A framework is described that has been used to assess the effect of the European Commission's Agenda 2000 proposal on the Dumfries and Galloway region, Scotland. The model assesses the impact of agriculture on land-use patterns, the environment and socio-economics of the region. It incorporates a farm-type linear programming sub-model with environmental and socio-economic sub-models.

Accurate built-up information is imperative for loss estimation and disaster management after the occurrence of catastrophic events such as earthquake, tornado, tsunami and flood. These catastrophic events leave behind a trail of mass destruction with property and human losses amounting to millions. Once a natural disaster hits a region, built-up information is required within a short span of time for disaster management. Nowadays, earth observation satellite imagery serves as a promising source to extract the land use / land cover classes.

In this study, the impact of the rapid rate of urbanization over the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region of China since the 1980s on its seasonal climate is investigated using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model. Two land-cover data are employed to simulate the urbanization effects on the regional climate in both summer (June and August) and winter (December and February) for 26 years from 1984 to 2009. Spatial and temporal features of the urbanization effect on temperature and precipitation are found to be different between summer and winter.

The structure and function of network is a central issue in landscape ecology. Road networks with hierarchical structure are crucial for understanding landscape dynamics. In this study, we compared the distribution of national road, provincial road, county road and rural road in the Three Parallel Rivers Region (TPRR) in Yunnan Province of China, and estimated the effect of roads (and other factors) on the spatial patterns of land use and land cover with logistic regression.

In this article we investigate if qualitative soil fertility datasets derived during participatory processes can be combined with a corresponding land use change model (i) to improve the understanding of the social-ecological complexity of land use change and (ii) to allow testing of alternative scenarios even in data-poor environments. To test this hypothesis, a participatory assessment approach was combined with the spatially explicit, soil fertility driven FALLOW (Forest, Agroforest, Low-value Landscape Or Wasteland?) model.

Geographical information systems (GIS)-based approaches support the traditional empirical assessment and monitoring measures to indicate large-scale environmental alterations caused by global change. We examined the relationship between cover patterns of emergent aquatic plants derived from the CORINE land cover database, and environmental gradients (i.e. lake, climate and land cover and soil variables) at four different buffer scales (50m, 100m, 300m and 500m) in 408 boreal lakes in Finland.

The identification of land cover changes on a continental scale is a laborious and time-consuming process. A new methodology is proposed based exclusively on SPOT VGT data, illustrated for the African Continent using GLC2000 as reference to select 26 distinct land cover types (classes).

Land cover is one of the most changeable environment components in time and space. The type, intensity and spatial distribution of land use forms result directly from the actual and former character of agriculture. In this study, an attempt was made to assess the impact of loess relief on the spatial diversity of land use patch features. The research was carried out within three test areas covering a total of about 100km². The test areas are located within the loess areas of SE Poland. Spatial analyses were carried out using GIS software.

This paper examines the size and intensity of changes among five land categories during the two time intervals in a region of Indonesia that is pioneering negotiations concerning reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). Maps at 1973, 1993, and 2005 indicate that land-cover change is accelerating, while carbon loss is decelerating in Jambi Province, Sumatra. Land dynamics have shifted from Forest loss during 1973–1993 to Agroforest loss during 1993–2005.

PURPOSE: Soil particle-size distribution (PSD) is an important soil physical property. Single- and multi-fractal models are increasingly used to characterize soil properties and may provide additional information. The Yellow River Delta is one of the best representative examples of river ecosystem wetlands in the world. In this area, different land resource development patterns strongly influence soil structure and fertility.

Agronomic intensification has transformed many agricultural landscapes into expansive monocultures with little natural habitat. A pervasive concern is that such landscape simplification results in an increase in insect pest pressure, and thus an increased need for insecticides. We tested this hypothesis across a range of cropping systems in the Midwestern United States, using remotely sensed land cover data, data from a national census of farm management practices, and data from a regional crop pest monitoring network.

North Korea used to have abundant forest stocks but underwent substantial deforestation and degradation of forest in recent decades. This study examined morphological changes of forest cover in North Korea between the 1980s and 2000s. Land cover data based on Landsat TM imagery were obtained as images from the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Environment. The images were processed and used for the morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA) and network analysis. MSPA classified the forest cover into morphological classes such as core, islet, bridge, perforation, edge, loop, and branch.