Rice continues to be the major staple food crop for human population. With the twin forces of population growth and economic expansion particularly in Asia, world rice requirements are expected to increase by 1.7 per cent annually between 1990 and 2025. Although seemingly small, this growth rate translates into an additional requirement of 13 million tonnes of rice per year. With less land avai...

Lands can be "less favored" by nature or by man for many reasons. Some areas, often on hillsides, have soils that are at risk for degradation but could produce good crops under certain conditions. Others have soils that are so poor farmers cannot even think about growing crops there. Others have productive soils but are inaccessible and need infrastructure like roads to make it worthwhile for f...

The world is witnessing a dramatic shift of settlement pattern from rural to urban population, particularly in developing countries. The rapid Addis Ababa urbanization reflects this global phenomenon and the subsequent socio-economic and environmental impacts, are causing massive public uproar and political instability. The objective of this study was to use remotely sensed Landsat data to iden...

Wide-ranging species cannot persist in reserves alone. Consequently, there is growing interest in the conservation value of agricultural lands that separate or buffer natural areas. The value of agricultural lands for wildlife habitat and connectivity varies as a function of the crop type and landscape context, and quantifying these differences will improve our ability to manage these lands mor...

containing protected areas (i.e., national parks, national monuments, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas) are growing more rapidly than counties without such areas (Rasker et al. 2004). Undeveloped private lands adjacent to these protected areas are especially vulnerable to economic growth, particularly rural residential development. Between 1970 and 2000, rural residential development in t...

Managing the rapidly changing saline-alkali land under cultivation in the coastal areas of China is important not only for mitigating the negative impacts of such land on the environment, but also for ensuring long-term sustainability of agriculture. In this light, setting up rapid monitoring systems to assist decision-making in developing sustainable management plans is therefore an absolute n...

The main objective of this study is to assess the spatio-temporal dynamics of land cover/land use changes in the lower Mekong Delta over the last 40 years with the coastal Tran Van Thoi District of Ca Mau Province, Vietnam as a case study. Land cover/land use change dynamics are derived from moderate to high spatial resolution (Landsat and SPOT) satellite imagery in six time intervals ranging f...

Caspian Sea coastline in the Mazandaran province has been altered as a result of activities of developers attracted to aesthetic and coastal recreational aspects of forest ecosystems. Advances in GIS and RS techniques, has made it possible to study the coastal areas for better management. Hence, the present study was undertaken to determine land cover changes via applying cross classificat...