Landscape ecology principles in landscape architecture and land-use planning /

Landscape architecture students have struggled to see the application of systematic ecology courses to design. As an ecologist and a landscape architect, this reviewer is dismayed by this attitude. Students have been encouraged to explore landscape ecology, in which the scales of study and requisite inclusion of cultural patterns have direct ties to planning and design; the book under review supports this approach. Key landscape ecology works such as Landscape Ecology, by Richard T.T. Forman and Michel Godron (1986); Forman's Land Mosaics (CH, Jul'96); Landschapsecologie en Landgebruik, by A.P.A. Vink (1980); and Landscape Ecology: Theory and Application, by Zeev Naveh and Arthur S. Lieberman (2nd ed, 1994), have not met these introductory needs. The book under review is an affordable, readable primer on landscape ecology with an emphasis on application. Part 1 describes principal elements of landscape ecology; part 2 compiles schematic applications and case studies. Illustrations with captioned synopses are used throughout. However, in part 1, the complexity and variability among landscapes is hidden by simplistic "rules" of how landscape elements function; and the case studies and applications are quite brief, limiting design approach development. Suitable for general readers and lower-division undergraduates. J. Silbernagel Washington State University