Economic and social development of urban rural areas continues in parallel with the increase human population, especially developing countries, which leads to sustained expansion impervious surface areas, particularly paved surfaces. The conversion pervious surfaces significantly modifies local energy balance contributes heat island (UHI) formation, mainly densely developed cities. This paper r...

Estimating the distribution of impervious surface, a major component of the vegetation–impervious surface–soil (V–I–S) model, is important in monitoring urban areas and understanding human activities. Besides its applications in physical geography, such as run-off models and urban change studies, maps showing impervious surface distribution are essential for estimating socio-economic factors, s...

Jacob and Lopez (2009) presents modeling results to support the conclusion that the per capita water quality impacts of urban development decrease significantly with population density. If true, this conclusion would have important implications for land use planning throughout the world. However, as discussed below, the modeling is based on questionable assumptions that likely bias the conclusi...

Headwater streams constitute the majority of stream length of river systems, and have important roles in terms of landscape processes and as habitat for organisms. These bodies of water are also tightly coupled with the local terrestrial landscape, making them ideal for studying linkages between land use and stream condition. Despite the ubiquity and importance of these streams, they are often ...

The urban heat island phenomenon occurs as a mixed result of anthropogenic heat discharge, decreased vegetation, and increased artificial impervious surfaces. To clarify the contribution of each factor to the urban heat island, it is necessary to evaluate the surface heat balance. Satellite remote sensing data of Tainan City, Taiwan, obtained from Terra ASTER and Formosat-2 were used to estimat...

Bioswales are used to attenuate stormwater pollution, but their long-term sustainability regarding sequestered metals is relatively unknown, and a clear rationale for prioritizing soil management lacking. Impervious areas draining into four 14-year-old suburban bioswales were delineated, which surface soils (top 10 cm; 72 samples) sampled; from 4 adjacent reference sites also sampled. Total wat...

This study developed an analytical procedure based upon a spectral unmixing model for characterizing and quantifying urban andscape changes in Indianapolis, Indiana, the United States, and for examining the environmental impact of such changes on land urface temperatures (LST). Three dates of Landsat TM/ETM+ images, acquired in 1991, 1995, and 2000, respectively, were tilized to document the hi...