Land degradation and global warming are currently highly active research topics. Land degradation can both change land cover and surface climate and significantly influence atmospheric circulation. Researches have verified that carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) are major greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere and are directly affected by human activity. However, to date, there is no research on the spatial distribution of GHG concentrations and also no research on how land degradations affect GHG concentrations in arid and semi-arid regions.

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.

Reinterpretation of vegetation and climatic conditions of Anatolia and neighboring regions during Last Glacial (30–15 cal ka BP) have been done using a non-quantitative biomization approach based on previously published plant functional types. The results suggest that the climate was cold and humid before ∼25 cal ka BP and also during the period ∼23–19 cal ka BP (except East Anatolia). Forest vegetation was 80–90% of the land cover in the northwestern Anatolia and Black Sea coast, and 50–60% along the Mediterranean coast at the same period.

Non‐native, invasive grasses have been linked to altered grass‐fire cycles worldwide. Although a few studies have quantified resulting changes in fire activity at local scales, and many have speculated about larger scales, regional alterations to fire regimes remain poorly documented. We assessed the influence of large‐scale Bromus tectorum (hereafter cheatgrass) invasion on fire size, duration, spread rate, and interannual variability in comparison to other prominent land cover classes across the Great Basin, USA.

BACKGROUND: South America is one of the most species diverse continents in the world. Within South America diversity is not distributed evenly at both local and continental scales and this has led to the recognition of various areas with unique species assemblages. Several schemes currently exist which divide the continental-level diversity into large species assemblages referred to as biomes.

The associations between floristic and palynological richness and landscape structure were studied based on modern pollen–vegetation data from a patchy cultural landscape in southern Estonia (northern temperate vegetation zone). Nine study sites (small lakes and their surrounding vegetation) represent land cover gradient from closed forest to semi-open vegetation. Floristic richness (number of species) and floristic richness of pollen types (number of pollen-equivalent taxa) were used to describe the vegetation within the radius of 250 m from the pollen sampling sites.

Accurate quality information on cloud occurrence is of utmost importance for a wide range of remote-sensing applications and analyses. This study compares the two existing cloud mask products available for the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), stored in the quality layer of the MOD09 daily surface reflectance product. For both masks, statistics on cloud occurrence are calculated for 1 year of daily surface reflectance data covering the area of southeast Asia.

Land-use changes and land cover strongly influence carbon stock and distribution within ecosystems. Changing the land-use from natural forest to other land-uses has been more rapid in the past few decades than at any time in Iran’s history. In this study, we investigated the effects of changing the land-use from natural forest to other land-uses on carbon stocks in northern Iran. We selected five sites for this study: (I) a natural forest, (II) an agricultural field and (III) plantations of three different species (Alnus subcordata. L, Acer velutinum.Boiss and Cupressus sempervirens).

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.

Flow and concentrations of suspended sediment, nitrate-N, phosphate-P, atrazine, and metolachlor were monitored during the spring seasons of 1998 and 1999, primarily during storm events, at a tributary station (Big Ditch) and two main-stem stations (Fisher and Mahomet) of the Upper Sangamon River watershed in east central Illinois. These three stations respectively drain 98, 622, and 932 km 2 of mainly agricultural lands. Rainfall data were collected from six newly established raingage stations.

The urban matrix was recently shown to be a mosaic of heterogeneous dispersal habitats. We conducted a playback experiment of mobbing calls to examine the probabilities of forest birds to cross a distance of 50m over urban matrix with different land-cover types in an urban area. We treated the reciprocal of the crossing probabilities as a movement resistance for forest birds. We drew resistance surfaces based on the land-cover maps of urban XXX.

This study examined pollution and shrinkage of urban lakes in the rapidly urbanizing city of Dhaka, Bangladesh. A mixed‐method approach was employed, nested within the European Environmental Agency Drivers, Pressure, States, Impacts, Responses Framework and Environmental Systems Analysis tools (as stakeholder and functions analysis methodologies). A variety of stakeholders and policymakers were first interviewed, being asked to participate in an exercise identifying their perceptions of the greatest challenges facing urban lakes in Dhaka.