Land-use and land-cover change profoundly affect human well-being and, therefore, have become a major topic for society. A thorough understanding of past and present processes transforming landscapes is essential for guiding future developments toward the sustained provision of the ecosystem services humans critically depend upon. Drawing on the driving forces and resilience frameworks, we identify possible variables and patterns of land change, connecting them to empirical findings in three case study areas in the Swabian Alb region, southwestern Germany.

Residents, developers and civic officials are often faced with difficult decisions about appropriate land uses in and around metropolitan boundaries. Urban expansion brings with it the potential for negative environmental impacts, but there are alternatives, such as conservation subdivision design (CSD) or low-impact development (LID), which offer the possibility of mitigating some of these effects at the development site.

Green corridors are inevitable part of land cover and land use planning activities as they affect climate, hydrology and ecology of the urbanized regions. Detection and monitoring of green corridors and their relative functions are very important in terms of landscape management. They also carry information on changing speed from “green to grey” and fragmentation level of the urbanized regions. Analyzing the fragmentation level of the landscape formation reflects the management strategy and overall success of decision makers.

Widespread and increasing urbanization has resulted in the need to assess, monitor, and understand its effects on stream water quality. Identifying relations between stream ecological condition and urban intensity indicators such as impervious surface provides important, but insufficient information to effectively address planning and management needs in such areas.

As in many other developing countries, cities in Bangladesh have witnessed rapid urbanization, resulting in increasing amounts of land being taken over and therefore land cover changing at a faster rate. Until now, however, few efforts have been made to document the impact of land use and land cover changes on the climate, environment, and ecosystem of the country because of a lack of geospatial data and time-series information.

Since China's economic reform in the late 1970s, Shanghai, the country's largest and most modern city, has experienced rapid expansion and urbanization. Here, we explore its land‐use and land‐cover changes, focusing on the impacts of the urbanization process on air and water quality, local climate, and biodiversity. Over the past 30 years, Shanghai's urban area and green land (eg urban parks, street trees, lawns) have increased dramatically, at the expense of cropland.

Urbanization is a global phenomenon with still unknown consequences for vegetation dynamics of urban ecosystems, especially in subtropical areas of developing countries. In this paper we analyze the vegetation productivity trend associated to urban densification and urban expansion during the last decade, in twelve cities of northern Argentina. We used time series analysis of MODIS-NDVI images to reconstruct the phenological patterns to retrieve a productivity trend under three spatial classes of urban dynamics: (1) urban, (2) expansion and (3) periphery.

The green vegetation fraction (GVF) and surface albedo are important land surface parameters often used for validation of climate and land surface models that are influenced largely by environmental gradients and human activities. In this study, fine resolution GVF and albedo values derived from Landsat Thematic Mapper/Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus images from 1990 to 2000 were used to examine the relationship of both GVF and albedo values to the spatial gradients of parameters related to dramatic urbanization in the Greater Guangzhou metropolitan area, Guangdong Province, in South China.

The aim of this article is to analyze the effectiveness of land-use policy in Mexico City in controlling the expansion of informal human settlements in peri-urban zones of high ecological value. It is argued that Mexico City's land-use policy has been reactive and internally inconsistent, failing to take informal settlements into account, has not offered the poor access to housing with adequate services and greater security in terms of land tenure, and lacks the necessary financial resources and institutional capabilities for providing solutions to these problems.

Effectively identifying soil properties in relation to non-point source (NPS) phosphorus pollution is important for NPS pollution management. Previous studies have focused on particulate P loads in relation to agricultural non-point source pollution. In areas undergoing rapid urbanization, dissolved P loads may be important with respect to conditions of surface infiltration and rainfall runoff. The present study developed an integrated model for the analysis of both dissolved P and particulate P loads, applied to the Meiliang Bay watershed, Taihu Lake, China.

Efforts in post-industrial countries to refine environment and planning administration in the face of unprecedented urban growth have important implications for ecological systems and human quality of life. This paper uses the case of an urban riparian corridor in South East Queensland, Australia to contribute to understandings of interactions between land use planning processes, watershed management initiatives and broader administrative structures in urban and rapidly urbanising settings. In particular it examines the understudied application of watershed management to an urban setting.

This paper presents findings of a land-use and land-cover (LULC) change mapping exercise conducted in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Nine LULC classes were mapped from multi-temporal Landsat data of 1974, 1986 and 2000. Special attention was given to the growth or otherwise of agricultural land in relation to other LULC classes. Conversion of one land-use/-cover type to the other was identified, and its effects discussed. Major conversions occurred between agricultural lands, grasslands, evergreen forest, built-up areas and barren land.