Two methods for detecting landscape associations based on a landscape map

Landscape association refers to relations among landscape elements. Two methods, landscape juxtaposition and landscape region, for detecting landscape associations are described. Sampling transects across a landscape map were used to collect data. A series of equidistant points is located along each transect, and the landscape element in which each point falls is identified and recorded. These data are easy to collect and analyze by the two techniques. The first method considers the frequency of juxtaposition of landscape elements and tests whether this frequency is significantly greater than or less than a random expectation. The second method divides each transect into regions and tests whether the number of occurrences of each landscape element within the regions of occurrence of each other element is significantly greater than or less than that outside those regions. These two methods were applied to the analysis of landscape associations for Shaanxi vegetation landscape, and they provided rational and meaningful results. These methods made detecting landscape associations considerably easier.