Photosynthetic vegetation (PV) and non-photosynthetic vegetation (NPV) are important ground cover types for desertification monitoring and land management. Hyperspectral remote sensing has been proven effective for separating NPV from bare soil, but few studies determined fractional cover of PV (f pv) and NPV (f npv) using multispectral information. The purpose of this study is to evaluate seve...

The paper reports the recent progress in the radiative transfer model (RTM) development, which serves as the observation operator of a Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS), and its validation at two Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) stations with different weather and land cover conditions: Wenjiang station of humid and cropped field and Gaize station of arid and bare soil field. In situ observed ...

A physically based, variably saturated flow model was developed to predict soil water dynamics, evapotranspiration (ET) from the vadose zone, and recharge to (or exfiltration from) the saturated zone using mean daily atmospheric forcings and to identify the value of diurnal climate forcings on those predictions. The vadose zone flow is modelled using the Galerkin finite element technique to sol...

T he 1999 Purdue Land Values Survey indicates that the value of an acre of average bare Indiana cropland was $2,092 per acre in June 1999. This was $63 less than the value reported in June 1998, a 2.9 percent decrease. This decline ends 11 consecutive years of increasing values. Cash rents declined from 1998 to 1999 on average land by a little less than two percent to $110 per acre. This is the...

Mountainous regions are especially vulnerable to climate and land use change. For a monitoring of subtle changes detailed and continuous land cover information is necessary. Therefore vegetation cover fractions are derived for the Naryn river catchment in Kyrgyzstan using a remote sensing multi-scale approach. First a very high resolution QuickBird image is classified into discrete classes usin...

A remote sensing method utilizing multiband thermal ble to determine in detail these characteristics directly, they are in turn estimated from land surface classifications infrared (8–12 lm) imagery that discriminates between obtained from a combination of ground observations and senescent vegetation and bare soil is described. This disremote sensing data. crimination is achieved by computing t...

The world is witnessing a dramatic shift of settlement pattern from rural to urban population, particularly in developing countries. The rapid Addis Ababa urbanization reflects this global phenomenon and the subsequent socio-economic and environmental impacts, are causing massive public uproar and political instability. The objective of this study was to use remotely sensed Landsat data to iden...

This study analyzed more than 50 years of land cover and land use changes in the 260 km 2 Koga catchment in North Western Ethiopia. The data used includes 1:50,000 scale aerial photographs, Landsat MSS, TM and ETM images, and ASTER images together with ground truth data collected through field surveys and community elders’ interviews. Aerial photographs have high spatial resolution but provide ...

Based on land use and land cover (LULC) datasets in the late 1970s, the early 1990s, 2004 and 2012, we analyzed characteristics of LULC change in the headwaters of the Yangtze River and Yellow River over the past 30 years contrastively, using the transition matrix and LULC change index. The results showed that, in 2012, the LULC in the headwaters of the Yellow River were different compared to t...

Timberland owners have used a number of approaches for monetizing the barelan component of their timberland without losing the right to grow and harvest timber, including, among others: selling a working-forest conservation easement, selling recreational rights, and selling the surface while retaining cutting rights. In this paper, I will address the latter approach, with an emphasis on the opp...