Theory and methodology of spatial heterogeneity quantification.

In this paper, semivariogram was used to quantify the spatial heterogeneity in landscape. It was suggested that spatial characteristics and spatial comparison were the main aspects of spatial heterogeneity quantification. For spatial characteristics, the authors emphatically discussed how to use semivariogram to decompose spatial heterogeneity into quantifiable components, to determine the degrees of spatial heterogeneity, and to detect the scale at which spatial heterogeneity changes. For spatial comparison, the authors expounded how to statistically test the parameters of semivariograms to compare the spatial heterogeneity between same variable at two sites or different variables at same site, and put forward the standardized semivariograms to compare the spatial heterogeneity with different variables at the same site. The introduced theory and methodology were examined by the example of spatial heterogeneity of forest types and soil types in landscape of broadleaf Korean pine forests.