land cover

Elephant-induced thicket degradation in the Addo Elephant National Park (AENP), Eastern Cape, South Africa, was assessed during 1973 and 2010 using multitemporal satellite imagery. Changes in the thicket condition, in relation to the AENP expansion, were analyzed using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, postclassification, and landscape metrics.

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.

Regional climate is influenced by land surface processes through energy exchange between land and atmosphere at various scales. The performance of climate model simulation is largely influenced by land cover parameterization, especially over areas that experience rapid change of land surface characterization.

Climate change is causing range shifts in many species, and impacts are predicted to be highest in mountain regions. The effectiveness of protected areas in preserving suitable habitats for target species in the face of climate change is particularly concerning, as many protected sites may lose suitable conditions for those species.

We measured bidirectional arthropod fluxes at 12 river reaches distributed across an urban‐rural gradient of riparian land use and land cover in the Scioto River system of Ohio (U.S.A.). For the terrestrial‐to‐aquatic arthropod flux (i.e.

Increasing land utilization through diverse forms of human activities, such as agriculture, forestry, urban growth, and industrial development, has led to negative impacts on the water quality of rivers.

Context Coyotes (Canis latrans) have adapted successfully to human landscape alteration in the past 150 years and in recent decades have successfully moved into urban areas. While this causes concern about human–wildlife conflicts, research also suggests that coyotes tend to avoid humans and human activity in urban areas.

Super resolution mapping is a continuously growing area of remote sensing. Satellite images coupled with a very high spectral resolution, and are suitable for detection and classification of surfaces and different elements in the observed image.

Irregular shape of terrain causes variable illumination angles and diverse reflectance values within same land cover type in optical remote sensing image. It causes problems in image segmentation and misclassification (snow with other land cover).

While it is clear that many migratory behaviors are shared across taxa, generalizable models that predict the distribution and abundance of migrating taxa at the landscape scale are rare. In migratory landbirds, ephemeral concentrations of refueling birds indicate that individual behaviors sometimes produce large epiphenomena in particular geographic locations.

Quantification of landscape pattern is of primary interest in landscape ecological studies. For quantification purposes, a large number of landscape metrics have been developed, with definitions based on measurable patch attributes. Calculation of these metrics is commonly conducted on wall-to-wall maps, whereas a new interest is to use sample data.

Aquarius satellite observations over land offer a new resource for measuring soil moisture from space. Although Aquarius was designed for ocean salinity mapping, our objective in this investigation is to exploit the large amount of land observations that Aquarius acquires and extend the mission scope to include the retrieval of surface soil moisture.