The state of conservation of Atlantic Forest in the Maquiné river basin was assessed using land cover data obtained from Landsat TM 5 satellite imagery (October 1995). The initial analysis examined the distribution of the relative areas of each land-cover type according to landscape slope classes, potential vegetation zones, and a 90 m riparian buffer. Land-cover classes were then regrouped int...

Precipitation and temperature enact variable influences on vegetation, impacting the type and condition of land cover, as well as the assessment of change over broad landscapes. Separating the influence of vegetative variability independent and discrete land cover change remains a major challenge to landscape change assessments. The heterogeneous Lerma-Chapala-Santiago watershed of central Mexi...

Remotely sensed multi-spectral and -spatial data facilitates the study of mosquito-borne disease vectors and their response to land use and cover composition in the urban environment. In this study we assess the feasibility of integrating remotely sensed multispectral reflectance data and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging)-derived height information to improve land use and land cover classific...

Equilibrium experiments with the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory’s climate model are used to investigate the impact of anthropogenic land cover change on climate. Regions of altered land cover include large portions of Europe, India, eastern China, and the eastern United States. Smaller areas of change are present in various tropical regions. This study focuses on the impacts of biophysic...

Polarimetry is the measurement and interpretation of different polarizations of electro-magnetic waves. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has been proven to be a powerful earth observation tool and emerging Polarimetric SAR (POLSAR) adds another dimension to SAR information content. Polarimetric SAR has been used in retrieval of soil moisture and surface roughness, snow and ice mapping and land-co...

  Application of gepraphic information system and image processing in evaluation of surface runoff of a watershed in recent years has increased greatly. In the study , the runoff curve number map was prepared using geographic information system (GIS)and Landsat Sattelite Images (ETM+)for two watersheds of Mansourabad in southern Khorasan province and Navroud in Gilan province based on the facto...

The Taita Hills, located in south-eastern Kenya, is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. Despite the recognized ecological importance of this region, the landscape has been heavily fragmented due to hundreds of years of human activity. Most of the natural vegetation has been converted for agroforestry, croplands and exotic forest plantations, resulting in a very heterogeneous landscape. Gi...

Protected areas cover over 12% of the terrestrial surface of Earth, and yet many fail to protect species and ecological processes as originally envisioned. Results of recent studies suggest that a critical reason for this failure is an increasing contrast between the protected lands and the surrounding matrix of often highly altered land cover. We measured the isolation of 114 protected areas d...

Reflectance characteristics of human settlements influence energy fluxes in the physical environment as well as our ability to monitor urban growth with satellite-based sensors. Spectral heterogeneity at the scales of 10 to 30 meters complicate the traditional land cover classifications derived from moderate resolution satellite imagery in urban and suburban areas. In this study we consider pop...