Ecological risk assessments are used by policy makers and regulatory agencies for balancing and comparing ecological risks associated with environmental hazards. An approach for regional—scale ecological risk assessment is described and demonstrated by modeling environmental risks associated with elevated ozone in a forested region. The demonstration illustrates (1) how a regional—scale risk assessment might be done, (2) the importance of spatial characteristics in considering regional—scale risk, and (3) the necessity of considering terrestrial and aquatic linkages.

Assessments of ecosystem services (ES) and biodiversity (hereafter ecological parameters) provide a comprehensive view of the links between landscapes, ecosystem functioning and human well‐being. The investigation of consistent associations between ecological parameters, called bundles, and of their links to landscape composition and structure is essential to inform management and policy, yet it is still in its infancy.

This paper presents findings of a land-use and land-cover (LULC) change mapping exercise conducted in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Nine LULC classes were mapped from multi-temporal Landsat data of 1974, 1986 and 2000. Special attention was given to the growth or otherwise of agricultural land in relation to other LULC classes. Conversion of one land-use/-cover type to the other was identified, and its effects discussed. Major conversions occurred between agricultural lands, grasslands, evergreen forest, built-up areas and barren land.

Analysis of land-cover change in the seasonal tropical forests of the Southern Yucatán, Mexico presents a number of significant challenges for the fine-scale land-cover information required of land-change science. Subtle variation in mature forest types across the regional ecocline is compounded by vegetation transitions following agricultural land uses. Such complex mapping environments require innovation in multispectral classification methodologies. This research presents an application of a step-wise maximum likelihood/In-Process Classification Assessment (IPCA) procedure.

Integrating social demands into landscape management has been proven difficult because of a lack of suitable measures. In order to address this issue this article describes the development of the Index of Function Suitability (IFS). This offers an integrated conceptual tool for incorporating social demands into landscape management. The IFS links preferences to land cover spatial patterns as it uses quantitative indicators for gauging differences between the preferred landscape patterns by users, for a certain activity related to an amenity function (e.g.

Two-thirds of the total area of Taiwan is mountainous terrain, which is the main groundwater recharge source of the plains region. This study assesses groundwater recharge and exploitative potential zone in the central division of the mountain areas of Taiwan (the middle reaches of the Jhuoshuei River Basin). Basic information from remote sensing and a satellite phantom is collected to set up the basic data maps using elevation, Formosa-II images, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, drainage distribution, slope, aspect ratio, lineament distribution, and land cover.

There is a strong need for accurate and spatially referenced information regarding policy making and model linkage. This need has been expressed by land users, and policy and decision makers in order to estimate both spatially and locally the impacts of European policy (like the Common Agricultural Policy) and/or global changes on farm-groups. These entities are defined according to variables such as altitude, economic size and type of farming (referring to land uses).

CONTEXT: Green infrastructure may improve water quality and mitigate flooding in forest-urban watersheds, but reliably quantifying all benefits is challenging because most land cover maps depend on moderate- to low-resolution data. Complex and spatially heterogeneous landscapes that typify forest-urban watersheds are not fully represented with these types of data. Hence important questions concerning how green infrastructure influences water quality and quantity at different spatial scales remain unanswered.

AIM: A common pattern in biogeography is the scale‐dependent effect of environmental variables on the spatial distribution of species. We tested the role of climatic and land cover variables in structuring the distribution of genetic variation in the grey long‐eared bat, Plecotus austriacus, across spatial scales. Although landscape genetics has been widely used to describe spatial patterns of gene flow in a variety of taxa, volant animals have generally been neglected because of their perceived high dispersal potential. LOCATION: England and Europe.

"This paper develops a plot-level spatial econometric land-use model and estimates it with U.S. Geological Survey Land Cover Trends (LCT) geographic information system panel data for the western halves of the states of Oregon and Washington"--Prelim. p.

Many northern lake‐rich regions are undergoing pronounced hydrological change, yet inadequate knowledge of the drivers of these landscape‐scale responses hampers our ability to predict future conditions. We address this challenge in the thermokarst landscape of Old Crow Flats (OCF) using a combination of remote sensing imagery and monitoring of stable isotope compositions of lake waters over three thaw seasons (2007–2009). Quantitative analysis confirmed that the hydrological behavior of lakes is strongly influenced by catchment vegetation and physiography.

CONTEXT: Tropical forest regeneration is increasingly prominent as agro-pastoral lands are abandoned. Regeneration is characterised as favouring ‘marginal’ lands; however, observations of its drivers are often coarse or simple, leaving doubt as to spatial dynamics and causation. OBJECTIVES: We quantified the spatial dynamics of forest regeneration relative to marginality and remnant forest cover in a 3000 km² pastoral region in northern tropical Australia.