Scotland's 17% forested land cover sequesters 10% of Scotland's emissions of greenhouse gases. The expected rise of forested land cover to 25% by the middle of this century make forests an important component of the national carbon budget. This paper presents the carbon exchange measurement methodology, results, and modeling associated with a five-year experiment at a plantation forest in Scotland, UK, as part of a European initiative to develop and verify vegetation carbon-exchange models. We have developed a site specific correction for advective flux loses.

High population density and unscientific land use practices have induced severe land degradation in the fragile Lower Himalayan ecosystem of India. Land cover management has been an effective strategy in managing land degradation through the reduction of water, soil and nutrient losses and improvement in soil fertility and quality.

While the decrease in flow is obvious in the Kikuletwa River, the mechanism leading to the decrease is unclear. We assessed the influence of vegetation cover change on dry season flow in the Kikuletwa River. The combined cover of closed and open forests decreased by 68% while closed and open forests decreased by 56% and 64% respectively. Land under agroforestry decreased by 25%, while that under annual crops increased by 41%. Grasslands increased by 116% and riverine vegetation decreased by 53%.

This study presents a predictive modelling technique to map population distribution and abundance for rural areas in Africa. Prediction models were created using a generalized regression analysis and spatial prediction (GRASP) method that uses the generalized additive model (GAM) regression technique. Dwelling unit presence–absence was mapped from airborne images covering 98 km² (30% of the study area) and used as a response variable. Remote-sensing-based (reflectance, texture and land cover) and geospatial (topography, climate and distance) data were used as predictors.

Landsat 8, a NASA and USGS collaboration, acquires global moderate-resolution measurements of the Earth's terrestrial and polar regions in the visible, near-infrared, short wave, and thermal infrared.

This paper assesses strategic water availability and use under different development pathways on a basin scale using remote sensing (RS), geographical information systems (GIS) and a spatial water budget model (SWBM). The SWBM was applied to the Upper Ing Basin in northern Thailand to investigate the spatial and temporal variations in the location of streams and water yields from different parts of the basin. The base simulation was carried out for the years 1998–2007 using a DEM and actual land-use data at 100-m resolution.

An operational data fusion framework is built to generate dense time-series Landsat-like images for a cloudy region by fusing Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data products and Landsat imagery. The Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (STARFM) is integrated in the framework. Compared to earlier implementations of STARFM, several improvements have been incorporated in the operational data fusion framework.

Cloud forest in the Central Highlands of Guatemala provides important ecosystem services for the Q’eqchi’ Maya but has been disappearing at an increasing rate in recent decades. This research documents changes in cloud forest cover, explores some contributing factors to deforestation, and considers forest preservation and food security implications for Q’eqchi’ communities. We used a transdisciplinary framework that synthesized remote sensing/GIS analysis of land cover change, focus group dialogs, and surveys.

This paper describes the Salt Lake Valley urban flux study that was designed to understand the role of vegetation and urbanization on CO₂ and surface energy fluxes over surfaces typical of urbanized and pre-urbanized land cover in the semi-arid Salt Lake Valley. The eddy covariance technique was applied at two different sites with distinct land forms within an urbanizing mountain basin.

The ecological distribution of Cytauxzoon felis, an often-fatal tick-borne apicomplexan that infects domestic cats, has not been evaluated or identified despite its continued emergence. Infection of C. felis is characterized by lethargy, icterus, fever, anorexia, anemia, and death. The natural vertebrate reservoir of C. felis is the bobcat (Lynx rufus). To determine the possible distribution of C. felis in three states where infection is common (Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas), two separate approaches to ecological niche modeling were implemented.

Characterizing and quantifying distributions of shrubland ecosystem components is one of the major challenges for monitoring shrubland vegetation cover change across the United States. A new approach has been developed to quantify shrubland components as fractional products within National Land Cover Database (NLCD). This approach uses remote sensing data and regression tree models to estimate the fractional cover of shrubland ecosystem components.

Although recent climatic warming has markedly increased fire activity in many biomes, this trend is spatially heterogeneous. Understanding the patterns and controls of this heterogeneity is important for anticipating future fire regime shifts at regional scales and for developing land management policies. To assess climatic and land cover controls on boreal forest fire regimes, we conducted macroscopic‐charcoal analysis of sediment cores and GIS analysis of landscape variation in south‐central Alaska, USA.