This issue of Unasylva analyses the urban forestry situation and considers its potential for increasing living standards in different urban settings.

High-precision land-cover-land-use GIS mapping was performed in four major townships in Maine’s Aroostook River Valley, using on-screen digitization and direct interpretation of very high spatial resolution satellite multispectral imagery (15–60 cm) and high spatial resolution LiDAR data (2 m) and the field mapping method. The project not only provides the first-ever high-precision land-use maps for northern Maine, but it also yields accurate hectarage estimates of different land-use types, in particular grassland, defined as fallow land, pasture, and hay field.

Multicriteria-Spatial Decision Support Systems (MC-SDSS) are increasingly popular tools in decision-making processes and in policy making, thanks to their significant new capabilities in the use of spatial or geospatial information. Many spatial problems are complex and require the use of integrated analysis and models. The present paper illustrates the development of a MC-SDSS approach for studying the ecological connectivity of the Piedmont Region in Italy.

This study was carried out to assess the land suitability for rainfed faba bean (Vicia faba L.) cultivation in Gonbad-Kavous region (Golestan province, north of Iran) using geographic information system (GIS) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP), the most common methods for evaluation of land use suitability. Several parameters were considered in this study, including the annual average, minimum and maximum temperatures, annual precipitation, slope, elevation, and some soil properties such as organic matter, pH, EC, texture, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, iron, and zinc.

The Huang-Huai-Hai Plain is the most important winter wheat and maize production region in China. In response to the increasing population pressure, the Chinese authorities strongly invested in improving the irrigation systems and increasing ground and surface water exploitation within the plain to increase the crop productivity. This resulted in a reduction of water resource availability and in turn indirectly affected the suitability of various agricultural ecosystems in the plain.

The main objective of this research was to compare the suitability of land for surface and drip irrigation methods according to a parametric evaluation system in the plains west of the city of Shush, in south‐west Iran. After analysing and evaluating soil properties, suitability maps were generated for both methods by means of remote sensing (RS) and a geographic information system (GIS). The results showed that 9031 ha (21.5%) of the studied area was highly suitable for surface irrigation methods, whereas 32 500 ha (77.5%) of the study area was highly suitable for drip irrigation methods.

There is a growing need to site new power generating plants that use cleaner energy sources due to increased regulations on air and water pollution and a sociopolitical desire to develop more clean energy sources. To assist utility and energy companies as well as policy-makers in evaluating potential areas for siting new plants in the contiguous United States, an adaptation of a geographic information system (GIS)-based multicriteria decision analysis approach is presented in this paper.