Wetlands provide vital ecosystem services such as water purification, flood control, and climate moderation among others, which enhance environmental quality, promote public health, and contribute to risk reduction. The biggest threat to wetlands is posed by human activities which transform wetlands, often for short-term consumptive benefits. This paper aimed to classify and map recent land cover and provide a multi-temporal analysis of changes from 2002 to 2014 in the Nakivubo wetland through which wastewater from Kampala city drains to Lake Victoria in Uganda.

The present study compares the effectiveness of two common preclassification change detection (CD) methods that use two-dimensional data space of spectral-textural (S-T) change information. The methods are principal component analysis (PCA) and change vector analysis (CVA) in the Gorgan Township area, Golestn Province, Iran. A series of texture-based information was calculated mainly to separate those land use/land cover (LULC) conversions that are spectrally indistinguishable and also to provide a basis for automatic classification of S-T data space.

We examined the utility of nutrient criteria derived solely from total phosphorus (TP) concentrations in streams (regression models and percentile distributions) and evaluated their ecological relevance to diatom and algal biomass responses. We used a variety of statistics to characterize ecological responses and to develop concentration-based nutrient criteria (derived from ecological effects) for streams in Connecticut, USA, where urbanization is the primary cause of watershed alteration.

A complete, spatially explicit dataset illustrating the 21st century mining footprint for the conterminous United States does not exist. To address this need, we developed a semi‐automated procedure to map the country's mining footprint (30‐m pixel) and establish a baseline to monitor changes in mine extent over time. The process uses mine seed points derived from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S.

Ashfall and pyroclastic flows from the large eruption of June 1991 destroyed much of the vegetation on the flanks of Mt. Pinatubo. Subsequent vegetation recovery has helped stabilize slopes and reduce debris flow hazard. In this project, visible and near-infrared (VNIR) satellite imagery from the advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer (ASTER) captured at a similar time of year in 2001, 2004 and 2008 were used to quantify vegetation recovery within 22 upland watersheds on the mountain, 10–16 years after the eruption took place.

It is challenging to perform spatial geochemical modelling due to the spatial heterogeneity features of geochemical variables. Meanwhile, high quality geochemical maps are needed for better environmental management. Soil organic C (SOC) distribution maps are required for improvements in soil management and for the estimation of C stocks at regional scales. This study investigates the use of a geographically weighted regression (GWR) method for the spatial modelling of SOC in Ireland. A total of 1310 samples of SOC data were extracted from the National Soil Database of Ireland.

We assessed past and present vegetation patterns in relation to land use on a municipal commonage in South Africa. We asked specifically whether the reassignment of the commonage for the use of historically disadvantaged town residents after 1994 has impacted negatively on the vegetation of the commonage. Analysis of land cover change using aerial photography time series revealed that the most significant human impacts on the Bathurst commonage occurred prior to 1942 due to heavy and uncontrolled communal land use.

The availability during the last decades of remotely sensed images and global climatic data allow us to analyse the “Earth system” as a whole in order to develop concepts for global environmental management. This system can be considered a complex, dissipative, dynamic entity, far from thermodynamic equilibrium (Schellnhuber, 1999). Energy balance has been considered for many decades to understand the functioning of ecosystems, the biosphere or the Earth planet as a whole, but it is also possible to study our planet from a thermodynamic point of view.

Groundwater resources of the Tarsus coastal plain (Mersin, Turkey) are being exploited heavily for a variety of purposes and they are under a serious threat from nonpoint source pollution from the conflicting land use practices and saltwater intrusion due to overpumping. In this study, vulnerability of groundwater to nonpoint source pollution was assessed using GIS techniques and employing both Generic and Pesticide DRASTIC models. Calculated vulnerability indices ranged between 68–206 and 69–236 for Generic and Pesticide DRASTIC, respectively.

Due to the accelerated growth of society, the gaps between the capacity of ecosystems to provide services and human needs are steadily widening. Natural, semi-natural, or managed ecosystems had been able to provide ecosystem services to meet the needs of social development. Four agricultural ecosystem services (net primary production (NPP), carbon sequestration and oxygen production (CSOP), water interception, soil conservation and agriculture production) were quantified in Guanzhong-Tianshui economic region.

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.

Knowledge of resource selection patterns can provide important information for species conservation. During spring 2010 and 2011, we investigated habitat selection by territorial rock ptarmigan Lagopus muta helvetica males in a protected area of the western Italian Alps. We located males from 30 randomly selected survey points, and we measured the proportions of cover-type categories found within a 37-ha area surrounding each observed bird using three classification maps of differing information and resolution.