Urbanization in China accompanies economic development and population growth. Changes in land use leads to changes in both meteorological and chemical fields. In this study, the impact of land use change in Jing-Jin-Ji (JJJ, indicating Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei) and Yangtze River Delta (YRD) areas on meteorology and ozone concentrations are studied using the WRF–Chem model. Land use change is represented by two different land cover data sets: USGS and MODIS.

CONTEXT: Understanding the consequences of changes in land use and land cover is among the greatest challenges in sustainability science, yet key themes related to land cover change are often left out of sustainability assessment tools. Because sustainability teaching is expanding at a rapid rate, incorporation of interdisciplinary, rigorous, quantitative tools to distinguish sustainable and unsustainable landscape change are needed.

Human conversion of land cover alters biotic communities and sets the stage for ongoing change as species interact within new environments. We studied the response of a native forest specialist, the Pacific wren (Troglodytes pacificus), to immediate and ongoing environmental changes facilitated by urbanization. We found evidence of a synergistic effect of native land cover loss followed by increased aggressive interactions with a native generalist, the Bewick’s wren (Thryomanes bewickii), resulting in the decline of Pacific wrens in urbanizing environments.

This study detects patterns of land-use and land-cover changes in the last three decades (1972–2004) and analyses its causative factors in the Upper Dijo River catchment, Midwest escarpment of Ethiopian Rift Valley. Data captured through the synergy of an aerial photo, satellite image and ground-based socio-economic survey were analysed by GIS and SPSS. The results showed a decline in shrub-grassland and riverine trees at 21.5 and 16.3 ha per year, respectively, and increase in plantation trees, annual crops and bare/open grasslands at 2.8, 12.5 and 24.8 ha per year, respectively.

To learn the forest dynamics and evaluate the ecosystem services of forest effectively, a timely acquisition of spatial and quantitative information of forestland is very necessary. Here, a new method was proposed for mapping forest cover changes by combining multi-scale satellite remote-sensing imagery with time series data.

We exploited publicly available satellite- and aircraft-based imagery to estimate urban vegetation cover fraction and land use by class for a semiarid urban area that includes Phoenix, AZ, USA, using low-cost and technologically modest tools. This technique is also used to evaluate two satellite-derived tree cover datasets as well as to compare estimates from the present study with land cover data generated from another study performed using the same study domain.

Species distribution models are often used to study the biodiversity of ecosystems. The modelling process uses a number of parameters to predict others, such as the occurrence of determinate species, population size, habitat suitability or biodiversity. It is well known that the heterogeneity of landscapes can lead to changes in species’ abundance and biodiversity. However, landscape metrics depend on maps and spatial scales when it comes to undertaking a GIS analysis.

The structure and the spatio-temporal dynamics of the mixed beech–silver fir–Norway spruce old-growth forest of Biogradska Gora (Montenegro) have been analysed at different spatial scales: at the landscape scale, using a high-resolution SPOT5 satellite image and at the stand level with an intensive field survey. This remote-sensing approach has been used to obtain a land cover map in order to define the main vegetation types and to detect the large canopy gaps (>150 m ²).

Counter intuition, an analysis of tree‐line position across the Swiss Alps based on a geographical information system (GIS) with a spatial resolution of 100 m (2.5 million points) revealed no difference in climatic tree‐line altitude with slope exposure. Through step wise discrimination procedures our analysis accounts for anthropogenic tree‐line depression. Any land cover bias affects the frequency of GIS‐points corresponding to tree‐line forests rather than the mean elevation of such points, captured by our analysis.

Recent studies have suggested that the hydrologic connectivity of northern headwater catchments is likely controlled by antecedent moisture conditions and land cover patterns. A water storage model (EWS), based on water levels (WLs), specific yield (Sy) and surface elevation (SE) changes, was compared with a basic water budget of a small, boreal, patterned fen (13 ha) during the ice‐free period. Results showed that the EWS model reproduced well storage variations derived from the water budget.

AIM: The species–area relationship (SAR) is a prominent concept for predicting species richness and biodiversity loss. A key step in defining SARs is to accurately estimate the slope of the relationship, but researchers typically apply only one global (canonical) slope. We hypothesized that this approach is overly simplistic and investigated how geographically varying determinants of SARs affect species richness estimates of vascular plants at the global scale. LOCATION: Global.

The maintenance and restoration of high-quality habitats of wildlife species in alpine ecosystems are key issues in conservation biology. The rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta helvetica), which prefers open habitats above the treeline, is listed in Annex II of the EU Bird Directive. Large areas identified as potentially important for conservation and restricted financial resources for the implementation of conservation activities necessitate the development of tools supporting habitat monitoring and management.