Land use is a key driver of global environmental change. Unless major shifts in consumptive behaviours occur, land-based production will have to increase drastically to meet future demands for food and other commodities. One approach to better understand the drivers and impacts of agricultural intensification is the identification of global, archetypical patterns of land systems. Current approaches focus on broad-scale representations of dominant land cover with limited consideration of land-use intensity.

The present study compares the effectiveness of two common preclassification change detection (CD) methods that use two-dimensional data space of spectral-textural (S-T) change information. The methods are principal component analysis (PCA) and change vector analysis (CVA) in the Gorgan Township area, Golestn Province, Iran. A series of texture-based information was calculated mainly to separate those land use/land cover (LULC) conversions that are spectrally indistinguishable and also to provide a basis for automatic classification of S-T data space.

A number of classification techniques to generate land cover maps from satellite imagery have been proposed but supervised classification with manual selection and delineation of training samples (TSs) continues to be the preferred technique. The current practices of field visits and manual delineation of TSs by visual recognition are highly demanding on both resources and time, with limited utility.

The effective use of natural resources is one of the important issues of today. GIS is recently used as an effective tool for solution of complicated problems. Land use researches in landscape planning studies can be done reliably and practically by the use of GIS. Depending on the increase of demands on coastal zones, the determination of land uses and conservation of them gets more important today. Within this context, in this study, the past and the present land uses of Tekirdağ coastal zone is pointed out.

Urban land development substantially alters the terrestrial carbon cycle, particularly the net primary productivity (NPP), from local to global scales. However, limited attempts have been undertaken to elucidate the differences in NPP between pre- and post-urban land development in China. In this paper, the terrestrial NPP after urbanization in China was assessed by using the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford approach (CASA), toward which a calibration was conducted for adapting this model on the fine-scale application.

With a view to its use in relation to land consolidation programmes, we present an approach to evaluation of land distributions that aggregates the influences of the size, shape and dispersion of plots on productivity and is designed for computer implementation in a geographical information system. It is envisaged that it will be useful for identification of areas in which land consolidation is required, for evaluation of consolidation projects, and for consolidation project optimization.

Landowners and game reserve managers are often faced with the decision whether to undertake consumptive (such as hunting) and/or non-consumptive (such as tourism) use of wildlife resources on their properties. Here a theoretical model was used to examine cases where the game reserve management allocated the amount of land devoted to hunting (trophy hunting) and tourism, based on three scenarios: (1) hunting is separated from tourism but wildlife is shared; (2) hunting and tourism co-exist; and (3) hunting and tourism are separated by a fence.

Desertification is one of the main environmental and also social and economic problems facing Iran. Seventeen out of 31 Iranian provinces, which are home to approximately 70% of the total population, are affected by desertification. This study aimed to use geographic information system (GIS) and fuzzy logic for mapping environmentally sensitive areas to desertification based on Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use approach in Isfahan province, central Iran.

Implementation of rational parameters of cultivation area of several cultivars can be achieved upon base of balanced interrelation of plant producing and animal husbandry. Development and substantiation of rational structure of plantings should be based upon wide use of plant seeding as an important source of feeding base and main deliverer of organic matter in soil. Therefore, grassy part of cropping areas should be fully saturated with leguminous grasses, especially with clover.

Due to constant decrease in farmlands, it is important to identify the best lands useful for sustainable agriculture (productive and profitable agriculture that protects the environment and that is socially equitable). This requirement has resulted in the development of land suitability maps for agriculture by combining several factors of various natures and of differing importance.

Groundwater resources of the Tarsus coastal plain (Mersin, Turkey) are being exploited heavily for a variety of purposes and they are under a serious threat from nonpoint source pollution from the conflicting land use practices and saltwater intrusion due to overpumping. In this study, vulnerability of groundwater to nonpoint source pollution was assessed using GIS techniques and employing both Generic and Pesticide DRASTIC models. Calculated vulnerability indices ranged between 68–206 and 69–236 for Generic and Pesticide DRASTIC, respectively.