Core area index calculation
Closed this issue · 6 comments
I think there is perhaps some misunderstanding of how the Core Area Index (CAI) is supposed to be calculated and reported. As I understand it, the CAI is the ratio of the core to the perimeter area for each patch, and can be distinguished by class. But the documentation for the CAI function that determines the mean says that it has no upper limit. Given that it's a ratio, the upper limit should be 1, right? And sure enough, when I tried to calculate the CAI on a landscape with various classes of land cover, the mean CAI for one of my classes was calculated to be > 1.
Hey,
That seems to be a mistake in the documentation. The Core Area Index equals the percentage of a patch that is core area and has to be between 0% and 100%. Well...even 100% is not really possible since some cells have to be edge.
Following, the mean on class level has to have the same range as on patch level.
We will fix the documentation, thank you for pointing out.
Does that make sense to you?
I just double-checked to be sure, but the output is in percentage. So values larger than 1 are fine.