To ecologists and other environmental scientists, a land-scape is a conceptual unit for the study of spatial patterns in the physical environment and the influence of these patterns on important environmental resources.
Landscape ecology is different from traditional ecology in several ways.
First, it takes into account the spatial arrangements of the components or elements that make up the environment. Second, it recognizes that the relationships between ecological patterns and processes change with the scale of observation. Finally, landscape ecology includes both humans and their activities as an integral part of the environment. There are many applications for landscape ecology and broad-scale information in regional assessments. For example, we can identify the areas that are most heavily impacted today by combining information on population density, roads, land cover, and air quality.