Allen Casey D
Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Denver, P.O. Box 173364, CB 172, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA.
Environ Manage. 2009 Feb;43(2):346-56. doi: 10.1007/s00267-008-9212-5. Epub 2008 Oct 11.
Characterized by expensive housing, high socioeconomic status, and topographic relief, Upper Sonoran Lifestyle communities are found primarily along the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) in the Phoenix, Arizona metro area. Communities like these sprawl into the wildlands in the United States Southwest, creating a distinct urban fringe. This article, through locational comparison, introduces and evaluates a new field assessment tool for monitoring anthropogenic impact on soil-vegetation interactions along the well-maintained multi-use recreational trails in Upper Sonoran Lifestyle region. Comparing data from randomly selected transects along other multi-use trails with data from a control site revealed three key indicators of anthropogenic disturbances on soil-vegetation interactions: soil disturbance, vegetation disturbance, and vegetation density. Soil and vegetation disturbance displayed an average distance decay exponent factor of -0.60, while vegetation density displayed a reverse decay average of 0.60. Other important indicators of disturbance included vegetation type, biological soil crusts, and soil bulk density. The predictive ability of this new field tool enhances its applicability, offering a powerful rapid ecological assessment method for monitoring long-term anthropogenic impact in the Upper Sonoran Lifestyle, and other sprawling cities along the WUI.
上索诺兰生活方式社区的特点是住房昂贵、社会经济地位高且地势起伏，主要分布在亚利桑那州凤凰城大都市区的城乡交错带（WUI）沿线。这样的社区向美国西南部的荒野蔓延，形成了独特的城市边缘地带。本文通过区位比较，介绍并评估了一种新的实地评估工具，用于监测上索诺兰生活方式区域维护良好的多用途休闲步道沿线人为活动对土壤-植被相互作用的影响。将沿其他多用途步道随机选取的样带数据与一个对照点的数据进行比较，揭示了人为干扰对土壤-植被相互作用的三个关键指标：土壤干扰、植被干扰和植被密度。土壤和植被干扰的平均距离衰减指数因子为-0.60，而植被密度的平均衰减则相反，为0.60。其他重要的干扰指标包括植被类型、生物土壤结皮和土壤容重。这种新的实地工具的预测能力增强了其适用性，为监测上索诺兰生活方式区域以及WUI沿线其他扩张城市的长期人为影响提供了一种强大的快速生态评估方法。
