized land use classes among practitioners and regions of the country. This classification system is limited in application to urban areas for two reasons: 1) it assumes urbanized land areas are uniformly occupied by built structures and 2) it confounds structure and function in the definition of classes. Consequently, Anderson's classification obscures the heterogeneity in a built environment that is crucial to understanding both system structure and function. We are developing a new classification for urban areas that avoids these constraints. The scheme is hierarchical and separates structure and socio-economic function to facilitate predicting ecological function of the different cover classes. This shift to understanding the structure and function of an urban area and natural areas within urban areas is radical but necessary for ecology. The new classification serves this shift and is exemplified in answering one of the guiding questions of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, LTER: How do the spatial structure of socio-economic, ecological, and physical factors in an urban area relate to one another and how do they change through time. We will use this new classification scheme to delimit, quantify, and describe ecological patches in metropolitan Baltimore.

KEY WORDS: Patch dynamics, urban ecosystem, Baltimore Ecosystem Study, land cover classification