INTRODUCTION Analyzing trends of land use systems and the changes occurred overtime is an effective way of assessing the impacts of land use/land cover (LULC) changes on ecosystem function. It provides important insights for understanding the spatial patterns of land use processes. The rangelands of southern Ethiopia are adversely affected by increased human population pressure, encroachment of...

Eucalyptus, a short-rotation plantation, has been expanding rapidly in southeast China in recent years owing to its short growth cycle and high yield of wood. Effective identification of eucalyptus, therefore, is important for monitoring land use changes and investigating environmental quality. For this article, we used remote sensing images over 15 years (one per year) with a 30-m spatial reso...

Landform, drainage pattern, slope, soil, vegetation and land use/land cover, all of which control surface runoff and peak flow, can be evaluated and mapped reliably and reasonably through Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) false colour composites of the post-monsoon season. Runoff curve numbers (CAO determined from those data predicted the runoff depth and peak flow with a coefficient of determinatio...

We assembled a time series of 20 Landsat thematic mapper images from 1982 to 1996 for Key Largo, Florida, to ascertain whether satellite imagery can detect temporal changes in coral reef communities. Selected reef and control areas were examined for changes in brightness, spectral reflectance, band ratios, spatial texture, and temporal texture ( pixel-to-pixel change over time). We compared the...

The USDA Forest Service, through its Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, periodically estimates forest/non-forest area at the county level using aerial photographs. Satellite-based remotely sensed data and digital image processing techniques could substantially reduce the time required to generate this information. Satellites collect data on a repeat basis and with higher frequency tha...

The slopes of the Cotswolds Escarpment in the United Kingdom are mantled by extensive landslide deposits, including both relict and active features. These landslides pose a significant threat to engineering projects and have been the focus of research into the use of airborne remote sensing data sets for landslide mapping. Due to the availability of extensive ground investigation data, a test s...

Remotely sensed images collected by the satellites are usually contaminated by the eeects of the atmospheric particles through absorption and scattering of the radiation from the earth surface. The objective of atmospheric correction is to retrieve the surface reeectance from remotely sensed imagery by removing the atmospheric eeects, which is usually performed in two steps. First, the optical ...

Regression analysis was used to develop a relationship between Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper data and site quality of permanent sample plots. The thermal band (6) produced misleading results, but the ratio of band 4 on 5 showed promise when combined with geological information. Best results were obtained when regression analysis was restricted to ensure that at least one each of the visible (1 to 3...

Forest succession is a fundamental ecological process which can impact the functioning of many terrestrial processes, such as water and nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration. Therefore, knowing the distribution of forest successional stages over a landscape facilitates a greater understanding of terrestrial ecosystems. One way of characterizing forest succession over the landscape is to use...