Understanding land use land cover change (LULCC) is a prerequisite for urban planning and environment management. For LULCC studies in urban/suburban environments, the abundance and spatial distributions of bare soil are essential due to its biophysically different properties when compared to anthropologic materials. Soil, however, is very difficult to be identified using remote sensing technol...

An improved model representation of mineral dust cycle is critical to reducing the uncertainty of dust-induced environmental and climatic impact. Here we present a mesoscale model study of the seasonal dust activity in the semiarid drylands of Central Asia, focusing on the effects of wind speed, soil moisture, surface roughness heterogeneity, and vegetation phenology on the threshold friction v...

Impervious surface area (ISA) is a key factor for monitoring urban environment and land development. Automatic mapping of impervious surfaces has attracted growing attention in recent years. Spectral built-up indices are considered promising to map ISA distributions due to their easy, parameter-free implementations. This study explores the potentials of impervious surface indices for ISA mappin...

T e evaluation and prediction of changes in carbon dynamics at the ecosystem level is a key issue in studies of global change. An operational concept for the determination of carbon fluxes for the Belgian territory is the goal of the presented study. The approach is based on the integration of remotely sensed data into ecosystem models in order to evaluate photosynthetic assimilation and net ec...

Drastic increases in the cost of N fertilizer and increased public scrutiny have encouraged development and implementation of improved N management practices. This study evaluated the relationship between corn (Zea mays L.) grain yield and early season normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) sensor readings using the GreenSeeker sensor. The relationships between grain yield and several pr...

A new technique to retrieve cloud optical depth for broken clouds above green vegetation using ground-based zenith radiance measurements is developed. By analogy with the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the Normalized Difference Cloud Index (NDCI) is defined as a ratio between the difference and the sum of two zenith radiances measured for two narrow spectral bands in the visible...

The objective of this study is to develop a novel methodology integrating remote sensing, geographic information system technology and local spatial autocorrelation geo-computation for quick drought assessment. One group of drought indices, based on the condition of the vegetation, includes the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Anomaly of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDV...