Natural Landscape Resource : An Ecological Response

As one of the countries with the most biodiversity in the world, Malaysia is composed of a variety of forest ecosystem types which are related to one or more features of its location, notably soil quality, aspect and elevation.
It can be seen originally as a continuous ecosystem which begins on the shores of the country —mudflat and mangrove forests—and expanding inland. The expansion goes through swamp and riverine forests, lowland dipterocarp forests, limestone forest and montane forests at the higher elevation. However, the unprecedented scale of changing landuse patterns over decades have transformed these ecosystems into a mosaic of habitats that include large and small fragments of primary forest as well as various degraded forests embedded in a matrix of developed area.

These fragmented forests have received great attention recently since there is an infinite and beautiful array of natural characters in the built environment which are specific to existing and timeless processes of life. Their importance has become apparent in landscape planning and design supported by the explosion of criticism against the amenity values of landscape resources, the environmental and ecosystem functions and habitat conservation. Hence, this chapter comes into being: to address a mean by which landscape resources can be exploited to establish a more efficient and healthy landscape for human habitation and for future sustainability. It presents landscape planning, design and analysis process, with simple method and ideas for describing landscapes and their functions.

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