This paper is intended to highlight the capabilities of synergistic usage of remote sensing, landscape metrics and gradient analysis. We aim to improve the understanding of spatial characteristics and effects of urbanization on city level. Multisensoral and multitemporal remotely sensed data sets from the Landsat and TerraSAR-X sensor enable monitoring a long time period with area-wide informat...

This paper intended to examine the seasonal variations in the relationship between landscape pattern and land surface temperature based on a case study of Indianapolis, United States. The integration of remote sensing, GIS, and landscape ecology methods was used in this study. Four Terra's ASTER images were used to derive the landscape patterns and land surface temperatures (LST) in four season...

The landscape pattern of Daqing City, China, has undergone a significant change over the past 20 years, as a result of the rapid urbanization process. To understand how urbanization has influenced the landscape in Daqing City, the largest base of the petrochemical industry in China, we conducted a series of spatial analyses with landscape pattern maps obtained from Landsat images in 1979, 1990 ...

BACKGROUND West Nile virus infection in humans in urban areas of the Midwestern United States has exhibited strong spatial clustering during epidemic years. We derived urban landscape classes from the physical and socio-economic factors hypothesized to be associated with West Nile Virus (WNV) transmission and compared those to human cases of illness in 2002 in Chicago and Detroit. The objective...

Landscape transformations in the rapidly urbanizing landscape are the most dynamic process altering the local ecology, hydrology and environment. This necessitates understanding of spatial patterns of the growth for an effective urban planning. Remote sensing data acquired at regular intervals through satellite borne sensors enables the synoptic monitoring and visualization of urban growth patt...

Habitat loss from urban development threatens native plant populations in many regions of the world. In addition to direct plant mortality, urban intensification potentially impacts pollinator communities and in turn disrupts the pollination mutualisms that are critical to the viability of native plant populations. We placed standardized flowering plant arrays into woodlands along a gradient of...

This study investigated land use changes, and their ecological effects in Wuhan (1987-2005). Remote Sensing techniques extracted land use data, whilst the spatial analyst software, Fragstats quantified ecological metrics at both landscape and class levels. The results showed increased urban and agricultural land uses (1987-2005); with urban land increasing more than 250 percent. This was largel...

Urban environments present unique challenges for landscape designers wishing to incorporate wildlife attractants into their designs. Cities such as Tucson, Arizona that are surrounded by relatively large expanses of native vegetation provide many opportunities for effectively enticing native wildlife into urban spaces. Patches of landscape can be designed that mimic vegetation composition found...

The wildland–urban interface represents landscape change—changes brought about by urbanization, by shifts in forest management, and altered disturbance regimes, each having ecological, social, and economic ramifications. In this chapter, I will focus on some of the ecological ramifications associated with landscape change, primarily forest fragmentation and deforestation, resulting from urbaniz...