www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 325 24 JULY 2009 361 COVER A computer-generated map showing relationships between Internet blogs (colored spots), where lines represent links between individual blogs. In this map, blogs within the inner core cover technical topics and gadgetry, and blogs in the outer sphere involve nontechnical discussions and link back to the technical ones. See the special sect...

The main goal of this study is to develop a general framework for building a hybrid land-cover map by the synergistic combination of a number of land-cover classifications with different legends and spatial resolutions. The proposed approach assesses class-specific accuracies of datasets and establishes affinity between thematic legends using a common land-cover language such as the UN Land-Cov...

There are a variety of land cover products generated from remote-sensing images. However, misclassification errors in individual and inconsistency among them undermine their utilities for research other applications. While it is worth developing advanced pattern classifiers utilizing the images finer spatial, temporal, and/or spectral resolution increased classification accuracy, also sensible ...

Scientists need a better and larger set of tools to validate land-use change models, because it is essential to know a model’s prediction accuracy. This paper describes how to use the relative operating characteristic (ROC) as a quantitative measurement to validate a land-cover change model. Typically, a crucial component of a spatially explicit simulation model of land-cover change is a map of...

CORINE Land Cover is an Europeanwide land cover and land use classification which is based in most countries on visual interpretation of satellite images. The new CORINE2000 classification of Finland is based automated interpretation of satellite images and data integration with existing digital map data. Satellite images are used in estimation of continuous variables describing vegetation type...

Land cover plays a significant role in the earth system science, which reflects the influence of human activities and environmental changes (Sellers et al., 1997; IGBP, 1990; Aspinall et al, 2004). In China, Many land use/cover maps can be used in recent years derived from remote sensing observation. These data will be whether or how combined effectively to produce better land cover map that is...

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...

1:50000 land cover classification and mapping program is an important part of the mapping project in western China, which is organized by Chinese State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping Organization and will finish 5032 maps at scale of 1:50000 until 2010. With an average altitude of 4400 m, Sanjiangyuan mapping district is located at the center of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Because of complicate...

Environmental datasets are subject to ontological differences in the way that information is recorded and reported. One of the implications is that environmental monitoring and the identification of loci of change is difficult. This generic problem is explored with reference to land cover mapping in the UK. The decennial land cover projects (LCMGB and LCM2000) are introduced and their differenc...