Analysis of human impact on a forested landscape of central Italy with a simplified NDVI texture descriptor

Vegetation tends to reach a maximum of organic matter, species and complexity compatible with available resources. Consequently, forested environments with high levels of organization are usually characterized by high cover density values and a high degree of spatially homogeneous biomass at the landscape scale. There are however natural or more often anthropic disturbances which tend to oppose this trend. Because forest structure is a spatial phenomenon, quantitative measures of spatial heterogeneity are a useful means of increasing our understanding of landscape structure and dynamics. The primary objective of this study, which uses remotely sensed inputs of plant biomass, was to describe the processes that generate heterogeneity within a forested mountainous landscape of Central Italy at the scale of Landsat TM data with a simplified texture algorithm. Results show that the anthropic impact tends to oppose the natural tendency of vegetation towards a high degree of spatially homogeneous biomass giving way at the scale of Landsat TM data to a heterogeneous landscape composed of long-term stratification of a great variety of small-sized forms.