In most parts of the world, land-use/land cover can be considered an interface between natural conditions and anthropogenic influence. Indicators are being sought which reflect landscape conditions, pressures and related societal responses. Landscape metrics, which are based on the number, size, shape and arrangement of patches of different land-use/land cover types, are used-together with areal statistics-to quantify landscape structure and composition.

The applicability of landscape metrics for landscape monitoring has been investigated in a 700 km² test region in eastern Germany, where open cast coal mining has caused far reaching land-use changes in the course of this century. Time series of maps (1912–2020) have been elaborated from various data sources (topographic maps, aerial photography, satellite images, prospective planning material). Landscape metrics have been calculated for the entire test region and for ecologically defined subregions at the landscape, class and patch level.

The results are presented and methodological issues are addressed, namely the impact of scale, spatial and temporal resolution on the interpretability of landscape metrics. Critical issues are:

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the application of remote sensing methods, which is a pre-requisite for the area-wide monitoring of land-use change;

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standardised data processing techniques, which are vital for the spatial and temporal comparability of results;

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the selection of a manageable set of indicators which embraces the structural properties of landscapes;

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the choice of appropriate spatial units which allow for an integration of landscape indicators (which tend to relate to cross-border phenomena) and socio-economic indicators (which are usually available for administrative entities or areas).