Land use and land cover change (LUCC) have a significant influence on regional ecosystems and on the carbon cycle. The Sanjiang Plain is one of the largest grain production bases in China, and has experienced rapid land cover change, making it a critical area in which to assess the environmental impact of LUCC and propose strategies for minimizing its impact on net primary productivity (NPP). In this study, land cover was estimated from remote sensing images to quantify LUCC on the Sanjiang Plain from 2000 to 2010.

Essential to analyses of forest-cover change is application of geospatial empirical or semi-empirical models of transition potentials based on the likelihood that forest land would change to non-forested land or vice versa depending on prevailing conditions of land-use change. Modeling land-cover as a function of land-use aids in understanding pertinent land-cover dynamics. This can enable forecasting of ramifications of current conversion processes on land designated for agriculture or development.

A methodology is developed to relate urban growth studies to distributed hydrological modeling using an integrated approach of remote sensing and GIS. This linkage is possible because both studies share land-use and land-cover data. Landsat Thematic Mapper data are utilized to detect urban land-cover changes. GIS analyses are then conducted to examine the changing spatial patterns of urban growth. The integration of remote sensing and GIS is applied to automate the estimation of surface runoff based on the Soil Conservation Service model.

The only well-studied wintering ground of the globally threatened Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola is the ‘Djoudj area’ in Senegal. This study identifies potential Aquatic Warbler habitats within that area and gives an estimate of the size of the local wintering population. A land-cover map was generated by classifying high-resolution satellite images. Overlaying it with presence–absence data from field surveys and using logistic regression models (GLMM), we derived the presence probability of the Aquatic Warbler in the study area.

Corn stover as well as perennial grasses like switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) and miscanthus are being considered as candidates for the second generation biofuel feedstocks. However, the challenges to biofuel development are its effects on the environment, especially water quality. This study evaluates the long-term impacts of biofuel production alternatives (e.g., elevated corn stover removal rates and the potential land cover change) on an ecosystem with a focus on biomass production, soil erosion, water quantity and quality, and soil nitrate nitrogen concentration at the watershed scale.

Long term global archives of high-moderate spatial resolution, multi-spectral satellite imagery are now readily accessible, but are not being fully utilised by management agencies due to the lack of appropriate methods to consistently produce accurate and timely management ready information. This work developed an object-based remote sensing approach to map land cover and seagrass distribution in an Australian coastal environment for a 38year Landsat image time-series archive (1972–2010).

This work provides an overview of plant diversity in the municipality of Rome (Italy) through an assessment of the flora in urban and suburban sectors of the city. It is aimed at providing the knowledge required to support proactive action for plant conservation. On the basis of a literature-derived catalogue and of an extensive survey campaign, the flora was investigated in terms of conservation interest; habitat types and locations that require protection measures were identified according to the occurrence of valuable native plants.

Land cover fractions (LCFs) derived through spectral mixture analysis are useful in understanding sub-pixel information. However, few studies have been conducted on the analysis of time-series LCFs. Although multi-scale comparisons of spectral index, hard classification, and land surface temperature images have received attention, rarely have these approaches been applied to LCFs.

Soil moisture is a crucial component in the hydrologic cycle. The analysis of soil moisture variability is challenging because soil moisture is dependent on physical factors such as: antecedent precipitation, soil texture, land cover, and topography. This study investigated soil moisture variability, validated the utility of temporal stability analysis for measuring areal mean soil moisture, and identified factors that were strongly related to temporal stability characteristics at small mountainous sites in Northeast Asia.

Vector-to-raster conversion is a process accompanied with errors. The errors are classified into predicted errors before rasterization and actual errors after that. Accurate prediction of the errors is beneficial to developing reasonable rasterization technical schemes and to making products of high quality. Analyzing and establishing a quantitative relationship between the error and its affecting factors is the key to error prediction.

Landscape networks and ecosystems worldwide are undergoing changes that may impact in different ways relevant ecological processes such as gene flow, pollination, or wildlife dispersal. A myriad of indices have been developed to characterize landscape patterns, but not all of them are equally suited to evaluate temporal changes in landscape connectivity as is increasingly needed for biodiversity monitoring and operational indicator delivery.