[1] This study investigates the performances of four major global Leaf Area Index (LAI) products at 1/11.2! spatial sampling and a monthly time step: ECOCLIMAP climatology, GLOBCARBON (from SPOT/VEGETATION and ATSR/AATSR), CYCLOPES (from SPOT/VEGETATION) and MODIS Collection 4 (main algorithm, from MODIS/TERRA). These products were intercompared during the 2001–2003 period over the BELMANIP net...

Incorporating ecological information into image-based vegetation mapping remains a challenge. Much attention has been placed on the use of ancillary information layers in image classification (e.g. slope, aspect, elevation) in that they provide indirect links to information that is ecologically relevant to species distributions. The objective of this study was to assess the utility of incorpora...

The Mirabad protected area (S. Azarbaijan, Iran) has a variety of ecological nurseries due to elevation of the sea, physiographic factors, micro-climates and soil types, and has high vegetation diversity. Mirabad protected area in the Piranshahr-Sardasht axis is between the latitudes of 36° 23' and 36° 31' north, and the lengths 45° 15' and 45° 25', with an area of ​​11435 ha, in the elevation ...

Crop growth and yield monitoring over agricultural fields is an essential procedure for food security and agricultural economic return prediction. The advances in remote sensing have enhanced the process of monitoring the development of agricultural crops and estimating their yields. Therefore, remote sensing and GIS techniques were employed, in this study, to predict potato tuber crop yield on...

Analysis of spatial and temporal changes of vegetation cover using remote sensing (RS) technology, in conjunction with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), is becoming increasingly important in environmental conservation. The objective of this study was to use RS data and GIS techniques to assess the vegetation cover in 1989 and 2009, in the barangays (smallest administrative units) of the cit...

River floodplains in the Netherlands serve as water storage areas, while they also have the function of nature rehabilitation areas. Floodplain vegetation is therefore subject to natural processes of vegetation succession. At the same time, vegetation encroachment obstructs the water flow into the floodplains and increases the flood risk for the hinterland. Spaceborne pointable imaging spectros...

Riparian forest vegetation is widely believed to protect riverbanks from erosion, but few studies have quantified the effect of riparian vegetation removal on rates of river channel migration. Measured historical changes in a river channel centreline, combined with mapped changes in floodplain vegetation, provide an opportunity to test how riparian vegetation cover affects the erodibility of ri...

Land change in the Greater Antilles differs markedly among countries because of varying socioeconomic histories and global influences. We assessed land change between 2001 and 2010 in municipalities (second administrative units) of Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. Our analysis used annual land-use/land-cover maps derived from MODIS satellite imagery to model linear cha...

Terrestrial vegetation influences climate by modifying the radiative-, momentum-, and hydrologicbalance. This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the question whether positive biogeophysical feedbacks between vegetation and climate may lead to multiple equilibria in vegetation and climate and consequent abrupt regime shifts. Several modelling studies argue that vegetation-climate feedbac...