Accurate built-up information is imperative for loss estimation and disaster management after the occurrence of catastrophic events such as earthquake, tornado, tsunami and flood. These catastrophic events leave behind a trail of mass destruction with property and human losses amounting to millions. Once a natural disaster hits a region, built-up information is required within a short span of time for disaster management. Nowadays, earth observation satellite imagery serves as a promising source to extract the land use / land cover classes.

Satellite-derived contemporary land-cover land-use (LCLU) and albedo data and modeled future LCLU are used to study the impact of LCLU change from 2000 to 2050 on surface albedo and radiative forcing for 19 ecoregions in the eastern United States. The modeled 2000–2050 LCLU changes indicate a future decrease in both agriculture and forested land and an increase in developed land that induces ecoregion radiative forcings ranging from −0.175 to 0.432 W m⁻² driven predominately by differences in the area and type of LCLU change.

A framework is described that has been used to assess the effect of the European Commission's Agenda 2000 proposal on the Dumfries and Galloway region, Scotland. The model assesses the impact of agriculture on land-use patterns, the environment and socio-economics of the region. It incorporates a farm-type linear programming sub-model with environmental and socio-economic sub-models.

Land cover is one of the most changeable environment components in time and space. The type, intensity and spatial distribution of land use forms result directly from the actual and former character of agriculture. In this study, an attempt was made to assess the impact of loess relief on the spatial diversity of land use patch features. The research was carried out within three test areas covering a total of about 100km². The test areas are located within the loess areas of SE Poland. Spatial analyses were carried out using GIS software.

China has a long history of deforestation and environmental degradation. Because China is also lacking biological reserves, off-reserve conservation is a major contributor to its conservation efforts. Off-reserve conservation in China is primarily being achieved within afforestation and low-intensity agriculture. We compare ant diversity of three habitats: Natural Forest, Disturbed Forest and Plantation, to assess the conservation potential of these multiple land uses.

Agricultural land suitability evaluation for crop production is a process that requires specialized geo-environmental information and the expertise of a computer scientist to analyze and interpret the information. This paper presents ALSE, an intelligent system for assessing land suitability for different types of crops in tropical and subtropical regions (e.g. mango, banana, papaya, citrus, and guava) based on geo-environmental factors that automates the process of evaluation and illustrates the results on an attribute table.

PURPOSE: Soil particle-size distribution (PSD) is an important soil physical property. Single- and multi-fractal models are increasingly used to characterize soil properties and may provide additional information. The Yellow River Delta is one of the best representative examples of river ecosystem wetlands in the world. In this area, different land resource development patterns strongly influence soil structure and fertility.

Mono-cropping is the most common farming practice followed in the North Eastern Hilly Region (NEHR) of India and farmers leave the land fallow after harvesting the main crop. The identification of suitable sequential crops is essential to increase the cropping intensity, land-use efficiency and overall productivity of the land. Therefore, a study was carried out during 2008–09, 2009–10 and 2010–11 on maize (rainy season) followed by table pea, mustard, French bean and groundnut (post rainy season). Sequence crops were imposed with paddy straw mulch at 5.0 t ha⁻¹ and without mulch.

The Yangtze River is the China’s longest river and the third-longest river in the world. The river’s source region in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is especially sensitive to global environmental change because of its high elevation and cold environment. Under the influence of global warming, aeolian desertified land has expanded rapidly in this area. To assess the trends in aeolian desertification from 1975 to 2005, remote-sensing and GIS technology were used to monitor the extent of aeolian desertification in 1975, 1990, 2000, and 2005.

A multivariate clustering approach combined with geomatics was applied to delineate and define homogeneous zones (terroir units) within the premium Denomination of Guaranteed Origin Colline Teramane winegrowing area, in the Teramo Province, Italy. A geographical information system (GIS) architecture was set up to incorporate the main factors affecting the geographical differentiation of land capability. Vine-related environmental indices and parameters were interpolated and incorporated in the GIS.

This article presents a raster-based Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tool called CN-Idris that outputs runoff estimates from land use/land cover and hydrologic soil group maps based on the Natural Resources Conservation Service Curve Number method. The tool enables the user to select among three antecedent moisture conditions and two values of the initial abstraction (Iₐ) parameter, and it has the option to include spatial variation in rainfall input.

The structure and function of network is a central issue in landscape ecology. Road networks with hierarchical structure are crucial for understanding landscape dynamics. In this study, we compared the distribution of national road, provincial road, county road and rural road in the Three Parallel Rivers Region (TPRR) in Yunnan Province of China, and estimated the effect of roads (and other factors) on the spatial patterns of land use and land cover with logistic regression.