Increasing attention is being paid on leaf area index (LAI) retrieval in mountainous areas. Mountainous areas present extreme topographic variability, and are characterized by more spatial heterogeneity and inaccessibility compared with flat terrain. It is difficult to collect representative ground-truth measurements, and the validation of LAI in mountainous areas is still problematic. A cost-c...

There has been lately a number of catastrophic events of landslides and mudslides in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Those were caused by intense rain in localities where there was unplanned occupation of slopes of hills and mountains. Thus, it became imperative creating an inventory of landslide risk areas in densely populated cities. This work presents a way of demarcating r...

Taoi and Kotu are two ethnic minorities in Vietnam, residing in the western mountainous region of provinces: Quang Tri, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Nam. Taoi groups have a population of about 34 960 people, of which Taoi people living in Aluoi of Hue province have 29 558 people (accounting for 67.35% of Taoi in Vietnam). Kotu people in Hue have 14,629 people (23.8% of Kotu people in Vietnam). Both...

The research shows that widely used key measures of vegetation structure (species diversity, projected cover and above-ground phytomass) are not always suitable as indicators of pasture degradation. Based on an analysis above-ground phytomass composition, new quantitative indices are offered that give a more realistic picture of rangeland condition in Mongolia.

One of the main objectives of ecosystem management is to preserve the speciesdiversity. Many researchers regard higher species diversity as the stability of ecologicalsystems. The aim of this study is to investigate the stability and relationships betweentopographical factors with diversity indices in Ghorkhud mountainous rangeland innorthern Khorasan province, Iran. For data sampling (2012), l...