The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami on 11 March 2011 led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. The Japanese government subsequently outlined an evacuation zone around the power plant, and all residents were evacuated. In the absence of cropland or urban vegetation management, land cover was expected to change. The changes in vegetation cover following the nuclear disaster are presented using long-term time series data obtained from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors.

Accurate atmospheric correction is an important preprocessing step for studies of multi-temporal land-cover mapping using optical satellite data. Model-based surface reflectance predictions (e.g. 6S – Second Simulation of Satellite Signal in the Solar Spectrum) are highly dependent on the adjustment of aerosol optical thickness (AOT) data.

The land cover change from cultivated land to construction land is a world issue since the urbanization process is extensively studied around the world. Chengdu, China, is a representative urbanization area, where cloud cover is very high most of the time, restricting the use of visible and near-infrared satellite data.

The availability of land cover data at local scales is an important component in forest management and monitoring efforts. Regional land cover data seldom provide detailed information needed to support local management needs. Here we present a transferable framework to model forest cover by major plant functional type using aerial photos, multi-date Système Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT) imagery, and topographic variables.

Estuaries provide vital habitat to a wide variety of fish species, so understanding how human activities impact estuarine habitats has important implications for management and conservation of fish stocks. We used nationwide datasets on anthropogenic disturbance to perform a quantitative assessment of habitat stressors in US estuaries. Habitat stressors were characterized by four categories of indicator datasets: (1) land cover/land use, (2) alteration of river flows, (3) pollution sources, and (4) eutrophication.

The changing mode of urban development through time can bring a varied landscape mosaic accompanied by spatial-temporal differentiation of urban vegetation. Hong Kong as an ultra-compact city generates intense interactions between trees and urban fabric to highlight urbanization effects on tree communities. The study areas cover public housing estates which accommodate about half of the 7.26 million population. Thirteen site factors related to estate, landform and habitat traits were measured or computed as surrogate urbanization effects.

Cichorieae, one of the six tribes of the sub-family Cichorioideae (Asteraceae), produces a well-recognisable fenestrate pollen type. In the Mediterranean area, the significance of high percentages of Cichorieae pollen from archaeological layers is still questioned.

Climate change has the potential to influence avian population dynamics through nest-fate sensitivity to temperatures during the breeding season. Nest fate also varies across spatially heterogeneous habitat, and changing land uses may independently introduce stressors on reproductive outcome. Identifying the individual and synergistic effects of climate change and land-use change is necessary for understanding the impact of global change on native species. We studied the nest fate of 3 sympatric species breeding in urban habitat in an arid region of the western United States.

Metacommunity paradigms are increasingly studied to explain how environmental control and spatial patterns determine variation in community composition. However, the relative importance of these patterns on biological assemblages among different habitats is not well known. We investigated the relative roles of local, catchment and spatial variables based on overland and watercourse distances in explaining the variation of community structure of lake and river macrophytes in two large river basins at two spatial extents (within and across river basins).

Waterlogged and salt-affected soils are serious environmental hazard indicators for wasteland problems in arid and semi-arid regions of the World. Similarly human activities in agricultural and urban sustainable developments have also led to the development of waterlogging and subsequent salinization of soils leading to many geo-environmental problems. Thus, it is important to be able to monitor, assess and map waterlogged and salt-affected areas at an early stage to develop an effective soil reclamation programme that helps to reduce and prevent a future increase in areas of wasteland.

AIM: Spatial environmental heterogeneity (EH) is an important driver of species richness, affecting species coexistence, persistence and diversification. EH has been widely studied in ecology and evolution and quantified in many different ways, with a strong bias towards a few common measures of EH like elevation range. Here, we calculate 51 measures of EH within grid cells world‐wide across three spatial grains to investigate similarities and differences among these measures.

The Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis is an important species of conservation concern in the eastern USA. We developed a model to predict Brook Trout population status within individual stream reaches throughout the species’ native range in the eastern USA. We utilized hierarchical logistic regression with Bayesian estimation to predict Brook Trout occurrence probability, and we allowed slopes and intercepts to vary among ecological drainage units (EDUs).