Mapping and Quantifying Anthropogenic Disturbances on the Landscape

Abstract

Although the quantification of anthropogenic disturbance is important for a variety of governance, management and land use processes, high-resolution disturbance datasets that account for overlapping or cumulative activities are not widely available. This study outlines a set of methods that effectively combines any number of publicly available datasets into a single index, each one characterizing a human activity that is perceived to leave a negative impact on the environment. Two disturbance indices were produced: one that utilized an equal weighting of the variables, and the other that utilized a weights matrix to derive unique weights for each variable. An analysis of the two maps found differences between the two approaches to be minimal. The methods outlined in this paper, and the accompanying disturbance maps of British Columbia, offer an important contribution to the growing suite of tools needed to understand and respond to the multiple forms of human activity impacting the environment at different scales.

Keywords: footprint, HUMAN, GIS, cumulative, impacts, ecohealth, planetary health