Fractal geometry has sparked considerable interest for analyzing remote sensing imageries. Fractal models have been used in several image processing and pattern recognition applications such as texture analysis and classification. Applications of fractal geometry in remote sensing rely heavily on estimation of the fractal dimension (D). When land areas are clustered into groups of similar land ...

It has been commonly acknowledged that the current global mapping projects have encountered the accuracy challenge. By conducting a comparison among the four existing global land cover datasets (MODIS LC, GLC2000, GLCNMO and GLOBCOVER), it has been identified that certain areas’ accuracy has dragged down the overall accuracy of these global land cover datasets. In this paper, those areas have b...

Researchers have independently documented the effects of land use on rivers and threats to river management institutions, but the relationship between changes in institutional context and river condition is not well described. This study assesses the connections between resource management institutions, land use, and rivers by integrating social science, geospatial analysis, and geomorphology. ...

In land use planning, mapping the present land use / land cover situation is a necessary tool for determining the current condition and for identifying land use trends. In this study, in order to provide a land use/ land cover map for Ilam watershed, the IRS-1C image data from 25th April 2006 were used. Initial qualitative evaluation on data showed no significant radiometric error. Ortho-rectif...

The objectives of the study are (1) to examine the effects of land cover type, green biomass, and solar zenith angle (SZA) on the bidirectional reflectance distributions (BRDs) of the visible and near-infrared advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) data from NOAA 11 over terrestrial surfaces; and (2) to correct for these effects by developing BRD functions (BRDF). Four land cover type...

Impacts of land cover changes on watershed hydrology have been a long-term academic concern with acute dispute. But little attention has been paid to such effects on mesoscale river basins, where the society has a closer link to river hydrology. The present study focuses on a mesoscale river basin, the Suomo Basin that is located on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Land covers in the bas...

Taking Harare metropolitan province in Zimbabwe as an example, we classified Landsat imagery (1984, 2002, 2008 and 2013) by using support vector machines (SVMs) and analyzed built-up and non-built-up changes. The overall classification accuracy for the four dates ranged from 89% to 95%, while the overall kappa varied from 86% to 93%. The results demonstrate that SVMs provide a cost-effective te...