Urban structural units (USUs) are work (or similar) units in urbanized areas. In this study, USUs based on urban land use and land cover were used to explain and compare urban ecological conditions within Beijing. This study focused on the spatial pattern of land use for different USUs in urban areas. The results showed that 453 USUs belong to 12 primary USUs and to 38 different secondary USUs. The percentage of built-up area was highest in those regions with hotels, and lowest in areas with cemeteries.

In this study, a multi-scale approach was used for classifying land cover in a high resolution image of an urban area. Pixels and image segments were assigned the spectral, texture, size, and shape information of their super-objects (i.e. the segments that they are located within) from coarser segmentations of the same scene, and this set of super-object information was used as additional input data for image classification.

This survey concerns the urban coastal environment of Glyfada. Due to its wonderful natural resources, the area has been chosen for residence, business, tourism as well as recreation and entertainment. However, these natural resources are threatened by degradation due to an increasing intensity of land uses and various policies that have been implemented. The survey focuses on the problems this area faces and the possibilities to maintain or increase the quality of natural resources.

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.

Land use change can have a strong impact on soil carbon dynamics and carbon stocks in urban areas. Due to rapid urbanization, large areas of land have been paved, and other areas have undergone rapid land use change. Evaluation of the impact of urbanization on carbon dynamics and carbon stock (30 cm) has become an issue of urgent concern. The soil carbon dynamics, due to rapid land use change in Tianjin Binhai New Area of China, have been simulated in this paper using the RothC model.

The ways society use and occupy space occur in multiple dimensions; however, the ways we manage and administer space relies on two-dimensional information representations (2D). The legal ambiguity and administrative limitations inherent in such practices are becoming increasingly pronounced within land administration especially for urban areas.

Urbanization increases impervious area, generates pollution and transforms the configuration, composition and context of land covers and thus has direct or indirect impacts on aquatic systems. Detecting land use-water quality relationships is of significance for both urban sustainable development and environmental risk management.

Socioecological theory, developed through the study of urban environments, has recently led to a proliferation of research focusing on comparative analyses of cities. This research emphasis has been concentrated in the more developed countries of the Northern Hemisphere (often referred to as the “Global North”), yet urbanization is now occurring mostly in the developing world, with the fastest rates of growth in sub‐Saharan Africa.

While diverse, native riparian vegetation provides important functions, it remains unclear to what extent these assemblages can persist in urban areas, and under what conditions. We characterized forested riparian vegetation communities across an urbanizing metropolitan area and examined their relationships with surrounding land cover. We hypothesized that native and hydrophilic species assemblages would correlate with forest cover in the landscape.

This work describes a methodology for Strategic Environmental Assessment of urban areas in Latin America based on the recently approved European Planning Directive, and applies it to the Metropolitan Area of Concepción (Chile). The method is based on the Land Suitability Index (LSI), a cartographic GIS-based index originally developed for the region of Barcelona (Spain) and aimed at determining the suitability of each point in a region for urban development, considering three sub-indexes: (i) Naturalness, (ii) Ecological Connectivity and (iii) Natural Risk.

Coyotes (Canis latrans) have expanded to live in urban areas with limited natural habitat. A year long coyote howl survey combined with geospatial information systems (GIS) was applied to locate populations within a metropolitan region, to determine the habitats where coyotes most frequently occur, and to estimate group sizes within this urbanized region. Surveys were conducted along the perimeters of natural areas and urban-residential communities.

Extensive groundwater withdrawals in urban areas may cause water shortages, land subsidence, and water quality problems. The Quetta Valley is the largest population center in Balochistan province in western Pakistan. This area is arid and groundwater is the main water source for domestic and agricultural use. This work presents global positioning system (GPS) data and assessment of spatial and temporal variations in water levels. GPS data from two stations from mid-2006 to the beginning of 2009 show subsidence rate of 10� cm\year.