This paper assesses strategic water availability and use under different development pathways on a basin scale using remote sensing (RS), geographical information systems (GIS) and a spatial water budget model (SWBM). The SWBM was applied to the Upper Ing Basin in northern Thailand to investigate the spatial and temporal variations in the location of streams and water yields from different parts of the basin. The base simulation was carried out for the years 1998–2007 using a DEM and actual land-use data at 100-m resolution.

This article explores the development of the social metabolism of Czech agriculture over the past 80 years and aims to describe the complex agricultural system from a biophysical perspective. As a Central European country, the Czech Republic's political system has experienced a number of turning points and changes in its history. Using the social metabolism concept and the material and energy flow method of analysis this article looks at the system from a biophysical perspective and explores the interactions between the economic system and nature.

Soybean production has become a significant force for economic development in Brazil. It has also received considerable attention from environmental and social non-governmental organizations as a driver of deforestation and land consolidation. While many researchers have examined the impacts of soybean production on human and environmental landscapes, there has been little investigation into the economic and institutional context of Brazilian soybean production or the relationship between soy yields and planted area.

Widespread anthropogenic land-cover change over the last five centuries has influenced the global climate system through both biogeochemical and biophysical processes. Models indicate that warming from carbon emissions associated with land cover conversion have been partially offset if not outweighed by cooling from elevated albedo, but considerable uncertainty remains partly because of uncertainty in model treatments of albedo.

The unequal distribution of agricultural land is often cited as a source of inefficiency in agriculture. Previous cross-country studies of agricultural productivity differences, though, have not considered land inequality. This article addresses this issue by using cross-country data on inequality in operational holdings of agricultural land from Deininger and Squire (1998) . In an estimation of an agricultural production function, the Gini coefficient for land holdings is found to have a significant negative relationship with productivity.

Urbanization effects on ecosystem functions are both important and complex, characterized by scale multiplicity, spatial heterogeneity, and intensive human disturbances. Integrating the hierarchical structure of urban landscape pattern with ecosystem processes through simulation modeling can facilitate our understanding of human–environment interactions in urban environment.

Texture in high resolution satellite images requires substantial improvement in the conventional segmentation algorithms. The use of wavelet packet transforms for texture analysis and image classification of high spatial resolution LISS IV imagery provide more details about the urban areas. This paper analyses the performance of a combination of Wavelet Packet Statistical Features (WPSFs) and Wavelet Packet Co-occurrence Features (WPCFs) for the classification of LISS IV images. The classification accuracy per pixel is improved in this paper by varying the window size.

In several tropical regions of the world, formerly widespread forests have been reduced to scattered remnants, and many tree species are becoming increasingly endangered. Knowledge on the population status of rare species is essential to inform conservation efforts and, in particular, the use of native species for reforestation projects stemming from emerging land-use strategies. We studied 20 mostly red-listed native species in remnant forests on five limestone-, four volcanic- and one ultramafic site(s) across the Visayas in the Philippines, with 40 plots being assessed at each site.

The promise of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to deliver its dual objectives is currently under public scrutiny. In land-use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities through afforestation and reforestation projects, known as A/R CDM, the deliverables that demonstrate sustainable development remain unclear. While the methods to convincingly demonstrate carbon benefits are fine-tuned, there is growing concern on a lack of socio-economic benefits of the projects.

Agricultural crops and pasturelands cover 24–38% of the global land area, and thus the ecological services that agricultural systems provide are of utmost societal importance. An important determinant of ecosystem services provision from European farmland is the amount and spatial arrangement of trees, shrubs and woodlands that are integrated into the respective land-use systems.

In the present study, remote sensing techniques, GIS models and field measurements are integrated to identify and map groundwater potential zones at Wadi Yalamlam (Sa’diyah) basin, Makkah Province, Western Saudi Arabia. The study area is located in the Arabian Shield heterogeneous basement terrain. It is characterized by insignificant primary porosity and permeability and is mainly covered by massive and altered gneissose granites, diorite, and gabbro and metamorphosed basalts.

The research of the landscape structure and its changes was carried out in a part of the Horná Orava region. Landscape structure was studied and compared in 2 periods (1958 and 2001). Two types of changes were identified: anthropogenic and succession. Succession processes were spontaneous, anthropogenic-conditioned or successive, which were linked with land use changes, reduction of traditional management of non-forest vegetation (mowing, grazing) and consequent climax succession.