Combining spatially explicit land cover data from remote-sensing and faunal data from field observations is increasingly applied for landscape-scale habitat and biodiversity assessments, but without modelling changes quantitatively over time. In a novel approach, we used a long-term time series including historical map data to predict the influence of one century of tropical forest change on keystone species or indicator groups in the Kakamega–Nandi forests, western Kenya.

The rapid urban development in the Hurghada area since the 1980s has dramatically enhanced the potential impact of human activities. To inventory and monitor this urban development effectively, remote sensing provides a viable source of data from which updated land cover information can be extracted efficiently and cheaply.

A comparison between half-hourly and daily measured and computed evapotranspiration (ET) using three models of different complexity, namely, the Priestley–Taylor (P-T), the reference Penman–Monteith (P-M) and the Common Land Model (CLM), was conducted using three AmeriFlux sites under different land cover and climate conditions (i.e. arid grassland, temperate forest and subhumid cropland).

Sigificant dependence from climate and anthropogenic influences characterize ecological systems of Kazakhstan. As result of the geographical location of the republic and ecological situation vegetative degradation sites exist throughout the territory of Kazakhstan. The major process of desertification takes place in the arid and semi-arid areas. To allocate spots of stable degradation of vegetation, the transition zone was first identified. Productivity of vegetation in transfer zone is slightly dependent on climate conditions.

The rapid growth of urban population in India is a cause of concern among country’s urban and town planners for efficient urban planning. The drastic growth of urban areas has resulted in sharp land use and land cover changes. In recent years, the significance of spatial data technologies, especially the application of remotely sensed data and geographical information systems (GIS) has been widely used. The present study investigates the urban growth of Tiruchirapalli city, Tamilnadu using IRS satellite data for the years 1989, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, and 2010.

The paper describes an efficient approach for mapping multiple individual tree species over large spatial domains. The method integrates vegetation phenology derived from MODIS imagery and raster data describing relevant environmental parameters with extensive field plot data of tree species basal area to create maps of tree species abundance and distribution at a 250-m pixel size for the entire eastern contiguous United States.

The dissected volcanic terrains around Limbe, SW Cameroon are frequently affected by small scale but destructive landslides. In this study, a raster-based data driven method involving seed cells is used to build a landslide susceptibility model for the Limbe area. Factors considered to be potential controls of slope failure within this area include slope gradient, rock type, distance from roads, slope orientation, mean annual precipitation, soil type, land cover type, stream density and distance from stream.

This paper examined the relationship between remotely sensed anthropogenic heat discharge and energy use from residential and commercial buildings across multiple scales in the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. The anthropogenic heat discharge was estimated with a remote sensing-based surface energy balance model, which was parameterized using land cover, land surface temperature, albedo, and meteorological data.

The controls on the development of channel morphology of bedrock-constrained rivers are poorly known. The relative importance of lithological and structural control on channel alignment and character in comparison with the role of hydraulic erosion of the substratum is unclear. In addition, bedrock rivers often have a variable sediment fill and can be described as mixed bedrock–alluvial systems. The Mekong River in northern Cambodia is an anastomosed mixed bedrock–alluvial channel, but little and poorly researched.

Detection of land-cover changes through time can be complicated because of sensor-specific differences in spatial and spectral resolutions; classified land-cover changes can be due to either real changes on the ground or a switch in sensors used to collect data.

A global validation database that can be used to assess the accuracy of multiple global and regional land-cover maps would yield significant cost savings and enhance comparisons of accuracy of different maps. Because the global validation database should expand over time as new validation data are contributed, the sampling design must be constructed so that it is simple to increase the sample size from a specific region (e.g. a continent or country) or from targeted land-cover classes to improve standard errors of the accuracy estimates.

This paper extends the debate on corridor effectiveness at regional planning scale, by exploring the contribution to landscape connectivity of a proposed ecological network and the remaining non-urbanized matrix in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BMR). Using the Ecological Connectivity Index, we evaluated the expected connectivity loss after the development of the approved urban plans in the region. Thus, we compared the baseline (present-day) and the projected (after planned urban development) connectivity scenarios for total, forest and agricultural habitats.