Understanding how land use and land cover change influences the flow and water quality of rivers is critically important for river management and restoration. Human activities have transformed the landscapes in southern China where damaged river systems need to be restored and better managed for achieving environmental sustainability. Toward this end, we quantified the land use and land cover pattern of the Dongjiang River watershed, China between 1990 and 2006 based on remote sensing data and field measurements.

There is an increasing interest in applying fractal analysis to measure the spatial complexity of remotely sensed images. This study provides an evaluation of the effectiveness of three fractal algorithms (isarithm, triangular prism, and variogram) for characterizing urban landscapes in Indianapolis, USA, based on eight satellite images taken by five sensors (Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS), Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM)/Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), and IKONOS).

1. Studies of landscape change are seldom conducted at scales commensurate with the processes they purport to investigate. Landscape change is a landscape-level process, yet most studies focus on patches. Even when landscape context is considered, inference remains at the patch-level. The unit of investigation must be extended beyond individual patches to whole mosaics in order to advance understanding of faunal responses to landscape change. 2.

A dried soil layer (DSL) formed in the soil profile is a typical indication of soil drought caused by climate change and/or poor land management. The responses of a soil to drought conditions in water-limited systems and the impacts of plant characteristics on these processes are seldom known due to the lack of comparative data on soil water content (SWC) in the soil profile. The occurrence of DSLs can interfere in the water cycle in soil–plant–atmosphere systems by preventing water interchanges between upper soil layers and groundwater.

Mapping urban expansion and impervious surfaces (IS) has become a useful tool for supporting watershed assessments. The lack of large-area time-series maps created the need to develop an approach and products that can easily be scaled. In this research application, 81 Landsat 1, 2, and 5 scenes for the epochs of 1975, 1985, and 1996 were used to map urban land use/land cover across New England, USA.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a biophysical parameter, which is also directly linked to above ground land use and land cover (LULC). Currently changes in LULC and variations in SOC often are studied and modeled separately. However, both are conjoined and should be seen as part of a cascading ecosystem framework. This is not only true for SOC but also for other biophysical parameters which are governed by human activities.

Human attitude to the land is the base for existence of humanity. It widely affects everybody– environment and landscape is changed, new buildings are constructed, new villages are developed in countryside. If such recensions aren’t planned it can cause serious problems in nearest future, considering limitedness and great significance of the land as unique resource. For correction of errors in land use immeasurable resources and decennaries are necessary. Tendencies in land use development and related problems concern to all people of Latvia, especially landowners.

Although recurrent fire events with very short return periods have the most dangerous effects on landscape degradation, only a few papers have explored the landscape ecological factors that drive the probability of fire recurrence. In this paper we apply a habitat suitability model for analyzing the spatial relationship between a selected set of landscape factors (mainly land use types) and fire recurrence in Sardinia (Italy) in the years 2005–2010.

One of the prerequisites of the REDD+ mechanism is to effectively predict business-as-usual (BAU) scenarios for change in forest cover. This would enable estimation of how much carbon emission a project could potentially prevent and thus how much carbon credit should be rewarded. However, different factors like forest degradation and the lack of linearity in forest cover transitions challenge the accuracy of such scenarios. Here we predict and validate such BAU scenarios retrospectively based on forest cover changes at village and district level in North Central Vietnam.

This study was applied in Edirne province Havsa district. For determination of land use efficiency of Havsa, satellite image and GIS were used. For this purpose the data of General Directorate of Rural Services which belongs to 1993 year, ASTER satellite images which belongs to 2008 year and topographic maps were used. For performing calculations in ERDAS software unclassified classification applied and 15 classes were formed. For performing supervised classification field work applied.

We measured productivity and diversity of annual plant communities in human—made pits and mounds (20 ° 30 ° 100 cm) in the Northern Negev of Israel. We differentiated the species according to propagule size, dispersal mode, and geographical distribution in Israel. Our results in 28 experimental units containing a pit, a mound, and a portion of the undisturbed surrounding "matrix" showed that species richness, total plant density, and biomass yield were higher in the pits and mounds than in the matrix.