EVALUATION OF AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE HETEROGENEITY APPLYING THE SATOYAMA INDEX TO PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE REGIONAL PLANNING IN RURAL AREAS OF CENTRAL VIETNAM

摘要

Habitat diversity is an important factor influencing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. In recent years, a lot of efforts have been put into developing indicators for monitoring biodiversity to address the issues regarding the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Agricultural landscape mosaics have been increasingly threatened in recent years by rapid socio-economic changes and, especially in developing countries, they are gradually or rapidly being converted into more uniform landscapes. Therefore, appropriate land-use planning at a local level is needed to increase landscape heterogeneity and enhance habitat diversity in developing countries. To establish the appropriate way of diversity evaluation in rural area of developing countries, we investigated the patterns of agricultural landscape mosaics in a rural area of Vietnam by applying the Modified Satoyama Index (M-SI). To evaluate the diversity of agricultural lands including the small-scale farming and home-garden which are found in various areas in Asian countries, we employed the new method to calculate the M-SI value for each cell. By this, the border between spatial units was dissolved, and the detailed and critical analysis was realized. From the results of calculation, we determined the M-SI value for each cell and the spatial distribution of areas which have high value of M-SI. This paper discusses the possibility of applying M-SI in the rural areas of Vietnam, which have complicated contexts, as well as the validity of M-SI evaluation results. This investigation includes a case study and indicates the possibilities to construct proper land-use planning based on concrete evidence which could contribute to biodiversity conservation under agricultural development.