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ABSTRACT
Milne, B.T., 199 1. The utility of fractal geometry in landscape design. Landscape CrbanPlann., 2 1: 8 l-90.
Natural landscapes possess remarkable regularity in the patterning, sizes, shapes, connectedness. and density of patches.
Landscape ecological studies that explore the fractal geometry of nature have found many examples of consistent variation
in landscape pattern with scale. Fractal landscape patterns affect the distributions and movements of animals, and therefore may be an important characteristic to include in designed landscapes. A computerized design system enables fractals
to be created interactively and automatically overlayed on images or existing maps. The fractal designs are then used in
simulations of foraging animals to determir
how the new design affects the movements, energetics, and locations of
species. The combination of computerized frdctal designs and ecological simulation models may enhance both the ecological relevance and aesthetic value of the designed landscape.
0 169-2046/9 l/$03.50
R.T.MILNE
82
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Fractal geometry is one of the widest reaching mathematical developments of the 20th
century. Mandelbrot ( 1983) and others have
observed striking regularities in the shapes of
coastlines, the perimeters of rain clouds. the
roughness of terrain, and the shapes of plants
(Burrough, 198 1; ovejoy, 1982; Feder, 1988).
The regularity is readily described by fractals,
which are mathematical representations of nature. Fractals often exhibit statistically regular
patterns that occur when a quantity such as
patch density at one location is predictable
from measu.rements of the same quantity
nearby. For example, the coast of Maine is
characterized by peninsulas, many of which
have smaller peninsulas attached, ad infini-
IN LANDSCAPE DESIGN
83
turn. The fractal geometry of the coastline implies that the presence of a peninsula, 15 km
long, ensures the presence of yet smaller spits
jutting off from the large one (Milne, 199 1a).
More significantly, coastlines and other patterns that exhibit fractal structure obey strict
relationships between the scale of observation
and the quantity measured (Mandelbrot, 1983;
Stanley, 1986 ) . For example, fractal scaling
was found in analyses of remotely sensed imagery obtained for the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. Regions occupied
by 0- 10% grass cover exhibited regular decreases in grass density as the spatial resolution was decreased (Milne, 199 1a). However,
areas trampled heavily by cattle 15 years before the study, and then left ungrazed by cattle,
did not exhibit simple fractal relationships
(Milne, 199 1c). Natural grasslands without
heavy disturbance exhibited archetypal fractal
relationships while disturbed areas did not.
This contrast suggests that natural configurations of plants and resources, similar to those
found in undisturbed landscapes, can be created by using fractal patterns to design
landscapes.
There are many alternative scaling relationships for a given landscape. For example, one
could examine the relatifDnships between patch
area and perimeter with changes in area
(Krummel et al., 1987; ONeill et al., 1988),
the density of convolutions on the coastline, or
the density of pixels on a digital image of a
landscape (Milne, 1988, 1991a). Each of the
quantities (i.e. perimeter to area ratio, convolutions per kilometer, and density) are predicted to vary as a function of the length scale
used, according to the ge era1 fractal scaling
relation
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Fig. 1. Exampies of fractals generated using the iterated function system method. The panels illustrate the continuous dependence of the pattern on small chdnges in the IFS. Each
panel was made by slightly alteringthe functions used to create panel (A).
perspective
projections.
Surprisingly,
the
equations of the IFS .may be applied randomly
to a set of starting coordinates, and after many
iterations, the set of transformed points may
take on a spatial configuration reminiscent of
natural patterns. Each of the k= 1,2, ... n functions of the IFS is of the following form
w(k)
=[,:;:I=[;
;][;]+E]
85
FPI
FP2
Fig. 2. Graphical explanation of how iterated function systems create fractal patterns. (A) Transformation of the original boundary by a pair of equations shrinks and rotates the boundary to create a new polygon (transformed boundary). Reiteration of the
transformation projects all points toward the fixed point. (B) The fixed points produced by two functions, showing how trajectories toward fixed points vary between functions. (C) A series of points created by applying functions 1 and 2 in the order 1,2,
I, 2,2, 1. Dashed lines represent the trajectory each point would make if it were subjected to repeated iterations of the respective
functions. Intersections indicate where the procedure switched from one function to the next. (D) The resulting fractal pattern
after 500 iterations.
86
B.T. MILNE
Fig. 3. Fractal created using a three-function IFS and then symbolizing each point based on the number of the last functionused
the point. The straight lines connect consecutive points to illustrate thar the image is not created one row or columnat
a time.
to create
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corporated into the design by using the penultimate function number to color a pixel. This
produces a much more intricate texture, with
each of the n possible symbols nested within
the prominent clusters that would have appeared if the points had been mapped using the
symbol for the last function, rather than the
penultimate function.
Third, the fractal can be magnified, subject
to the numerical accuracy of the computer, to
reveal additional details at high resolution.
Thus, one imagines zooming in on a fractal that
represents different cover types to reveal individual trees within the cover types (Bamsley,
1988b ). A sophisticated rendering of the image would enable oblique views at any scale.
Fourth, the fractal created by an IFS exhibits the same kind of scaling found in natural
landscape mosaics. For example, the pattern in
Fig. 3 exhibited a strong dependence on the
number of image pixels found within sampling
windows of various lengths (Fig. 4). The effect of scale was much greater for the image in
Fig. 3 than it was for Fig. 1 (A), as indicated
by the slope of the curves (Fig. 4, inset ). Ecologically, the scale dependence suggests that
organisms that gather resources with different
home range areas will experience exponentially different concentrations
of resources
(represented bv the pixels) in a given fractal
landscape (M&e et al., 1989). The reason for
this difference relates to the low fractal dimension of 1.1 for Fig. 1 (A ), indicating a very
simple, linear structure of the fractal (recall
that lines are one-dimensional).
In contrast,
the dimension of 1.4 for the fractal used to
construct Fig. 3 indicates the greater tendency
for the fractal to fill the plane, thereby offering
much greater variation in the clustering of pixels at all scales.
Finally, fractals generated in this manner are
necessarily phenomenological. In nature, fractals such as snowflakes and dendritic patterns
are thought to be formed by microscopic mechanical processes (Nittman and Stanley,
1986; Meakin, 1988 ). For example. dendritic
88
ECOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES:
ALLOMETRIC HERBIVORY
Ultimately, any design should be evaluated
to determine its ecological function relative to
species distributions or the flows of resources
through the landscape. Each landscape design
implies specific interactions with water and
nutrient runoff from one area to the next, as
the wooded vegetation intervening between
farm fields, for example, may filter nitrogen
and phosphorus, thus reducing pollutants in
water courses (Correll, I 983 ) . Likewise, environmental gradients a
e lobes of wooded
peninsulas may alter the distribution of species, and thereby regulate the number of species (Milne and Forman, 1986). Finally, the
economics of foraging may differ between species living in the same landscape, depending on
the scale at which the animals gather resources
(Milne, et al., 1989, 1991).
A model of allometric herbivory was developed to assess the consequences of fractal
landscape patterns on the foraging success of
small mammalian herbivores (Milne et al.,
199 1). Allometric herbivory refers to the way
in which the scale at which animals forage is
predictable from the animals body mass. For
example, small mammals are present at much
B.T. MILNE
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