QUANTITATIVE MULTIRESOLUTION CHARACTERIZATION OF LANDSCAPE PATTERNS FOR ASSESSING THE STATUS OF ECOSYSTEM HEALTH IN WATERSHED MANAGEMENT AREAS

landscape ecology is a field that has grown from realizing that mainte nance of ecological resources requires management at several spatial a nd temporal scales, including landscape-level ecosystems as whole unit s of study and management. The subsequent need for characterizing land scape structure has led to a variety of measurements for assessing dif ferent aspects of spatial patterns; however, most of these measurement s are known to depend on both the spatial extent of a specified landsc ape and the measurement grain. Therefore, measurements that incorporat e a range of scales would be most informative. In response, this artic le introduces a new method for obtaining a multiresolution characteriz ation of land cover fragmentation patterns within a fixed geographic e xtent. Our particular interest is in watershed-delineated extents. The method applies the concept of conditional entropy as one moves from l arger ''parent'' land cover pixels to smaller ''child'' pixels that ar e heirarchically nested within the parent pixels. When applied over a range of resolutions, one obtains a ''conditional entropy profile.'' T he conceptual and methodological development of conditional entropy pr ofiles is presented, followed by current and future directions for eva luating and applying this methodology.