Temporal trajectories of land-cover change provide important information on landscape dynamics that are critical to our understanding of complex human–environment adaptive systems. The increasing availability of long time series of satellite images, especially the recent free release of multi-decadal Landsat satellite archive, presents a great opportunity to improve our ability to detect land-c...

Accurate characterization of the direction of land change is a neglected aspect of land dynamics. Knowledge on direction of historical land change can be useful information when understanding relative influence of different land-change drivers is of interest. In this study, we present a novel perspective on land-change analysis by focusing on directionality of change. To this end, we employed M...

Studies on vegetation changes of rangelands under grazed and non-grazedconditions are of great importance in the range management planning programs. To determinethe change process of vegetation, this study was performed in Inche Shorezar site of Golestanprovince for nine years (1997-2005). The vegetation parameters were measured every year inseveral fixed plots inside and adjacent of exclosures...

Assessments of forest cover, forest carbon stocks and carbon emissions from deforestation and degradation are increasingly important components of sustainable resource management, for combating biodiversity loss and in climate mitigation policies. Satellite remote sensing provides the only means for mapping global forest cover regularly. However, forest classification with optical data is limit...

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...

An automated method was developed for mapping forest cover change using satellite remote sensing data sets. This multi-temporal classification method consists of a training data automation (TDA) procedure and uses the advanced support vector machines (SVM) algorithm. The TDA procedure automatically generates training data using input satellite images and existing land cover products. The derive...

plants cover composition, condition, trend, production, and grazing capacity of the rangeland change annually. in this research, the role of temporal rainfall distribution on rangeland production was assessed. this research had down in the rangelands of ilam (with semiarid to semi humid climate) and qom and markazi (with arid to semiarid climate) provinces. by attention on plant cover maps in e...

Land-cover change is a major component of global change (Foley et al., 2005). Many forms of land-cover change, such as deforestation and urbanization, are directly associated with land use. Other land-cover changes, such as melting of permafrost, may be indirectly associated with human activity via anthropogenically induced climate change. Further changes in land cover, such as the expansion of...