Full-waveform lidar data are increasingly being available. Morphological features can be retrieved from the echoes composing the waveforms, and are now extensively used for a large variety of land-cover mapping issues. However, the genuine contribution of these features with respect to those computed from standard discrete return lidar systems has been barely theoretically investigated. This paper therefore aims to study the potential of full-waveform data through the automatic classification of urban areas in building, ground, and vegetation points.

The major purpose of this paper is to explore the potential value of benefit–cost evaluation for stormwater quality management decisions at a local level. A preliminary benefit–cost analysis (BCA) screening method is used for maximum extent practicable (MEP) analysis, identifying promising management practices, and identifying societal and economic tradeoffs for local stormwater problems. Ballona Creek, a major urban storm drain in Los Angeles, California, USA, is used to illustrate the practicality of the benefit–cost evaluation.

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.

Texture in high resolution satellite images requires substantial improvement in the conventional segmentation algorithms. The use of wavelet packet transforms for texture analysis and image classification of high spatial resolution LISS IV imagery provide more details about the urban areas. This paper analyses the performance of a combination of Wavelet Packet Statistical Features (WPSFs) and Wavelet Packet Co-occurrence Features (WPCFs) for the classification of LISS IV images. The classification accuracy per pixel is improved in this paper by varying the window size.

The diurnal land surface temperature (LST) variation is a primary characteristic of the effects of urbanization. However, no study to date has focused on changes in diurnal LST variation in urban environments. This paper investigates the effects of urbanization on landscape pattern and diurnal LST variation of Taipei City, using MODIS thermal images and SPOT multispectral remote sensing images over the 1994–2010 period. Supervised land-cover classifications were conducted to investigate decadal land-cover changes within the study area.

The Corymbia and Eucalyptus species eaten by koalas are generally large trees, but these are often unpopular with urban landowners and councils because of the dangers of limbs falling from a great height. We aimed to develop shorter koala food and habitat trees for urban areas by heterografting tall eucalypt species onto rootstocks of shorter species and comparing their survival and growth with homografted trees and control ungrafted trees.

Greenbelts are effective tools for mitigation of traffic induced air and noise pollution. In this study, the potential role of greenbelts along the roadside for the reduction of air pollution and noise levels has been assessed by using seasonally monitored data in a megacity of Bangladesh. Correlation analysis was performed between the vegetation status, measured by canopy density and shelterbelt porosity, and the total suspended particles (TSP) removal percentage. Further, the reduction of noise level was also analyzed.

The influence of land use patterns on water quality in a river system is scale‐dependent. In this study, a four‐order hierarchical arrangement method was used to select water sampling sites and to delineate sub‐basins in the Daliao River Basin, China. The 20 sub‐basins were classified into four spatial scales that represented four different stream orders. Pearson correlation analysis was used to quantify relationships between land use composition and the river's physical‐chemical variables for all samples collected.

We developed a monitoring program to assess the health of urban fragments of pine rockland, a globally critically imperiled, fire-dependent plant community, in order to provide feedback for adaptive land management. Our results showed negative effects of fire exclusion, including low native herb and grass cover, excessive leaf litter accumulation, and high densities of native trees in most of the twelve preserves sampled.

The rapid urbanization of the world has significant ecological consequences that shape global biodiversity patterns. The plant communities now common in urban centers may represent new habitats with unique dynamics and the potential for highly modified ecological services. This study, joining extensive spatial and floristic data sets, examined current distribution patterns of non-native and native woody plant species in the New York metropolitan region, USA.

Urban sprawl along the Mediterranean coast is characterized by single-family houses and domestic gardens. Many new residences are secondary homes for socio-demographically diverse tourists. We explore the differences between the residence types in terms of their garden structures and plant compositions using socioeconomic and legacy attributes. Outdoor areas of 245 primary and secondary homes were investigated to determine plant compositions, land cover and household characteristics. Then, the outdoor land cover was compared between the two residence types.