Ecosystem services are being protected and restored worldwide through payments for ecosystem services in which participants are paid to alter their land-management approaches to benefit the environment. The efficiency of such investments depends on the design of the payment scheme. Land features have been used to measure the environmental benefits of and amount of payment for land enrollment in...

Coastal marine ecosystems can be managed by actions undertaken both on the land and in the ocean. Quantifying and comparing the costs and benefits of actions in both realms is therefore necessary for efficient management. Here, we quantify the link between terrestrial sediment runoff and a downstream coastal marine ecosystem and contrast the cost-effectiveness of marine- and land-based conserva...

A multiobjective optimization model integrating with high-resolution geographical data was applied to examine the optimal switchgrass supply system in Tennessee that considers both feedstock cost and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the system. Results suggest that the type of land converted into switchgrass production is crucial to both plant gate cost and GHG emissions of feedstock. In addit...

Land use in a city has a unique structure, mostly due to the interactions between its spatial configuration and functions, developing into a patchwork of functional regions of various forms. Land price can be seen as one of the indices reflecting these advancements in spatial structure and land use. Through an analysis of the influences of spatial configuration and land use on the formation of ...

[1] Land loss in the Mississippi River delta caused by subsidence and erosion has resulted in habitat loss and increased exposure of settled areas to storm surge risks. There is debate over the most cost-efficient and geomorphologically feasible projects to build land by river diversions, namely, whether a larger number of small, or a lesser number of large, engineered diversions provide the mo...

Land use patterns are fragile and sophisticated in Taiwan. In order to rapidly derive detail information of land use/land cover, it is necessary to employ remote sensing techniques because of its broad area coverage and fast data acquirement. The purposes of this research are to use high-resolution satellite images, such as IKONOS, to obtain urban land use information, and to apply fuzzy algori...