Citizens are increasingly becoming involved in data collection, whether for scientific purposes, to carry out micro-tasks, or as part of a gamified, competitive application. In some cases, volunteered data collection overlaps with that of mapping agencies, e.g., the citizen-based mapping of features in OpenStreetMap. LUCAS (Land Use Cover Area frame Sample) is one source of authoritative in-sit...

[1] Large-scale bottom-up estimates of terrestrial carbon fluxes, whether based on models or inventory, are highly dependent on the assumed land cover. Most current land cover and land cover change maps are based on satellite data and are likely to be so for the foreseeable future. However, these maps show large differences, both at the class level and when transformed into Plant Functional Typ...

Multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis (MESMA) models mixed spectra as a linear combination of endmembers that are allowed to vary in number and type on a per pixel basis. For modeling an image using MESMA, a parsimonious set of endmembers is desirable for computational efficiency and operational simplicity. This paper presents a method of selecting endmembers from a spectral library for ...

An agent-based model, incorporating a small set of primarily agent-based variables, was designed to explain private land-use decision making. Agents are landowners, who allocate their labor and land for different uses in regular time intervals. The goal is to understand what kind of spatial patterns emerge from different agent characteristics, and decision and learning mechanisms. Landscapes pr...

The accuracy assessment of land cover maps is traditionally based on reference sample observations randomly selected over the study area. It is assumed that reference sample observations, representing the “real” land cover at Earth’s surface, are free of errors. However, some of these may be erroneous. These errors are sometimes due to an uncertainty in the identification of the most adequate r...

The hydrological response to land cover changes induced by human activities in arid regions has attracted increased research interest in recent decades. The study reported herein assessed the spatial and quantitative changes in surface runoff resulting from land cover change in the Al-Baha region of Saudi Arabia between 1990 and 2000 using an ArcGIS-surface runoff model and predicted land cover...

Achieving more timely, accurate and transparent information on the distribution and dynamics of the world’s land cover is essential to understanding the fundamental characteristics, processes and threats associated with human-nature-climate interactions. Higher resolution (~30–50 m) land cover mapping is expected to advance the understanding of the multi-dimensional interactions of the human-na...

Land use/cover change (LUCC), which results from the complex interaction of social, ecological and geophysical processes, is a major issue and the main cause of global environmental change. This study analyzed the land use/cover dynamics and their environmental and socio-political forces in the upper reaches of Yangtze River from 1980 to 2000 by using remote sensing, climatic and socio-economic...