Variations of forest area and vegetation activity in China from 2001 to 2009 were investigated using the IGBP land-cover data and the EVI (Enhanced Vegetation Index) dataset derived from Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products in the 3 years of 2001, 2005, and 2009. The area of forests in China had increased by about 10%, and the changes in EVI-indicated vegetation activity showed large regional differences. The EVI decreased between 2001 and 2005 while it increased between 2005 and 2009 in most areas of southern China.

Due to the progressive increase in population, sustainable development of desert land in Egypt has become a strategic priority in order to meet the increasing demands of a growing population for food and housing. Such obligations require efficient compilation of accurate land-cover information in addition to detailed analysis of archival land-use changes over an extended time span. In this study, we applied a methodology for mapping land cover and monitoring change in patterns related to agricultural development and urban expansion in the desert of the Kom Ombo area.

The territorial approach to rural development highlights the role of local actors, networks, culture, nature and landscape amenities. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) definition of rurality is, however, not capable of dealing with local and community definitions of rurality, which vary from study to study. In everyday life, physical planners, rural policymakers and local rural actors need a consistent definition of rurality.

Rapid and periodic assessment of the impact of land cover change and climate variability on ecosystem services at regional levels is essential to understanding services and sustainability of ecosystems. This study focused on quantifying and assessing the changes in multiple ecosystem services in the Three-River Headwaters Region (TRHR), China in 2000–2012.

In 2013-2014 field research, during which 56 full-height cuts of 5 soil regions of a subband of moderately droughty steppe and steppe with kolkis of Altai Region were put and analysed, was conducted. In the soil cover structure (SCS) the share of chernozem soils is from 65.8% to 68.0%, with prevalence of ordinary chernozems (40.1-48.0%) over lixivious chernozems (17.5-25.7%). Chernozem and meadow and meadow and chernozem soils takes from 13.4% to 18.3%, and the soil of the salted row - from 2.8% to 8.1%.

Bird aircraft collisions (bird strikes) are a recognized safety hazard and land uses that attract birds hazardous to aircraft should be avoided on and near airports. Many airfields contain large areas of anthropogenic grassland habitats, often dominated by cool season grasses. Land managed as native warm season grasses (NWSG) potentially could increase bird strike hazards on and near airports by attracting hazardous birds and harboring small mammals that are prey for hazardous raptors.

The diversity and abundance of wild bees ensures the delivery of pollination services and the maintenance of ecosystem diversity. As previous studies carried out in Central Europe and the US have shown, bee diversity and abundance is influenced by the structure and the composition of the surrounding landscape. Comparable studies have so far not been carried out in the Mediterranean region. The present study examines the influence of Mediterranean landscape context on the diversity and abundance of wild bees. To do this, we sampled bees in 13 sites in olive groves on Lesvos Island, Greece.

Land use and land cover change (LUCC) models frequently employ different accessibility measures as a proxy for human influence on land change processes. Here, we simulate deforestation in Peruvian Amazonia and evaluate different accessibility measures as LUCC model inputs. We demonstrate how the selection, and different combinations, of accessibility measures impact simulation results. Out of the individual measures, time distance to market center catches the essential aspects of accessibility in our study area.

Peri-urban areas are often characterized by valuable natural environments that provide essential life-support functions and ecosystem services for urban residents. Global environmental change has raised concerns over how urbanization and land use and land cover change affect ecosystem services. This study applied systems ecology theory and ecological energetic analysis to value the worth of natural environment and ecosystem services to a socioeconomic system. We begin with a general discussion of peri-urban areas and their ecosystem services.

On the basis of interactions between landscape characteristics and precipitation inputs, watersheds respond differently to different climatic inputs. The objective of this study was to quantitatively characterize controls on runoff generation from two first order micro‐catchments in the Amazonia region. The study investigated the variation of hydrological signatures at micro‐catchment scale and related these to landscape and land cover differences and weather descriptors that control the observed responses.

Classification of the Earth's surface types is one of the important remote-sensing applications of radar polarimetry. An unsupervised classification scheme based on the use of entropy and alpha angle is widely used for land-cover classification using multi-polarization radar images. The polarimetric entropy and the alpha angle are used to characterize a target's randomness and scattering mechanism, respectively. Here, we replace the entropy by the Gini index. Evaluation of the Gini index is computationally efficient.

The aim of this study is to explore the performances of different data fusion techniques for the enhancement of urban features and evaluate the features obtained by the fusion techniques in terms of separation of urban land cover classes when multisource images are under consideration. For the data fusion, multiplicative method, Brovey transform, principal component analysis (PCA), Gram–Schmidt fusion, wavelet-based fusion and Elhers fusion are used and the results are compared.