Number of disjunct core areas (Core area metric)
Arguments
- landscape
A categorical raster object: SpatRaster; Raster* Layer, Stack, Brick; stars or a list of SpatRasters.
- directions
The number of directions in which patches should be connected: 4 (rook's case) or 8 (queen's case).
- consider_boundary
Logical if cells that only neighbour the landscape boundary should be considered as core
- edge_depth
Distance (in cells) a cell has the be away from the patch edge to be considered as core cell
Details
$$NDCA = \sum \limits_{j = 1}^{n} n_{ij}^{core}$$ where \(n_{ij}^{core}\) is the number of disjunct core areas.
NDCA is a 'Core area metric'. The metric summarises class i as the sum of all patches belonging to class i. A cell is defined as core if the cell has no neighbour with a different value than itself (rook's case). NDCA counts the disjunct core areas, whereby a core area is a 'patch within the patch' containing only core cells. It describes patch area and shape simultaneously (more core area when the patch is large, however, the shape must allow disjunct core areas). Thereby, a compact shape (e.g. a square) will contain less disjunct core areas than a more irregular patch.
References
McGarigal K., SA Cushman, and E Ene. 2023. FRAGSTATS v4: Spatial Pattern Analysis Program for Categorical Maps. Computer software program produced by the authors; available at the following web site: https://www.fragstats.org