Migration and population growth lead in coastal zones, especially in developing countries like Benin in Western Africa, to extreme land use pressure, causing ecological as well as land cover and land use changes, socio-economic modifications, and conflicts of interest and generational conflicts. To detect those fast-moving processes area-wide remains almost impossible in developing countries due to the lack of official statistics, often restricted remote sensing data, and limited financial resources.

Remote-sensing data for protected areas in northern Togo, obtained in three different years (2007, 2000, and 1987), were used to assess and map changes in land cover and land use for this drought prone zone. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was applied to the images to map changes in vegetation. An unsupervised classification, followed by classes recoding, filtering, identifications, area computing and post-classification process were applied to the composite of the three years of NDVI images.

An understanding of changes in Amazonian landscapes depends on documentation about alterations in land cover. This article highlights the efforts of the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazônia (LBA) related to the topic. In particular, a longitudinal study has analyzed the social and biophysical dimensions of land use/land cover, using a multi-scalar georeferenced approach. The study areas represent a gradient of soil fertility in Amazônia and include distinct landscape mosaics, from the Amazon estuary and the Bragantina region to northeastern Rondônia.

Land degradation and global warming are currently highly active research topics. Land degradation can both change land cover and surface climate and significantly influence atmospheric circulation. Researches have verified that carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) are major greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere and are directly affected by human activity. However, to date, there is no research on the spatial distribution of GHG concentrations and also no research on how land degradations affect GHG concentrations in arid and semi-arid regions.

Soil and water conservation measures including terracing, afforestation, construction of sediment‐trapping dams, and the ‘Grain for Green Program’ have been extensively implemented in the Yanhe River watershed, of the Loess Plateau, China, over the last six decades, and have resulted in large‐scale land use and land cover changes. This study examined the trends and shifts in streamflow regime over the period of 1953–2010 and relates them to changes in land use and soil and water conservation and to the climatic factors of precipitation and air temperature.

This paper investigates the interplay of the catchment geomorphology, hydrology and soil properties on the development of waterlogging and land degradation within different dry land catchments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Multi-temporal remote sensing data of the Landsat Thematic Mapper and Enhanced Thematic Mapper were collected and processed to detect the land cover changes and development of cultivations within the two areas.

The associations between floristic and palynological richness and landscape structure were studied based on modern pollen–vegetation data from a patchy cultural landscape in southern Estonia (northern temperate vegetation zone). Nine study sites (small lakes and their surrounding vegetation) represent land cover gradient from closed forest to semi-open vegetation. Floristic richness (number of species) and floristic richness of pollen types (number of pollen-equivalent taxa) were used to describe the vegetation within the radius of 250 m from the pollen sampling sites.

Accurate quality information on cloud occurrence is of utmost importance for a wide range of remote-sensing applications and analyses. This study compares the two existing cloud mask products available for the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), stored in the quality layer of the MOD09 daily surface reflectance product. For both masks, statistics on cloud occurrence are calculated for 1 year of daily surface reflectance data covering the area of southeast Asia.

Land-use changes and land cover strongly influence carbon stock and distribution within ecosystems. Changing the land-use from natural forest to other land-uses has been more rapid in the past few decades than at any time in Iran’s history. In this study, we investigated the effects of changing the land-use from natural forest to other land-uses on carbon stocks in northern Iran. We selected five sites for this study: (I) a natural forest, (II) an agricultural field and (III) plantations of three different species (Alnus subcordata. L, Acer velutinum.Boiss and Cupressus sempervirens).

As the global population urbanizes, dramatic changes are expected in city lighting and the urban form, which may threaten the functioning of urban ecosystems and the services they deliver. However, little is known about the ecological impact of lighting in different urban contexts. Movement is an important ecological process that can be disrupted by artificial lighting. We explored the impact of lighting on gap crossing for Pipistrellus pipistrellus, a species of bat (Chiroptera) common within UK cities.

Flow and concentrations of suspended sediment, nitrate-N, phosphate-P, atrazine, and metolachlor were monitored during the spring seasons of 1998 and 1999, primarily during storm events, at a tributary station (Big Ditch) and two main-stem stations (Fisher and Mahomet) of the Upper Sangamon River watershed in east central Illinois. These three stations respectively drain 98, 622, and 932 km 2 of mainly agricultural lands. Rainfall data were collected from six newly established raingage stations.