Acquiring multi-temporal spatial information on vegetation condition at scales appropriate for site-specific agricultural management is often complicated by the need for meticulous field measurements. Understanding spatial/temporal crop cover heterogeneity within irrigated croplands may support sustainable land use, specifically in areas affected by land degradation due to secondary soil salini...

Statewide land cover change detection analysis provides a useful tool for conservation planning and environmental monitoring and addresses issues of habitat fragmentation and urban sprawl. Furthermore, using historical and recent land cover data offers two perspectives on landscape dynamics. To this end, the first alliance level land cover map of Kansas recently completed by the KARS Program wa...

in this study, the environmental effects of land use changes on vegetation cover and emitted land surface temperature in two urban and non-urban areas of ardakan in yazd province, iran, were studied and compared temporally, using remote sensing technique. for this purpose, contemporary land sat satellite images in 1990 and 2002 were acquired and used. then vegetation cover maps were generated u...

Meta-analyses reveal that nutrient yields tend to be higher for watersheds dominated by anthropogenic uses (e.g., urban, agriculture) and lower for watersheds dominated by natural vegetation. One implication of this pattern is that loss of natural vegetation will produce increases in watershed nutrient yields. Yet, the same meta-analyses also reveal that, absent land-cover change, watershed nut...

Vegetation and land-cover changes are not always directional but follow complex trajectories over space and time, driven by changing anthropogenic and abiotic conditions. We present a multi-observational approach to land-change analysis that addresses the complex geographic and temporal variability of vegetation changes related to climate and land use. Using land-ownership data as a proxy for l...

In a tsunami event human casualties and infrastructure damage are determined predominantly by seaquake intensity and offshore properties. On land, wave energy is attenuated by gravitation (elevation) and friction (land cover). Tree belts have been promoted as "bioshields" against wave impact. However, given the lack of quantitative evidence of their performance in such extreme events, tree belt...

Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and land cover products are primary inputs for hydrologic models of surface runoff that affects infiltration, erosion, and evapotranspiration. DEM and land cover play important role in determining the runoff characteristics of specific catchment areas. Recently, at local level, a number of data sources have been used to derive land cover products for high resolut...

Monitoring land cover changes from the 1970s in West Africa is important for assessing the dynamics between land cover types and understanding the anthropogenic impact during this period. Given the lack of historical land cover maps over such a large area, Landsat data is a reliable and consistent source of information on land cover dynamics from the 1970s. This study examines land cover change...

Scrub typhus is transmitted by the larval stage of trombiculid mites. Environmental factors, including land cover and land use, are known to influence breeding and survival of trombiculid mites and, thus, also the spatial heterogeneity of scrub typhus risk. Here, a spatially autoregressive modelling framework was applied to scrub typhus incidence data from Taiwan, covering the period 2003 to 20...

Human activities greatly affect the environment causing its degradation. Urban development and road networks construction cause main impacts on ecosystems and particularly on vegetation cover: road constructions induce complete degradation of the vegetation cover and often leaves a bare land, sometimes without even a soil cover. Reconstitution of vegetation cover is necessary to limit superfici...