Satellite remote sensing technologies have a high potential in applications for evaluating land conditions and can facilitate optimized planning for agricultural sectors. However, misinformed land selection decisions limit crop yields and increase production-related costs to farmers. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to develop a land suitability assessment system using satellite remote sensing-derived soil-vegetation indicators.

Urban centers are expanding rapidly due to quickly-increasing population which results in microclimate change due to lack of urban planning. Factors like degradation of green areas, trees, and vegetation are defining a new regime of urban environment giving rise to a lack of drinking water and lowering water tables. Consequently, unplanned urban sprawl with all its varied facets is having adverse impacts on the environment. Rapid variations in some of its climatic factors in the immediate vicinity are alarming and need to redress at war footings.

Although the use of land and water is intertwined, specifics for groundwater management are not effectively dealt with in the laws and other institutional mechanisms related to land. Provisions for groundwater aspects in land management are there, but with a focus on the land itself. Land rights and restrictions are more or less static, lacking enough flexibility to incorporate the relatively short interval spatio-temporal dynamics of groundwater resources in the land management and regulation mechanisms. This leads to a gap between the scientific inputs and policy-decision making.

Europa is de laatste honderd jaar enorm verstedelijkt, maar óók groener geworden. Sinds 1900 nam het bosareaal met een derde toe; landbouwgrond is er steeds minder nodig. Promovendus Richard Fuchs reconstrueert overigens veranderingen in landgebruik, om de invloed ervan op klimaatverandering vast te stellen.

Geographical information systems can offer insights into the possibilities for emergency response and the possibilities for self help during a disaster, such as a flooding or explosions. Based on this information, proposed housing areas can be adapted. The building site can be elevated or ‘safe havens’ for shelter can be created. Nevertheless, such information was hardly taken into consideration in local spatial planning practices, especially with respect to flood risks. Local governments did not feel themselves responsible for the reduction of potential flood consequences.

Monitoring land use with geographical databases is widely used in decision-making. This report presents the possibilities, methods and adapted techniques using geo-information in monitoring land use changes. The municipality of Soest was chosen as study area and three national land use databases, viz. Top10Vector, CBS land use statistics and LGN, were used. The restrictions of geo-information for monitoring land use changes are indicated. New methods and adapted techniques improve the monitoring result considerably.

Om inzicht te krijgen in de behoefte aan geo-informatie over het functioneel bodemgebruik onder potentiële gebruikers is een ondersteunend beslismiddel ontworpen. Het betreft een zogenaamde kaartenwaaier, die zowel op papier als op internet beschikbaar is gemaakt. De indeling van de kaartenwaaier is gestructureerd rond de invalshoek, de basisgeometrie en de functiegroep (of kaartlaag) en gaat uit van de bestaande basisgeometrieën LGN, TOP10-vector en CBS-bodemstatistiek.

Aan de hand van de ruilverkaveling Duiven-Westervoort worden de te stellen eisen aan een geografisch informatiesysteem besproken

Land use and land cover dynamics are a result of the interactions between human activities and the environment. The objective of this thesis is to analyze Amazonian land use and land cover pattern dynamics in order to identify the underlying system dynamics. By combining empirical statistical models and Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping, feedbacks in the human-environment system can be explored to identify more sustainable development pathways.

De snelle veranderingen die zich in Nederland voordoen met betrekking tot het gebruik van ruimte en de conflicterende belangen van veel gebruikers van deze ruimte, zorgen voor een voortdurende behoefte aan actuele geografische bestanden. Eén van deze bestanden is het Landelijke Grondgebruiksbestand Nederland (LGN). Sinds 1986 wordt met een periodiciteit van 3-5 jaar het LGN-bestand geproduceerd. Het LGN6-bestand is een rasterbestand met een resolutie van 25*25 m. Het bestand geeft het Nederlandse landgebruik voor de jaren 2007/2008 weer.

The CLC2006 databases were produced by the Centre for Geo-Information (Alterra-WUR), the NRC Land cover for the Netherlands. The national CLC2006 project took place under the umbrella of the overall GMES Fast Track Service Percursor (FTSP) Land Monitoring. The basis for the production of the CLC2006 databases was the CLC2000 database that was also produced by the same team of Alterra. Alterra was also involved in the production of the CLC1990 database and the change database between 1990 and 2000.