In Indonesia, vegetation fires occur every year in the dry season. To determine where and why fires occur, the natural and cultural landscape features that influence the location of fires were analysed. We investigated the probability of fire occurrence as a function of predisposing conditions and ignition sources, such as land use, land use zoning, accessibility or land cover, to understand the spatial determinants of fires. The study area is the entire province of Jambi, central Sumatra, Indonesia.

It is well recognized that aggregation of the inhomogeneous data for soils, management, and weather within a land unit for crop simulation plays a key role in the scaling-up task of crop simulation at regional scales. While the other spatial data could be obtained at a desired level, weather data might not be available in mountainous regions where the production system is comprised of many small farms.

Accurate estimation of spatial distributions of evapotranspiration (ET) is a goal sought by hydrologists, agronomists, and meteorologists but is difficult to achieve. The usual approaches to estimating ET employ remote sensing observations and a surface energy flux model. However, resolution of remote sensing data, needed to observe patterns of biophysical variables, is commonly too coarse (>1 km) to distinguish between land cover types that constrain ET. Accuracy of ET estimates can be improved by using higher- resolution (

The rating of biodiversity in arid and semiarid regions on the basis of ecological function and genetic traits of adaptation to severe environmental stresses produces significantly higher values, than that based solely on the commonly applied structural criteria of forms of life and levels of organization.

Desde el inicio de la ocupación española, el Camino del Sur, último tramo de una red a escala continental, constituyó la vía de comunicación entre la ciudad de Buenos Aires y el pago de la Magdalena a la vez que en sus proximidades se originaban incipientes núcleos urbanos. La incorporación del ferrocarril a mediados del siglo XIX produjo un cambio notable en la estructura territorial y reemplazó en parte al antiguo camino como vía de comunicación y columna vertebral de los asentamientos urbanos.

To conserve and manage wetland resources, it is important to inventory and monitor wetlands and their adjacent uplands. Satellite remote sensing has several advantages for monitoring wetland resources, especially for large geographic areas. This review summarizes the literature on satellite remote sensing of wetlands, including what classification techniques were most successful in identifying wetlands and separating them from other land cover types. All types of wetlands have been studied with satellite remote sensing.

Human-induced desertification in the Horqin sandy land in the north-eastern part of China has been reversed since the mid-1970s through re-vegetation. This land cover change affects surface energy and water transfer processes. We employed the Bowen ratio energy balance technique to examine micrometeorological changes following the establishment of artificially established artemisia vegetation on the severely desertified sandy land in Naiman, a county located in the Horqin.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has proposed methods and thematic areas for data collection that are appropriate to the evaluation of biodiversity. The Heritage Council has identified a paucity of data on habitats in Ireland. Within this context, we outline the Irish Forest Soils (IFS) element of the Forest Inventory and Planning System (FIPS) and present a detailed account of land-cover mapping, which is an important aspect of the project.

Europe is characterized not only by large geomorphological variability but also by a long history of land use. This resulted in a highly variegated landscape. Based on the IGBP‐transect initiative, a north south transect was established across Europe ranging from north Sweden to central Italy in order to study effects of global change. Mainly process oriented studies were established on plots along the transect, and these were used to establish functional relationships as basis for landscape integration.

Un mapa de deforestación del território mexicano, derivado de Ia sobreposición de dos cartografias de uso del suelo y vegetación de 1993 y 2000, se comparo con variables espaciales como el aislamiento (distancias a Ias carreteras y a Ias poblaciones), Ia topografia (altitud y pendiente), el tipo de suelos y el estatus de protección (dentro de una ANP o fuera) en un sistema de información geográfica (SIG).

This paper explores the possibility of using non-geometric cadastral maps from the 17th and 18th century together with aerial photographs from 1945 and 1981 to analyse land-cover change in south-east Sweden. Habitats rich in plant species in the European rural landscape seem to be correlated with a long continuity of management. Accurate spatial data from historical data sources are fundamental to understand patterns of vegetation and biodiversity in the present-day landscape.

Counter intuition, an analysis of tree‐line position across the Swiss Alps based on a geographical information system (GIS) with a spatial resolution of 100 m (2.5 million points) revealed no difference in climatic tree‐line altitude with slope exposure. Through step wise discrimination procedures our analysis accounts for anthropogenic tree‐line depression. Any land cover bias affects the frequency of GIS‐points corresponding to tree‐line forests rather than the mean elevation of such points, captured by our analysis.