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hij = distance (m) from patch ij to nearest neighboring patch of the same type (class), based on patch edge-to-edge distance, computed from cell center to cell center. |
| Description | ENN equals the distance (m) to the nearest neighboring patch of the same type, based on shortest edge-to-edge distance. Note that the edge-to-edge distances are from cell center to cell center. |
| Units | Meters |
| Range | ENN > 0, without limit. ENN approaches 0 as the distance to the nearest neighbor decreases. The minimum ENN is constrained by the cell size, and is equal to twice the cell size when the 8-neighbor patch rule is used or the distance between diagonal neighbors when the 4-neighbor rule is used. The upper limit is constrained by the extent of the landscape. ENN is undefined and reported as "N/A" in the "basename".patch file if the patch has no neighbors (i.e., no other patches of the same class). |
| Comments | Euclidean nearest-neighbor distance is perhaps the simplest measure of patch context and has been used extensively to quantify patch isolation. Here, nearest neighbor distance is defined using simple Euclidean geometry as the shortest straight-line distance between the focal patch and its nearest neighbor of the same class. |
