LANDSCAPE STRUCTURE AND THE DISTURBANCE REGIME AT 3 RURAL REGIONS IN HIROSHIMA PREFECTURE, JAPAN

Using the vegetation maps of island, inland and mountainous rural regi ons in Hiroshima Prefecture in western Japan, landscape structures in terms of the size and number of patches are compared, and the characte ristics of the disturbance regimes creating each landscape are discuss ed. Landscape structure in the island rural region is the most heterog eneous, because factors which alter the landscape structure are the mo st complex. This heterogeneity is established and kept by the agricult ural land uses and natural disturbances such as forest fire and pine-d isease. At the mountainous rural region, the landscape mosaic is chara cterized by the relatively large patches composed of conifer plantatio ns and secondary deciduous oak forests. This is the result of the fore stry. The inland region landscape is the most homogeneous, because fac tors which alter landscape structure are now absent. The complex of th e physical, biological and anthropogenic forces makes the landscape un ique to each region.