Monitoring the changes in forest-cover and understanding the dynamics of the forest is becoming increasingly important for the sustainable management of forest ecosystems. This paper uses temporal MODIS Vegetation Continuous Field (MODIS-VCF) to monitor the tree cover change in the Indian region over a period of 6 years (2000–2005). Pixel-based linear regression model is developed to identify rate of deforestation and fragmentation at landscape level. The regression parameters viz., slope, offset and variance are used to identify threshold between forest and non-forest classes.

Land provides a host of ecosystem services, of which the provisioning services are often considered paramount. As the demand for agricultural products multiplies, other ecosystem services are being degraded or lost entirely. Finding a sustainable trade-off between food production and one or more of other ecosystem services, given the variety of stakeholders, is a matter of optimizing land use in a dynamic and complex socio-ecological system. Land degradation reduces our options to meet both food demands and environmental needs.

Wetlands are important providers of ecosystem services and key regulators of climate change. They positively contribute to global warming through their greenhouse gas emissions, and negatively through the accumulation of organic material in histosols, particularly in peatlands. Our understanding of wetlands’ services is currently constrained by limited knowledge on their distribution, extent, volume, interannual flood variability and disturbance levels.

The Tana River is one of Kenya’s most important rivers. It is the principal water source for Nairobi, the capital city, providing water for hydroelectric power generation and irrigation. Several of the flagship projects laid out in Vision 2030 - the blueprint that guides Kenya’s national development – are located in the basin. This report presents the findings of a study to determine the possible impacts of climate change on the hydrology of the basin.