The change of land use/land cover has been known as an imperative force in environmental alteration, especially in arid and semi-arid areas. This research was mainly aimed to assess the validity of two major types of land change modeling techniques via a three dimensional approach in Birjand urban watershed located in an arid climatic region of Iran. Thus, a Markovian approach based on two suit...

A strategic approach to guide sustainable development of South Gippsland Shire in Victoria (Australia) initiated application of GIS methods in concert with data and experts. Two major models have been developed by the Strategic Resources Planning team at the Department of Natural Resources and Environment using ArcView ModelBuilder to map suitability for agricultural and urban land use. Both mo...

Cropland abandonment is globally widespread and has strong repercussions for regional food security and the environment. Statistics suggest that one of the hotspots of abandoned cropland is located in the drylands of the Aral Sea Basin (ASB), which covers parts of post-Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran. To date, the exact spatial and temporal extents of abandoned cropland remain unclear...

The Land Use Scanner is a spatial model that simulates future land use. Since its development in 1997 it has been applied in many policy-related land use projects. In 2005 a completely revised version became available. In this version land use can be modelled at a more detailed 100 meter resolution as opposed to the original 500 meter resolution. Furthermore the new version offers the possibili...

BACKGROUND The land and ecology suitability for producing pollution-free Chinese medicinal materials should be evaluated based on Geographic Information System (GIS). This study aims to determine production regions for pollution-free Achyranthes bidentata in Tianjin as a case to illustrate the workflow based on GIS. METHODS The slopes, land usage, residential areas and roads were selected to ...

With the acceleration of urbanization and industrialization, regional development is becoming increasingly disordered. Thus, how to balance economic development and ecological protection is a key question. To comprehensively evaluate land development suitability, an evaluation index system for construction land and farmland suitability was established in this study based on natural and social-e...

Pollination is a critical ecosystem service affected by various drivers of land-use change, such as policies and programs aimed at land resources, market values for crop commodities, local land-management decisions, and shifts in climate. The United States is the world's most active market for pollination services by honey bees, and the Northern Great Plains provide the majority of bee colonies...