Indicating landscape fragmentation using L–Z complexity

Landscape metrics have been widely applied to measure landscape fragmentation in recent years. However, those metrics or indicators have their own specific application. Searching better performance metric or method to quantify the landscape fragmentation is still challenging issue. In this paper an L–Z complexity method for the measurement of landscape fragmentation was presented. After introducing the algorithm of L–Z complexity and converting landscape structure data to symbolic sequence, the implementation of this methodology was demonstrated using synthetic data generated by SIMMAP software and real urban land use data. The results show that the L–Z complexity can efficiently detect differentiation of landscape fragmentation controlled by SIMMAP parameters m, n and p. As to the application in real landscape, L–Z complexity is also a good indicator to identify the landscape fragmentation, which integrates some metrics information of landscape composition, shape and configuration. L–Z complexity provides an alternative approach to measuring the landscape fragmentation.