Landscape fragmentation due to urban development, transportation infrastructure, and agriculture poses a threat to environmental integrity. There is a need to quantify the level of landscape fragmentation in an ecologically meaningful way for inclusion in planning and decision-making. Effective mesh size (meff) is an ecologically relevant metric that quantifies landscape fragmentation based on the probability that two randomly chosen points in a region are located in the same non-fragmented patch.
Download Effetive Mesh Size ArcGIS Tool:
ArcGIS 10: Download files here
ArcGIS 9.3: Download files here
Demo GIS files for calculating Effective Mesh Size: Dowload files here
Publications:
Integration of landscape fragmentation analysis into regional planning: A statewide multi-scale case study from California, USA, , Landscape and Urban Planning, Volume 86, Number 3-4, p.205-218, (2008)
Comment on "Roadless space of the conterminous United States", , Science, Volume 318, (2007)