Edge Density (Area and Edge metric)
Arguments
- landscape
A categorical raster object: SpatRaster; Raster* Layer, Stack, Brick; stars or a list of SpatRasters.
- count_boundary
Count landscape boundary as edge.
- directions
The number of directions in which patches should be connected: 4 (rook's case) or 8 (queen's case).
Details
$$ED = \frac{\sum \limits_{k = 1}^{m} e_{ik}} {A} * 10000$$ where \(e_{ik}\) is the total edge length in meters and \(A\) is the total landscape area in square meters.
ED is an 'Area and Edge metric'. The edge density equals the sum of all edges of class i
in relation to the landscape area. The boundary of the landscape is only included in the
corresponding total class edge length if count_boundary = TRUE
.
The metric describes the configuration of the landscape, e.g. because an aggregation
of the same class will result in a low edge density. The metric is standardized to the
total landscape area, and therefore comparisons among landscapes with different total
areas are possible.