SUMMARYThis study analyses spatio-temporal patterns of wildfires in Greece using a multidimensional statistical framework based on non-parametric correlations, principal component analysis, clustering and stepwise discriminant analysis. Specifically, we assess the frequency, seasonal profile, severity and land-use type of 135 178 wildfires which occurred between 2000–2012 in Greece, one of the countries most affected by fire in Europe.

The European hare (Lepus europaeus) has declined throughout its native range but invaded numerous regions where it has negatively impacted native wildlife. In southern Sweden, it replaces the native mountain hare (L. timidus) through competition and hybridisation. We investigated temporal change in the invasive range of the European hare in Ireland, and compared its habitat use with the endemic Irish hare (L. timidus hibernicus). The range of the European hare was three times larger and its core range twice as large in 2012–2013 than in 2005.

The method of surface modeling of land cover scenarios (SMLCS) has been improved to simulate the scenarios of land cover in the karst areas of southwestern China. On the basis of the observation monthly climatic data collected from 782 weather stations of China during the period from 1981 to 2010, the climatic scenarios data of RCP26, RCP45 and RCP85 scenarios released by CMIP5, and the land cover current data of China in 2010, the land cover scenarios of southwestern China were respectively simulated. The average total accuracy and Kappa index of SMLCS are 90.25 and 87.96 %, respectively.

Understanding the rates and causes of land-use change is crucial in identifying solutions, especially in sensitive landscapes and ecosystems, as well as in places undergoing rapid political, socioeconomic or ecological change. Despite considerable concern at the rate of transformation and degradation of the biodiversity-rich Albany Thicket biome in South Africa, most knowledge is gleaned from private commercial lands and state conservation areas.

Soil and water conservation measures including terracing, afforestation, construction of sediment‐trapping dams, and the ‘Grain for Green Program’ have been extensively implemented in the Yanhe River watershed, of the Loess Plateau, China, over the last six decades, and have resulted in large‐scale land use and land cover changes. This study examined the trends and shifts in streamflow regime over the period of 1953–2010 and relates them to changes in land use and soil and water conservation and to the climatic factors of precipitation and air temperature.

As the global population urbanizes, dramatic changes are expected in city lighting and the urban form, which may threaten the functioning of urban ecosystems and the services they deliver. However, little is known about the ecological impact of lighting in different urban contexts. Movement is an important ecological process that can be disrupted by artificial lighting. We explored the impact of lighting on gap crossing for Pipistrellus pipistrellus, a species of bat (Chiroptera) common within UK cities.

We report the spatio-temporal dynamics of land cover changes from 1954 to 2008 in a hilly mountainous area in the Italian northern Apennine, and ecological factors and processes associated with these dynamics. Land cover patches were mapped and analysed at three time periods (1954, 1980 and 2008). Changes over time were detected by analysing a combination of multitemporal source data from airborne images and from field surveys. Relationships between cover classes and environmental variables were analysed for the year 2008.

AIM: Habitat heterogeneity has long been recognized as a key landscape characteristic determining biodiversity patterns. However, a lack of standardized, large‐scale, high‐resolution and temporally updatable heterogeneity information based on direct observations has limited our understanding of this connection and its effective use for biodiversity conservation. To address this, we develop here remote sensing‐based metrics to characterize global habitat heterogeneity at 1‐km resolution and assess their value for biodiversity modelling. LOCATION: Global.

This research article addresses the problem of land-cover classification from the multi-spectral remotely sensed images using a novel self-training based semi-supervised learning (SSL) technique. The proposed system, instead of using a single classifier, builds an ensemble of classifiers with the hope that the ensemble system will have a lesser generalization error than any of its members.

Automatic information extraction from optical remote sensing images is still a challenge for large-scale remote sensing applications. For instance, artificial sample collection cannot achieve an automatic remote sensing imagery classification. Based on this, this paper resorts to the technologies of change detection and transfer learning, and further proposes a prior knowledge-based automatic hierarchical classification approach for detailed land cover updating. To establish this method, an automatic sample collection scheme for object-oriented classification is presented.

Land use/land cover changes in a lake drainage basin reflect changes in the magnitude of the water balance components and rate of sediment deposition in a lake as a reflection of the fundamental linkage between what happens in a lake considered against what is happening in the drainage basin of the lake. The objective of this study was to quantify the spatio‐temporal land cover/land use changes across the Lake Hayq closed drainage basin in north‐east Ethiopia over a 50‐years period, using multitemporal remote sensing and geospatial data.

Hainan, the largest tropical island in China, belongs to the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot. The Changhua watershed is a center of endemism for plants and birds and the cradle of Hainan’s main rivers. However, this area has experienced recent and ongoing deforestation and habitat fragmentation. To quantify habitat loss and fragmentation of natural forests, as well as the land-cover changes in the Changhua watershed, we analyzed Landsat images obtained in 1988, 1995, and 2005.