Iran has mountainous landscapes and half of its surface is occupied by highlands. Moreover, Iran is an arid country and deserts are located at lower altitudes. Most metropolitan areas are positioned in mid-altitudes between mountain and desert. Cities grow upwardly toward the highlands under pressures of urbanization and desertification. Foothill ecotones are a zone between upland mountains and...

We established the Arctic System Science/Thermokarst (ARCSS/TK) project in 2008 with the intent to use a systems approach to address hypotheses about how upland thermo-erosional features influence the structure and function of the foothill and mountainous landscape in the vicinity of the Brooks Range in arctic Alaska. We found that the common thermo-erosional features in this region are thaw sl...

In order to evaluate the landscape and its agrarian components in the low mountainous region of the Alpujarras in Southeastern Spain, Conjoint Analysis (C.A.) was used, and both ranking and rating approaches were considered as a way of assessing preferences. Data was obtained from a preference test carried out with a sample survey of 165 visitors to the area. Three main landscape components wer...

—Multiscale analysis of relationships with landscape characteristics can help identify areas and physical processes that affect stream habitats, and thus suggest where and how land management is likely to influence these habitats. Such analysis is rare for mountainous areas where forestry is the primary land use. Consequently, we examined relationships in a forested, montane basin between strea...

A set of land-cover pattern maps for the Gunma Prefecture was produced to help understand and assess the ecological implications of regional spatial patterns. Covering a total area of approximately 6,360 square kilometers, about 77 percent of this area can be regarded as “vegetation cover”. The land cover map was derived from the supervised classification process with the combined use of TM, SP...

An accurate estimation of the leaf area index (LAI) by satellite remote sensing is essential for studying the spatial variation of ecosystem structure. The goal of this study was to estimate the spatial variation of LAI over a forested catchment in a mountainous landscape (ca. 60 km2) in central Japan. We used a simple model to estimate LAI using spectral reflectance by adapting the Monsi-Saeki...

A scientific definition of the type of mountain area and an exploration of the spatial correlation between different types of mountain areas and regional land use at the county level are important for reasonable land resource utilization and regional sustainable development. Here, a geographic information system was used to analyze digital elevation model data and to define the extent of mounta...