The growth of 67 young hybrid (Castanea� � coudercii A. Camus) and pure sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) plantations was studied in relation to ground vegetation (GV) and non-site factors such as type of site preparation, weed control (WC), disease-related damage and prior land use. The classification and regression trees procedure was used to analyse the data. Ground vegetation communities accounted for a large amount of variability in the site index (SI) and were found to be useful as predictors of chestnut site quality.

The present study examines the long-term effects of land use/land cover (LULC) changes in Rajasthan state, India on land-atmosphere fluxes and, possibly in precipitation and aerosol loading. By comparing the satellite observations from Landsat MSS (1972–73) and IRS-P6 AWiFS (2006–07) considerable LULC changes are observed, an increase in crop-land and vegetated areas of ∼57% in the eastern and ∼68% in the western Rajasthan.

Using remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS), the detection of land cover/landuse (LC/LU) spaceies and monitoring changes in particular periods are made easily and economically. CORINE classification was developed in 1985 by countries of the Europeon Union to establish a good harmony especialy with LC/LU classification. This system contains three levels of classification. So far, LC/LU classification has not been fullfilled using large scale CORINE classification in Turkey,.

Vegetation indices are widely employed to evaluate wetland ecological condition, and are expected to provide sensitive and specific detection of environmental change. Most studies evaluate the performance of condition assessment metrics in the context of the data used to calibrate them. Here we examined the temporal stability of the Florida Wetland Condition Index (FWCI) for vegetation of depressional forested wetlands by resampling sites in 2008 that were previously sampled to develop the FWCI in 2001.

The Landsat TM/ETM images obtained in 2000, 2006 and 2010 were used to generate Land Use and Land Cover (LULC)maps of Canakkale province including forest,grassland,agriculture,water and residential area bare soil classes.

Çalışmada 2000, 2006 ve 2010 yıllarında alınan Landsat TM/ETM uydu görüntüleri kullanılarak Çanakkale ilinin orman, mera, tarım, su, yerleşim çıplak alan sınıflarını içeren Arazi Kullanım ve Bitki Örtüsü (AKBÖ) haritaları yapılmıştır.

We can effectively monitor soil condition—and develop sound policies to offset the emissions of greenhouse gases—only with accurate data from which to define baselines. Currently, estimates of soil organic C for countries or continents are either unavailable or largely uncertain because they are derived from sparse data, with large gaps over many areas of the Earth. Here, we derive spatially explicit estimates, and their uncertainty, of the distribution and stock of organic C in the soil of Australia.

This article assesses the current technical and economic potential of three bioenergy production systems (cassava ethanol, jatropha oil and fuelwood) in semi-arid and arid regions of eight sub-Saharan African countries. The results indicate that the availability of land for energy production ranges from 2% (1.3 Mha) of the total semi-arid and arid area in South Africa to 21% (12 Mha) in Botswana. Land availability for bioenergy production is restricted mainly by agricultural land use, but also by steep slopes and biodiversity protection.

The rapid environmental changes occurring in the Brazilian Amazon due to widespread deforestation have attracted the attention of the scientific community for several decades. A topic of particular interest involves the assessment of the combined impacts of selective logging and forest fires. Forest disturbances by selective logging and forest fires may vary in scale, from local to global changes, mostly related to the increase of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.

CONTEXT: The Natura 2000 network is the centerpiece of European nature conservation policy but its effectiveness is challenged by ongoing landscape change. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to assess landscape connectivity between Natura 2000 sites in the biodiversity-rich western Mediterranean region. METHODS: We used the wood mouse as a focal species with short-range dispersal and obtained genetic data for 393 individuals uniformly distributed between two Natura 2000 sites in SW Portugal.

In response to the needs of local fire managers, we developed a map of wildfire hazard for La Plata County in southwestern Colorado, USA. Our measure of fire hazard had two components: (i) the probability, should fire occur under dry weather conditions, that fire behavior will be extreme, and (ii) the human values that may be lost or damaged if extreme fire behavior occurs. Using a classification approach in a GIS environment, we developed quantitative indices of potential heat release, flame length, and rate of spread for each vegetation type in the County.