Fringe mangroves are recognised as a highly valuable resource due to their provision of multiple ecosystem services. However, accelerating human-pressures on mangrove forests are resulting in the loss of key mangrove ecosystem services. In this paper, we assessed spatial–temporal changes in the extent and width of fringe mangroves, and changes in adjacent land use. The study focused on the Kien Giang Province, Vietnam, for the period 1989–2009.

The effects of conceptual land cover change scenarios on the generation of storm runoffs were evaluated in the Nyando Basin. The spatial scenarios represented alternatives that vary between full deforestation and reforestation. Synthetic storm events of depths 40, 60 and 80 mm were formulated according to the rainfall patterns and assumed to have durations corresponding to the runoff times of concentration.

AIM: Efforts to adapt conservation to climate change are hampered by a scarcity of studies of community‐level ecological responses. We examined temporal (40 years) and spatial (1700 m elevational gradient) variation in butterfly communities, aiming to test whether the composition of communities in terms of species' thermal envelopes tracked regional warming, and whether local habitat influenced community responses to climate variation. LOCATION: Sierra de Guadarrama (central Spain).

AIM: Remote sensing coupled with direct observation allows recent changes in vegetation to be investigated but, in order to extend our understanding of land‐cover change further back in time, different proxies for vegetation are required. The pseudobiomization (PBM) approach has been developed to transform fossil pollen data into land‐cover classes (LCCs) in order to reconstruct broad‐scale anthropogenic land‐use change through time.

Historical land-cover changes in three delta regions in Southeast Asia are assessed by using selected Landsat images from 1990 to 2005. Potential inundation areas of the delta regions for different return periods are estimated by using digital elevation model data and extreme-value distribution of annual maximum river discharges. The results indicate significant changes of natural land cover within the potential inundation areas due to agricultural exploitation and industrialization. Implications for flood-mitigation policies are discussed.

Protected Areas (PAs) form a core component of efforts to conserve biodiversity, but are designated for a variety of reasons. We assessed the effectiveness of PAs in covering the ranges of 157 globally threatened terrestrial bird species in mainland Africa and Madagascar. To reduce commission errors, rather than using Extent of Occurrence (EOO) as a measure of distribution, we estimated the Extent of potentially Suitable Habitat (ESH) for each species within its EOO, using data on habitat preferences and land cover.

Urban areas are the most dynamic region on earth. Their size has been constantly increased during the past and this process will go on in the future. Since there is no standard policy and guidelines for construction of buildings and urban planning, cities tend to have irregular growth. Many cities in the world face the problem of urban sprawl in its suburbs. So issues of urban sprawl need to be settled with the help of technologies such as satellite remote sensing and automated change detection.

Landscape fragmentation is important in investigating changing biodiversity patterns. Several current software programs calculate landscape fragmentation metrics. The most prevalent of these programs are only compatible with raster-format land cover maps. However, with advancing classification techniques, vector-format maps are becoming more popular. The new program PolyFrag computes fragmentation metrics for vector-based maps, is flexible and comprehensive, and outputs metrics similar to those of the widely used raster-based programs, like FRAGSTATS.

With the development of ecological science, the demand to integrate ecosystem services into ecological management is increasing. Stakeholders are interested in comparing stocks and ability to supply ecosystem services in different regions. However, different areas may have different primary ecosystem services and knowledge of the aggregated value of ecosystem services may be lacking, making comparisons difficult. Relevant indicators that can integrate a group of ecosystem services for comparison are therefore needed.

This study examined analyst variation associated with land cover (LC) image classification using 30 × 30 m Landsat ETM+ data for the assessment of coarse spatial resolution regional/global LC products. The study was designed to test the effect of varying training site selections (location and number) among six analysts performing a supervised classification on a Landsat ETM + image. Design constraints maintained other aspects of the classification process constant (i.e., type of classifier, choice of band combinations, etc.).

This paper aimed to analyze short-term changes in landscape pattern that primarily results from building development in the east coast of Mersin Province (Turkey). Three sites were selected. Ikonos (2003) and Quickbird (2009) images for these sites were classified, and land cover transformations were quantitatively analyzed using cross-tabulation of classification results. Changes in landscape structure were assessed by comparing the calculated values of area/edge and shape metrics for the earlier and later dates.

Remote sensing is considered the most effective tool for estimating evapotranspiration (ET) over large spatial scales. Global terrestrial ET estimates over vegetated land surfaces are now operationally produced at 1-km spatial resolution using data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the MOD16 algorithm. To evaluate the accuracy of this product, ground-based measurements of energy fluxes obtained from eddy covariance sites installed in tropical biomes and from a hydrological model (MGB-IPH) were used to validate MOD16 products at local and regional scales.