AIMS: The aims of this study were to identify areas of wind erosion and dust deposition and to quantify the effects of different grazing intensities on soil redistribution rates in grasslands based on the 137Cs technique. Because the method uses a reference inventory as threshold for erosion or deposition, the classification of any other site as source or sink for dust depends on the accurate selection of this reference site.

A Web-based system is presented, integrating spatial information from remote sensing images, GPS measurements and inventory data. Monitoring, research and management of the grape production at Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil (624,000 metric tons in 2006) can be done through a system entirely based in open-source codes.

Urban planners are increasingly interested in agriculture around cities and have to decide whether to maintain or not areas of agricultural land use within and close to growing cities. There is therefore a need for researchers to design tools to guide public decision-making on land use. Various approaches, originating from different disciplines, may be adopted in this respect. We designed an interdisciplinary research program in order to test two related concepts: the “sustainability” and the “multi-functionality” of agriculture.

The paper gives an overview of the directions and results of research carried out in geodesy and land management at the Latvia University of Agriculture from the year 1939, when the Surveying Department (later the Department of Geodesy) was established, up to the present day. Since the beginnings of the Department, researches in geodesy have been associated with problems of precise levelling: vertical movements of the earth crust, deformation of buildings and structures, as well as accuracy evaluation of geodetic instruments.

Soil pH plays an important role in biogeochemical processes in soils. The spatial distribution of soil pH provides basic and useful information relevant to soil management and agricultural production. To obtain an accurate distribution map of soil pH on the Loess Plateau of China, 382 sampling sites were investigated throughout the region and four interpolation methods, i.e., inverse distance weighting (IDW), splines, ordinary kriging, and cokriging, were applied to produce a continuous soil pH surface.

Building extraction from remote sensing images is very important in many fields, such as urban planning, land use investigation, damage assessment, and so on. In polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) imagery, the buildings not only have typical polarimetric features but also have rich texture features. In this paper, the texture information is introduced to improve the accuracy of urban building extraction from PolSAR imagery by a new method called cross reclassification .

An optimal validation of a thematic map would ideally require in-situ observations of a large sample of units specifically conceived for the map under validation. This is often not possible due to budget limitations. The alternative can be using photo-interpretation of high or very high resolution images instead of in-situ observations or using available data sets that do not fully comply with the ideal characteristics: unit size, reference date or sampling plan. This paper illustrates some examples of use of available data in the European Union.

Land degradation and their restoration are emerging issues all over the world for the environmental management. In this study, degraded sodic land was rehabilitated through afforestation and cropping for 50years.

Bracken is often perceived as a widespread and increasing land management problem. The pollen record of a wide range of sites in Great Britain suggests that the current abundance of bracken is less than or, at worst, equivalent to maximum historical levels. Recently gathered data also suggest that bracken cover is declining. Results of risk assessments of land use change, and experimental and modelling investigations into the effects of climate change are synthesized.

The fragmentation of construction land due to decentralised urban development, disorderly mixed land use, and large-scale transportation infrastructure poses a threat to urban integrity. There is a need to quantify the fragmentation level in a consistent way for inclusion in planning-related decisions. In the context of China's urban sprawl, this study develops a quantitative and intuitive index approach that planners can use to analyse multiple fragmentation features of construction land within urban areas.