| Summary: | 博士 === 國立臺北大學 === 都市計劃研究所 === 101 === Due to the mountainous topography in the central and the east, most of the population is concentrated on the western coastal plain of the island of Taiwan. More than one sixth of agricultural lands in Taiwan’s western plain has been converted to other uses during 1971 to 2006 due to the rapidly developed industry and high population density. The loss of farmland ultimately results in the reduction and degradation not only of its food production function but also of many other agro-ecosystem services. This research focuses on the changes in spatial patterns of agricultural land in the western coastal plain of Taiwan and the effects of agricultural landscape change on agro-ecosystem services. Several landscape metrics are chosen to study the agricultural landscape change in the western coastal plain of Taiwan. Besides, to study how agricultural landscape change affects the sustainability of environment, this research incorporates emergy synthesis to evaluate the changes in ecological energetic flows of agricultural system in 1971 and 2006. Paddy rice fields are an important agricultural landscape type not only in Taiwan but throughout Eastern Asia. Seven sites, each 2 km × 2 km, which represent the paddy rice landscape in the peri-urban areas of northern, central and southern Taiwan are selected as sample areas. Landscape metrics and ecological energetic analysis are applied in this research to study the relationship between the change of paddy rice landscape and its agro-ecosystem service loss. As a result, the analysis reveals that agro-ecosystem services are related to the spatial configuration of paddy rice field. Maintaining more paddy rice fields will help to improve the environmental sustainability in agricultural landscape. The ecosystem services of agricultural lands can also be enhanced through the planning of the spatial configuration of agricultural land use.
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