There are growing demands for detailed and accurate land cover maps in land system research and planning. Macro-scale land cover maps normally cannot satisfy the studies that require detailed land cover maps at micro scales. In the meantime, applying conventional pixel-based classification methods in classifying high-resolution aerial imagery is ineffective to develop high accuracy land-cover m...

Cities are experiencing rapid population growth and consequently extensive urbanization. Land-use/land-cover change is one of the important elements worldwide, which significantly affect the environment. This study aims to describe the emergence of urban heat and cool islands as a result of changes in land-use/land-cover. Land surface temperature over a 32-year period in Isfahan city, Iran was ...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has begun the development of operational, 30-m resolution annual thematic land cover data to meet the needs of a variety of land cover data users. The Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC) algorithm is being evaluated as the likely methodology following early trials. Data for training and testing of CCDC thematic maps have been provided by the U...

Urban ecosystem assessments increasingly rely on widely available map products, such as the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) National Land Cover Database (NLCD), and datasets that use generic classification schemes to detect and model large-scale impacts of land-cover change. However, utilizing existing map products or schemes without identifying relevant urban class types such as semi-natural, y...

Land cover plays a significant role in the earth system science, which reflects the influence of human activities and environmental changes (Sellers et al., 1997; IGBP, 1990; Aspinall et al, 2004). In China, Many land use/cover maps can be used in recent years derived from remote sensing observation. These data will be whether or how combined effectively to produce better land cover map that is...

land use change may influence many natural phenomena and ecological processes, including runoff, soil erosion, sedimentation and soil conditions. decreasing of forest area in the north of iran is one of the critical problems in recent years. the aims of this study are to detect land use changes between 1967 to 2002 using satellite images of land sat 7 etm+ (2002), aerial photos and digital topo...

Using former maps, geographers intend to study the evolution of the land cover in order to have a prospective approach on the future landscape; predictions of the future land cover, by the use of older maps and environmental variables, are usually done through the GIS (Geographic Information System). We propose here to confront this classical geographical approach with statistical approaches: a...

In this paper, grid cell based spatial statistics were used to quantify the drivers of land-cover and land-use change (LCLUC) and habitat degradation in a tropical rainforest in Madagascar. First, a spectral database of various land-cover and land-use information was compiled using multi-year field campaign data and photointerpretation of satellite images. Next, residential areas were extracted...

Urbanization brings biophysical changes in the composition of the landscape. Such change has an impact on the thermal environment locally. The urban mosaic of land use and land cover is thus characteristically composed of local climate zones. The spatial variation in the land surface temperature across specific zone is studied for Bhopal city. The objective of the study was to understand how th...