The accuracy assessment of land cover maps is traditionally based on reference sample observations randomly selected over the study area. It is assumed that reference sample observations, representing the “real” land cover at Earth’s surface, are free of errors. However, some of these may be erroneous. These errors are sometimes due to an uncertainty in the identification of the most adequate r...

The objective of this study is to assess the accuracy of various satellite-derived land cover maps classified using a hybrid pixel-based and object-based image analysis technique. A 2006 QuickBird image covering a part of the eastern side of Tsukuba City, Japan, was used to derive the land cover maps. First, we classified the image using a pixel-based technique. Second, we generated five differ...

Deforestation due to ever-increasing activities of the growing human population has been an issue of major concern for the global environment. It has been especially serious in the last several decades in the developing countries. A population-deforestation model has been developed by the authors to relate the population density with the cumulative forest loss, which is defined and computed as ...

Predicting the impact of land cover and climate change on hydrologic responses using modeling tools are essential in understanding the movement and pattern of hydrologic processes within the watershed. The paper provided potential implications of land conversions and climate change scenarios on the hydrologic processes of Muleta watershed using soil and water assessment tool model. Model inputs...

Remotely sensed imagery is an attractive source of information for mapping and monitoring land cover. Fine spatial resolution imagery is typically acquired infrequently, but fine temporal resolution systems commonly provide coarse spatial resolution imagery. Sub-pixel land cover change mapping is a method that aims to use the advantages of these multiple spatial and temporal resolution sensing ...

  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...

Production and prediction of land-use/land cover changes (LULCC) map are among the significant issues regarding input of many environmental and hydrological models. Among various introduced methods, similarity-weighted instance-based machine learning algorithm (SimWeight) and Markov-chain with lower complexity and proper performnce are frequently used. The main aim of this study is utilizing Si...

Land cover data derived from satellites are commonly used to prescribe inputs to models of the land surface. Since such data inevitably contains errors, quantifying how uncertainties in the data affect a model’s output is important. To do so, a spatial distribution of possible land cover values is required to propagate through the model’s simulation. However, at large scales, such as those requ...

Statewide land cover change detection analysis provides a useful tool for conservation planning and environmental monitoring and addresses issues of habitat fragmentation and urban sprawl. Furthermore, using historical and recent land cover data offers two perspectives on landscape dynamics. To this end, the first alliance level land cover map of Kansas recently completed by the KARS Program wa...