Over the last 25 years civil disturbances, drought, population increases and global market pressures have all contributed in direct and indirect ways to a modification of Sub saharan African land cover.
Based on 1-km land surface model geophysical predictions within the United States Southern Great Plains (Red-Arkansas River basin), an observing system simulation experiment (OSSE) is carried out to assess the impact of land surface heterogeneity, instrument error, and parameter uncertainty on soil moisture products derived from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Hydrosphere State (Hydros) mission.
An understanding of changes in Amazonian landscapes depends on documentation about alterations in land cover. This article highlights the efforts of the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazônia (LBA) related to the topic. In particular, a longitudinal study has analyzed the social and biophysical dimensions of land use/land cover, using a multi-scalar georeferenced approach. The study areas represent a gradient of soil fertility in Amazônia and include distinct landscape mosaics, from the Amazon estuary and the Bragantina region to northeastern Rondônia.
Tropical land cover change experiments with fixed sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) and with an interactive ocean are compared to assess the relevance of including the ocean system in sensitivity studies to land surface conditions. The results show that the local response to deforestation is similar with fixed and simulated SSTs. Over Amazonia, all experiments simulate a comparable decrease in precipitation and no change in moisture convergence, implying that there is only a change in local water recycling.
Based on 1-km land surface model geophysical predictions within the United States Southern Great Plains (Red-Arkansas River basin), an observing system simulation experiment (OSSE) is carried out to assess the impact of land surface heterogeneity, instrument error, and parameter uncertainty on soil moisture products derived from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Hydrosphere State (Hydros) mission.
The Baekdudaegan Mountain Range is a backbone of the Korean Peninsula which has special spiritual and sentimental significance for Koreans and significant ecological value to diverse organisms. Despite the importance of this region, however, the natural environment of Baekdudaegan has been severely threatened by a variety of human activity and tremendous forest fires. To make management and restoration plans for the deforested areas, it is necessary to investigate quantitatively such natural and human-induced physical changes.
Understanding the relationship between the distribution of organisms and their environment is important for regional conservation planning. While most herpetofaunal community studies address environmental influence on species richness, few studies describe environmental influence on species composition at geographic scales. Field surveys of herpetofauna were conducted during 1994-2000 in Tochigi Prefecture, which covers ca. 6400 km_ of mainland Japan and includes a wide range of elevation, annual mean temperature, and human population densities.
Most work on the effects of land-cover change on tropical birds has focused on forest-interior birds because these species are assumed to be the most severely affected by forest loss. However, even species that use human-altered habitat types may be severely affected by forest loss. White-throated Robins (Turdus assimilis) frequently nest in coffee and pasture in southern Costa Rica, although several lines of evidence suggest the species could not exist solely in agricultural habitat.
In 2000, after the international agreement on the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nation Food and Agriculture Organization decided to adopt a new set of basic forest and forest change definitions. The main change is that new definitions are no more related to land cover but to land use. The entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol requires now that national forest related data must be based on land use concept.
Investigations of grasslands in Latvia started at the beginning of the 20ty century. One of the main goals was investigation of vegetation classification. In Latvia typology of natural grasslands in several investigation periods is based on different criterions: (1) economic typology, (2) grasslands vegetation physionomic classification according to dominant method, (3) classification of flora according to Braun-Blanquet method.
Aim This paper describes the development of novel indices of bird‐habitat preference to examine bird species’ use of habitats and their distributions relative to habitats. It assesses the implications for bird conservation regionally and the scope for biodiversity assessments generally. Location A 200 km by 400 km area of farmland with seminatural and urban areas, covering south‐eastern England. Methods Cluster analysis was used to link birds to landscapes. Cluster centroid coordinate values were processed to derive indices of bird‐habitat preference.
The natural regeneration in the dehesa has been object of numerous studies, due to the ecologic and economic importance of such ecosystems. In this work is exposed a test of acorns germination of Quercus ilex L. subsp. ballota (Desf.) Samp, in the North of Córdoba (Spain), under three environmental conditions corresponding to the most traditional land uses of the dehesa: grazing, cereal sowing and fallow, each one with a different vegetal cover. A fourth group of acorns was placed in a tree nursery under controlled conditions.