WorldWideScience

Sample records for seasonal land cover

  1. Impacts of Land Cover and Seasonal Variation on Maximum Air Temperature Estimation Using MODIS Imagery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yulin Cai

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Daily maximum surface air temperature (Tamax is a crucial factor for understanding complex land surface processes under rapid climate change. Remote detection of Tamax has widely relied on the empirical relationship between air temperature and land surface temperature (LST, a product derived from remote sensing. However, little is known about how such a relationship is affected by the high heterogeneity in landscapes and dynamics in seasonality. This study aims to advance our understanding of the roles of land cover and seasonal variation in the estimation of Tamax using the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer LST product. We developed statistical models to link Tamax and LST in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China for five major land-cover types (i.e., forest, shrub, water, impervious surface, cropland, and grassland and two seasons (i.e., growing season and non-growing season. Results show that the performance of modeling the Tamax-LST relationship was highly dependent on land cover and seasonal variation. Estimating Tamax over grasslands and water bodies achieved superior performance; while uncertainties were high over forested lands that contained extensive heterogeneity in species types, plant structure, and topography. We further found that all the land-cover specific models developed for the plant non-growing season outperformed the corresponding models developed for the growing season. Discrepancies in model performance mainly occurred in the vegetated areas (forest, cropland, and shrub, suggesting an important role of plant phenology in defining the statistical relationship between Tamax and LST. For impervious surfaces, the challenge of capturing the high spatial heterogeneity in urban settings using the low-resolution MODIS data made Tamax estimation a difficult task, which was especially true in the growing season.

  2. Alternative method to validate the seasonal land cover regions of the conterminous United States

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhiliang Zhu; Donald O. Ohlen; Raymond L. Czaplewski; Robert E. Burgan

    1996-01-01

    An accuracy assessment method involving double sampling and the multivariate composite estimator has been used to validate the prototype seasonal land cover characteristics database of the conterminous United States. The database consists of 159 land cover classes, classified using time series of 1990 1-km satellite data and augmented with ancillary data including...

  3. Land cover mapping of North and Central America—Global Land Cover 2000

    Science.gov (United States)

    Latifovic, Rasim; Zhu, Zhi-Liang

    2004-01-01

    The Land Cover Map of North and Central America for the year 2000 (GLC 2000-NCA), prepared by NRCan/CCRS and USGS/EROS Data Centre (EDC) as a regional component of the Global Land Cover 2000 project, is the subject of this paper. A new mapping approach for transforming satellite observations acquired by the SPOT4/VGTETATION (VGT) sensor into land cover information is outlined. The procedure includes: (1) conversion of daily data into 10-day composite; (2) post-seasonal correction and refinement of apparent surface reflectance in 10-day composite images; and (3) extraction of land cover information from the composite images. The pre-processing and mosaicking techniques developed and used in this study proved to be very effective in removing cloud contamination, BRDF effects, and noise in Short Wave Infra-Red (SWIR). The GLC 2000-NCA land cover map is provided as a regional product with 28 land cover classes based on modified Federal Geographic Data Committee/Vegetation Classification Standard (FGDC NVCS) classification system, and as part of a global product with 22 land cover classes based on Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. The map was compared on both areal and per-pixel bases over North and Central America to the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP) global land cover classification, the University of Maryland global land cover classification (UMd) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Global land cover classification produced by Boston University (BU). There was good agreement (79%) on the spatial distribution and areal extent of forest between GLC 2000-NCA and the other maps, however, GLC 2000-NCA provides additional information on the spatial distribution of forest types. The GLC 2000-NCA map was produced at the continental level incorporating specific needs of the region.

  4. A comprehensive emission inventory of biogenic volatile organic compounds in Europe: improved seasonality and land-cover

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    D. C. Oderbolz

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available Biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC emitted from vegetation are important for the formation of secondary pollutants such as ozone and secondary organic aerosols (SOA in the atmosphere. Therefore, BVOC emission are an important input for air quality models. To model these emissions with high spatial resolution, the accuracy of the underlying vegetation inventory is crucial. We present a BVOC emission model that accommodates different vegetation inventories and uses satellite-based measurements of greenness instead of pre-defined vegetation periods. This approach to seasonality implicitly treats effects caused by water or nutrient availability, altitude and latitude on a plant stand. Additionally, we test the influence of proposed seasonal variability in enzyme activity on BVOC emissions. In its present setup, the emission model calculates hourly emissions of isoprene, monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes and the oxygenated volatile organic compounds (OVOC methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid, ethanol, acetaldehyde, acetone and acetic acid. In this study, emissions based on three different vegetation inventories are compared with each other and diurnal and seasonal variations in Europe are investigated for the year 2006. Two of these vegetation inventories require information on tree-cover as an input. We compare three different land-cover inventories (USGS GLCC, GLC2000 and Globcover 2.2 with respect to tree-cover. The often-used USGS GLCC land-cover inventory leads to a severe reduction of BVOC emissions due to a potential miss-attribution of broad-leaved trees and reduced tree-cover compared to the two other land-cover inventories. To account for uncertainties in the land-cover classification, we introduce land-cover correction factors for each relevant land-use category to adjust the tree-cover. The results are very sensitive to these factors within the plausible range. For June 2006, total monthly BVOC emissions decreased up to −27% with

  5. Monitoring and assessment of seasonal land cover changes using remote sensing: a 30-year (1987-2016) case study of Hamoun Wetland, Iran.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kharazmi, Rasoul; Tavili, Ali; Rahdari, Mohammad Reza; Chaban, Lyudmila; Panidi, Evgeny; Rodrigo-Comino, Jesús

    2018-05-23

    The availability of Landsat data allows improving the monitoring and assessment of large-scale areas with land cover changes in rapid developing regions. Thus, we pretend to show a combined methodology to assess land cover changes (LCCs) in the Hamoun Wetland region (Iran) over a period of 30-year (1987-2016) and to quantify seasonal and decadal landscape and land use variabilities. Using the pixel-based change detection (PBCD) and the post-classification comparison (PCC), four land cover classes were compared among spring, summer, and fall seasons. Our findings showed for the water class a higher correlation between spring and summer (R 2  = 0.94) than fall and spring (R 2  = 0.58) seasons. Before 2000, ~ 50% of the total area was covered by bare soil and 40% by water. However, after 2000, more than 70% of wetland was transformed into bare soils. The results of the long-term monitoring period showed that fall season was the most representative time to show the inter-annual variability of LCCs monitoring and the least affected by seasonal-scale climatic variations. In the Hamoun Wetland region, land cover was highly controlled by changes in surface water, which in turn responded to both climatic and anthropogenic impacts. We were able to divide the water budget monitoring into three different ecological regimes: (1) a period of high water level, which sustained healthy extensive plant life, and approximately 40% of the total surface water was retained until the end of the hydrological year; (2) a period of drought during high evaporation rates was observed, and a mean wetland surface of about 85% was characterized by bare land; and (3) a recovery period in which water levels were overall rising, but they are not maintained from year to year. After a spring flood, in 2006 and 2013, grassland reached the highest extensions, covering till more than 20% of the region, and the dynamics of the ecosystem were affected by the differences in moisture. The Hamoun

  6. Land Cover Influence on Wet Season Storm Runoff Generation and Hydrologic Flowpaths in Central Panama

    Science.gov (United States)

    Birch, A. L.; Stallard, R. F.; Barnard, H. R.

    2017-12-01

    While relationships between land use/land cover and hydrology are well studied and understood in temperate parts of the world, little research exists in the humid tropics, where hydrologic research is often decades behind. Specifically, quantitative information on how physical and biological differences across varying land covers influence runoff generation and hydrologic flowpaths in the humid tropics is scarce; frequently leading to poorly informed hydrologic modelling and water policy decision making. This research effort seeks to quantify how tropical land cover change may alter physical hydrologic processes in the economically important Panama Canal Watershed (Republic of Panama) by separating streamflow into its different runoff components using end member mixing analysis. The samples collected for this project come from small headwater catchments of four varying land covers (mature tropical forest, young secondary forest, active pasture, recently clear-cut tropical forest) within the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Agua Salud Project. During the past three years, samples have been collected at the four study catchments from streamflow and from a number of water sources within hillslope transects, and have been analyzed for stable water isotopes, major cations, and major anions. Major ion analysis of these samples has shown distinct geochemical differences for the potential runoff generating end members sampled (soil moisture/ preferential flow, groundwater, overland flow, throughfall, and precipitation). Based on this finding, an effort was made from May-August 2017 to intensively sample streamflow during wet season storm events, yielding a total of 5 events of varying intensity in each land cover/catchment, with sampling intensity ranging from sub-hourly to sub-daily. The focus of this poster presentation will be to present the result of hydrograph separation's done using end member mixing analysis from this May-August 2017 storm dataset. Expected

  7. National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Land Cover Collection

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Land Cover Collection is produced through a cooperative project conducted by the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC)...

  8. Land Cover - Minnesota Land Cover Classification System

    Data.gov (United States)

    Minnesota Department of Natural Resources — Land cover data set based on the Minnesota Land Cover Classification System (MLCCS) coding scheme. This data was produced using a combination of aerial photograph...

  9. Updating the 2001 National Land Cover Database land cover classification to 2006 by using Landsat imagery change detection methods

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xian, George; Homer, Collin G.; Fry, Joyce

    2009-01-01

    The recent release of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2001, which represents the nation's land cover status based on a nominal date of 2001, is widely used as a baseline for national land cover conditions. To enable the updating of this land cover information in a consistent and continuous manner, a prototype method was developed to update land cover by an individual Landsat path and row. This method updates NLCD 2001 to a nominal date of 2006 by using both Landsat imagery and data from NLCD 2001 as the baseline. Pairs of Landsat scenes in the same season in 2001 and 2006 were acquired according to satellite paths and rows and normalized to allow calculation of change vectors between the two dates. Conservative thresholds based on Anderson Level I land cover classes were used to segregate the change vectors and determine areas of change and no-change. Once change areas had been identified, land cover classifications at the full NLCD resolution for 2006 areas of change were completed by sampling from NLCD 2001 in unchanged areas. Methods were developed and tested across five Landsat path/row study sites that contain several metropolitan areas including Seattle, Washington; San Diego, California; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Jackson, Mississippi; and Manchester, New Hampshire. Results from the five study areas show that the vast majority of land cover change was captured and updated with overall land cover classification accuracies of 78.32%, 87.5%, 88.57%, 78.36%, and 83.33% for these areas. The method optimizes mapping efficiency and has the potential to provide users a flexible method to generate updated land cover at national and regional scales by using NLCD 2001 as the baseline.

  10. Decay Functions of Soil Moisture: Implications for Land Cover Controls on Actual Evapotranspiration During the Wet Season of a West-African Savanna

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bassiouni, M.; Ceperley, N. C.; Mande, T.; Parlange, M. B.

    2012-04-01

    The West-African savanna experiences extreme seasonal climate. The role of vegetation and the impact of agriculture on the regional hydrology of these areas are not well understood. A better understanding of such phenomena is crucial, as water resources are becoming unstable and populations dependent on rain-fed agriculture are more vulnerable. This study examines soil moisture dynamics during the 2010 rainy season in the Singou River Basin, Burkina Faso. Volumetric soil water content and meteorological data are collected from seven stations of a wireless sensor network. This network covers representative types of land cover in the watershed including riverbank, wetland, open savanna, agricultural parkland, and forested upland savanna. Vegetation was also surveyed throughout the season. Here, we present parameterizations and exploratory analysis of soil moisture decay functions at each station considered. Results are compared to the seasonal evolution of soil moisture storage, potential evapotranspiration and vegetation density. Preliminary results suggest these soil moisture measurements may be essential to understanding actual evapotranspiration and the hydrological influence of the types of land cover in the watershed over time. These findings contribute to improved modeling of the ecohydrological behavior of the Singou River Basin and up-scaling of the sensor network data for regional water management purposes as part of an integrated research and development project, Info4Dourou.

  11. Land-cover mapping using multitemporal, dual-frequency polarimetric SAR data

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Skriver, Henning; Schou, Jesper; Dierking, Wolfgang

    2000-01-01

    during the growing season acquired a lot of data over a Danish agricultural site. The data acquisitions were co-ordinated with ground surveys to obtain a detailed land cover map. The test area contains a large number of different land cover classes, such as more than 10 different crop types, deciduous......The Danish Center for Remote Sensing (DCRS) is, in collaboration with the Danish mapping agency, conducting a study on topographic mapping using SAR data, and land cover mapping results are presented. The Danish EMISAR system (an L- and C-band, fully polarimetric, airborne SAR) have in 1994 to 1999...

  12. Land Cover

    Data.gov (United States)

    Kansas Data Access and Support Center — The Land Cover database depicts 10 general land cover classes for the State of Kansas. The database was compiled from a digital classification of Landsat Thematic...

  13. Impacts of Land Cover Changes on Climate over China

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, L.; Frauenfeld, O. W.

    2014-12-01

    Land cover changes can influence regional climate through modifying the surface energy balance and water fluxes, and can also affect climate at large scales via changes in atmospheric general circulation. With rapid population growth and economic development, China has experienced significant land cover changes, such as deforestation, grassland degradation, and farmland expansion. In this study, the Community Earth System Model (CESM) is used to investigate the climate impacts of anthropogenic land cover changes over China. To isolate the climatic effects of land cover change, we focus on the CAM and CLM models, with prescribed climatological sea surface temperature and sea ice cover. Two experiments were performed, one with current vegetation and the other with potential vegetation. Current vegetation conditions were derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite observations, and potential vegetation over China was obtained from Ramankutty and Foley's global potential vegetation dataset. Impacts of land cover changes on surface air temperature and precipitation are assessed based on the difference of the two experiments. Results suggest that land cover changes have a cold-season cooling effect in a large region of China, but a warming effect in summer. These temperature changes can be reconciled with albedo forcing and evapotranspiration. Moreover, impacts on atmospheric circulation and the Asian Monsoon is also discussed.

  14. Mekong Land Cover Dasboard: Regional Land Cover Mointoring Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saah, D. S.; Towashiraporn, P.; Aekakkararungroj, A.; Phongsapan, K.; Triepke, J.; Maus, P.; Tenneson, K.; Cutter, P. G.; Ganz, D.; Anderson, E.

    2016-12-01

    SERVIR-Mekong, a USAID-NASA partnership, helps decision makers in the Lower Mekong Region utilize GIS and Remote Sensing information to inform climate related activities. In 2015, SERVIR-Mekong conducted a geospatial needs assessment for the Lower Mekong countries which included individual country consultations. The team found that many countries were dependent on land cover and land use maps for land resource planning, quantifying ecosystem services, including resilience to climate change, biodiversity conservation, and other critical social issues. Many of the Lower Mekong countries have developed national scale land cover maps derived in part from remote sensing products and geospatial technologies. However, updates are infrequent and classification systems do not always meet the needs of key user groups. In addition, data products stop at political boundaries and are often not accessible making the data unusable across country boundaries and with resource management partners. Many of these countries rely on global land cover products to fill the gaps of their national efforts, compromising consistency between data and policies. These gaps in national efforts can be filled by a flexible regional land cover monitoring system that is co-developed by regional partners with the specific intention of meeting national transboundary needs, for example including consistent forest definitions in transboundary watersheds. Based on these facts, key regional stakeholders identified a need for a land cover monitoring system that will produce frequent, high quality land cover maps using a consistent regional classification scheme that is compatible with national country needs. SERVIR-Mekong is currently developing a solution that leverages recent developments in remote sensing science and technology, such as Google Earth Engine (GEE), and working together with production partners to develop a system that will use a common set of input data sources to generate high

  15. Land change monitoring, assessment, and projection (LCMAP) revolutionizes land cover and land change research

    Science.gov (United States)

    Young, Steven

    2017-05-02

    When nature and humanity change Earth’s landscapes - through flood or fire, public policy, natural resources management, or economic development - the results are often dramatic and lasting.Wildfires can reshape ecosystems. Hurricanes with names like Sandy or Katrina will howl for days while altering the landscape for years. One growing season in the evolution of drought-resistant genetics can transform semiarid landscapes into farm fields.In the past, valuable land cover maps created for understanding the effects of those events - whether changes in wildlife habitat, water-quality impacts, or the role land use and land cover play in affecting weather and climate - came out at best every 5 to 7 years. Those high quality, high resolution maps were good, but users always craved more: even higher quality data, additional land cover and land change variables, more detailed legends, and most importantly, more frequent land change information.Now a bold new initiative called Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) promises to fulfill that demand.Developed at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, LCMAP provides definitive, timely information on how, why, and where the planet is changing. LCMAP’s continuous monitoring process can detect changes as they happen every day that Landsat satellites acquire clear observations. The result will be to place near real-time information in the hands of land and resource managers who need to understand the effects these changes have on landscapes.

  16. Land Cover Monitoring for Water Resources Management in Angola

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miguel, Irina; Navarro, Ana; Rolim, Joao; Catalao, Joao; Silva, Joel; Painho, Marco; Vekerdy, Zoltan

    2016-08-01

    The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of improved temporal resolution and multi-source satellite data (SAR and optical) on land cover mapping and monitoring for efficient water resources management. For that purpose, we developed an integrated approach based on image classification and on NDVI and SAR backscattering (VV and VH) time series for land cover mapping and crop's irrigation requirements computation. We analysed 28 SPOT-5 Take-5 images with high temporal revisiting time (5 days), 9 Sentinel-1 dual polarization GRD images and in-situ data acquired during the crop growing season. Results show that the combination of images from different sources provides the best information to map agricultural areas. The increase of the images temporal resolution allows the improvement of the estimation of the crop parameters, and then, to calculate of the crop's irrigation requirements. However, this aspect was not fully exploited due to the lack of EO data for the complete growing season.

  17. Land-cover change detection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Xuexia; Giri, Chandra; Vogelmann, James

    2012-01-01

    Land cover is the biophysical material on the surface of the earth. Land-cover types include grass, shrubs, trees, barren, water, and man-made features. Land cover changes continuously.  The rate of change can be either dramatic and abrupt, such as the changes caused by logging, hurricanes and fire, or subtle and gradual, such as regeneration of forests and damage caused by insects (Verbesselt et al., 2001).  Previous studies have shown that land cover has changed dramatically during the past sevearal centuries and that these changes have severely affected our ecosystems (Foody, 2010; Lambin et al., 2001). Lambin and Strahlers (1994b) summarized five types of cause for land-cover changes: (1) long-term natural changes in climate conditions, (2) geomorphological and ecological processes, (3) human-induced alterations of vegetation cover and landscapes, (4) interannual climate variability, and (5) human-induced greenhouse effect.  Tools and techniques are needed to detect, describe, and predict these changes to facilitate sustainable management of natural resources.

  18. Land cover and water yield: inference problems when comparing catchments with mixed land cover

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. I. J. M. van Dijk

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Controlled experiments provide strong evidence that changing land cover (e.g. deforestation or afforestation can affect mean catchment streamflow (Q. By contrast, a similarly strong influence has not been found in studies that interpret Q from multiple catchments with mixed land cover. One possible reason is that there are methodological issues with the way in which the Budyko framework was used in the latter type studies. We examined this using Q data observed in 278 Australian catchments and by making inferences from synthetic Q data simulated by a hydrological process model (the Australian Water Resources Assessment system Landscape model. The previous contrasting findings could be reproduced. In the synthetic experiment, the land cover influence was still present but not accurately detected with the Budyko- framework. Likely sources of interpretation bias demonstrated include: (i noise in land cover, precipitation and Q data; (ii additional catchment climate characteristics more important than land cover; and (iii covariance between Q and catchment attributes. These methodological issues caution against the use of a Budyko framework to quantify a land cover influence in Q data from mixed land-cover catchments. Importantly, however, our findings do not rule out that there may also be physical processes that modify the influence of land cover in mixed land-cover catchments. Process model simulations suggested that lateral water redistribution between vegetation types and recirculation of intercepted rainfall may be important.

  19. Completion of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 1992-2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit Product

    Science.gov (United States)

    The Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium has supported the development of two national digital land cover products: the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) 1992 and National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2001. Substantial differences in imagery, legends, and methods betwe...

  20. Building a Continental Scale Land Cover Monitoring Framework for Australia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thankappan, Medhavy; Lymburner, Leo; Tan, Peter; McIntyre, Alexis; Curnow, Steven; Lewis, Adam

    2012-04-01

    Land cover information is critical for national reporting and decision making in Australia. A review of information requirements for reporting on national environmental indicators identified the need for consistent land cover information to be compared against a baseline. A Dynamic Land Cover Dataset (DLCD) for Australia has been developed by Geoscience Australia and the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) recently, to provide a comprehensive and consistent land cover information baseline to enable monitoring and reporting for sustainable farming practices, water resource management, soil erosion, and forests at national and regional scales. The DLCD was produced from the analysis of Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) data at 250-metre resolution derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) for the period from 2000 to 2008. The EVI time series data for each pixel was modelled as 12 coefficients based on the statistical, phenological and seasonal characteristics. The time series were then clustered in coefficients spaces and labelled using ancillary information on vegetation and land use at the catchment scale. The accuracy of the DLCD was assessed using field survey data over 25,000 locations provided by vegetation and land management agencies in State and Territory jurisdictions, and by ABARES. The DLCD is seen as the first in a series of steps to build a framework for national land cover monitoring in Australia. A robust methodology to provide annual updates to the DLCD is currently being developed at Geoscience Australia. There is also a growing demand from the user community for land cover information at better spatial resolution than currently available through the DLCD. Global land cover mapping initiatives that rely on Earth observation data offer many opportunities for national and international programs to work in concert and deliver better outcomes by streamlining efforts on development and

  1. Completion of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 1992–2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit product

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fry, J.A.; Coan, Michael; Homer, Collin G.; Meyer, Debra K.; Wickham, J.D.

    2009-01-01

    The Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium has supported the development of two national digital land cover products: the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) 1992 and National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2001. Substantial differences in imagery, legends, and methods between these two land cover products must be overcome in order to support direct comparison. The NLCD 1992-2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit product was developed to provide more accurate and useful land cover change data than would be possible by direct comparison of NLCD 1992 and NLCD 2001. For the change analysis method to be both national in scale and timely, implementation required production across many Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) path/rows simultaneously. To meet these requirements, a hybrid change analysis process was developed to incorporate both post-classification comparison and specialized ratio differencing change analysis techniques. At a resolution of 30 meters, the completed NLCD 1992-2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit product contains unchanged pixels from the NLCD 2001 land cover dataset that have been cross-walked to a modified Anderson Level I class code, and changed pixels labeled with a 'from-to' class code. Analysis of the results for the conterminous United States indicated that about 3 percent of the land cover dataset changed between 1992 and 2001.

  2. Mapping land cover through time with the Rapid Land Cover Mapper—Documentation and user manual

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cotillon, Suzanne E.; Mathis, Melissa L.

    2017-02-15

    The Rapid Land Cover Mapper is an Esri ArcGIS® Desktop add-in, which was created as an alternative to automated or semiautomated mapping methods. Based on a manual photo interpretation technique, the tool facilitates mapping over large areas and through time, and produces time-series raster maps and associated statistics that characterize the changing landscapes. The Rapid Land Cover Mapper add-in can be used with any imagery source to map various themes (for instance, land cover, soils, or forest) at any chosen mapping resolution. The user manual contains all essential information for the user to make full use of the Rapid Land Cover Mapper add-in. This manual includes a description of the add-in functions and capabilities, and step-by-step procedures for using the add-in. The Rapid Land Cover Mapper add-in was successfully used by the U.S. Geological Survey West Africa Land Use Dynamics team to accurately map land use and land cover in 17 West African countries through time (1975, 2000, and 2013).

  3. Using Urban Landscape Trajectories to Develop a Multi-Temporal Land Cover Database to Support Ecological Modeling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marina Alberti

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available Urbanization and the resulting changes in land cover have myriad impacts on ecological systems. Monitoring these changes across large spatial extents and long time spans requires synoptic remotely sensed data with an appropriate temporal sequence. We developed a multi-temporal land cover dataset for a six-county area surrounding the Seattle, Washington State, USA, metropolitan region. Land cover maps for 1986, 1991, 1995, 1999, and 2002 were developed from Landsat TM images through a combination of spectral unmixing, image segmentation, multi-season imagery, and supervised classification approaches to differentiate an initial nine land cover classes. We then used ancillary GIS layers and temporal information to define trajectories of land cover change through multiple updating and backdating rules and refined our land cover classification for each date into 14 classes. We compared the accuracy of the initial approach with the landscape trajectory modifications and determined that the use of landscape trajectory rules increased our ability to differentiate several classes including bare soil (separated into cleared for development, agriculture, and clearcut forest and three intensities of urban. Using the temporal dataset, we found that between 1986 and 2002, urban land cover increased from 8 to 18% of our study area, while lowland deciduous and mixed forests decreased from 21 to 14%, and grass and agriculture decreased from 11 to 8%. The intensity of urban land cover increased with 252 km2 in Heavy Urban in 1986 increasing to 629 km2 by 2002. The ecological systems that are present in this region were likely significantly altered by these changes in land cover. Our results suggest that multi-temporal (i.e., multiple years and multiple seasons within years Landsat data are an economical means to quantify land cover and land cover change across large and highly heterogeneous urbanizing landscapes. Our data, and similar temporal land cover change

  4. Land cover change interacts with drought severity to change fire regimes in Western Amazonia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gutiérrez-Vélez, Víctor H; Uriarte, María; DeFries, Ruth; Pinedo-Vásquez, Miguel; Fernandes, Katia; Ceccato, Pietro; Baethgen, Walter; Padoch, Christine

    Fire is becoming a pervasive driver of environmental change in Amazonia and is expected to intensify, given projected reductions in precipitation and forest cover. Understanding of the influence of post-deforestation land cover change on fires in Amazonia is limited, even though fires in cleared lands constitute a threat for ecosystems, agriculture, and human health. We used MODIS satellite data to map burned areas annually between 2001 and 2010. We then combined these maps with land cover and climate information to understand the influence of land cover change in cleared lands and dry-season severity on fire occurrence and spread in a focus area in the Peruvian Amazon. Fire occurrence, quantified as the probability of burning of individual 232-m spatial resolution MODIS pixels, was modeled as a function of the area of land cover types within each pixel, drought severity, and distance to roads. Fire spread, quantified as the number of pixels burned in 3 × 3 pixel windows around each focal burned pixel, was modeled as a function of land cover configuration and area, dry-season severity, and distance to roads. We found that vegetation regrowth and oil palm expansion are significantly correlated with fire occurrence, but that the magnitude and sign of the correlation depend on drought severity, successional stage of regrowing vegetation, and oil palm age. Burning probability increased with the area of nondegraded pastures, fallow, and young oil palm and decreased with larger extents of degraded pastures, secondary forests, and adult oil palm plantations. Drought severity had the strongest influence on fire occurrence, overriding the effectiveness of secondary forests, but not of adult plantations, to reduce fire occurrence in severely dry years. Overall, irregular and scattered land cover patches reduced fire spread but irregular and dispersed fallows and secondary forests increased fire spread during dry years. Results underscore the importance of land cover

  5. Sensitivity of selected landscape pattern metrics to land-cover misclassification and differences in land-cover composition

    Science.gov (United States)

    James D. Wickham; Robert V. O' Neill; Kurt H. Riitters; Timothy G. Wade; K. Bruce Jones

    1997-01-01

    Calculation of landscape metrics from land-cover data is becoming increasingly common. Some studies have shown that these measurements are sensitive to differences in land-cover composition, but none are known to have tested also their a sensitivity to land-cover misclassification. An error simulation model was written to test the sensitivity of selected land-scape...

  6. Validation of land use / land cover changes for Denmark

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Levin, Gregor; Johannsen, Vivian Kvist; Caspersen, Ole Hjort

    2018-01-01

    This report presents applied methods and results for a validation of land use and land cover changes for 1990 and 2014-2016. Results indicate that generally, accuracies of land use and land cover. However, afforestation and particularly deforestation are significantly overestimated....

  7. Land Use and Land Cover Change Analysis along the Coastal ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Agribotix GCS 077

    are carried out on the land usually effect changes in its cover. ... The FAO document on land cover classification systems, (2000) partly answers this ... over the surface land, including water, vegetation, bare soils and or artificial structures. ... diseases may occur more readily in areas exposed by Land Use and Land Cover ...

  8. Biomass Burning, Land-Cover Change, and the Hydrological Cycle in Northern Sub-Saharan Africa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ichoku, Charles; Ellison, Luke T.; Willmot, K. Elena; Matsui, Toshihisa; Dezfuli, Amin K.; Gatebe, Charles K.; Wang, Jun; Wilcox, Eric M.; Lee, Jejung; Adegoke, Jimmy; hide

    2016-01-01

    The Northern Sub-Saharan African (NSSA) region, which accounts for 20%-25%of the global carbon emissions from biomass burning, also suffers from frequent drought episodes and other disruptions to the hydrological cycle whose adverse societal impacts have been widely reported during the last several decades. This paper presents a conceptual framework of the NSSA regional climate system components that may be linked to biomass burning, as well as detailed analyses of a variety of satellite data for 2001-2014 in conjunction with relevant model-assimilated variables. Satellite fire detections in NSSA show that the vast majority (greater than 75%) occurs in the savanna and woody savanna land-cover types. Starting in the 2006-2007 burning season through the end of the analyzed data in 2014, peak burning activity showed a net decrease of 2-7% /yr in different parts of NSSA, especially in the savanna regions. However, fire distribution shows appreciable coincidence with land-cover change. Although there is variable mutual exchange of different land cover types, during 2003-2013, cropland increased at an estimated rate of 0.28% /yr of the total NSSA land area, with most of it (0.18% /yr) coming from savanna.During the last decade, conversion to croplands increased in some areas classified as forests and wetlands, posing a threat to these vital and vulnerable ecosystems. Seasonal peak burning is anti-correlated with annual water-cycle indicators such as precipitation, soil moisture, vegetation greenness, and evapotranspiration, except in humid West Africa (5 deg-10 deg latitude),where this anti-correlation occurs exclusively in the dry season and burning virtually stops when monthly mean precipitation reaches 4 mm/d. These results provide observational evidence of changes in land-cover and hydrological variables that are consistent with feedbacks from biomass burning in NSSA, and encourage more synergistic modeling and observational studies that can elaborate this feedback

  9. Land Use and Land Cover - MO 2015 Silver Land Cover (GDB)

    Data.gov (United States)

    NSGIC State | GIS Inventory — MoRAP produced and integrated data to map land cover and wetlands for the Upper Silver Creek Watershed in Illinois. LiDAR elevation and vegetation height information...

  10. Land Use and Land Cover - MO 2015 Meramec Land Cover (GDB)

    Data.gov (United States)

    NSGIC State | GIS Inventory — MoRAP produced and integrated data to map land cover and wetlands for the Meramec River bottomland in Missouri. LiDAR elevation and vegetation height information and...

  11. Land cover change mapping using MODIS time series to improve emissions inventories

    Science.gov (United States)

    López-Saldaña, Gerardo; Quaife, Tristan; Clifford, Debbie

    2016-04-01

    MELODIES is an FP7 funded project to develop innovative and sustainable services, based upon Open Data, for users in research, government, industry and the general public in a broad range of societal and environmental benefit areas. Understanding and quantifying land surface changes is necessary for estimating greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions, and for meeting air quality limits and targets. More sophisticated inventories methodologies for at least key emission source are needed due to policy-driven air quality directives. Quantifying land cover changes on an annual basis requires greater spatial and temporal disaggregation of input data. The main aim of this study is to develop a methodology for using Earth Observations (EO) to identify annual land surface changes that will improve emissions inventories from agriculture and land use/land use change and forestry (LULUCF) in the UK. First goal is to find the best sets of input features that describe accurately the surface dynamics. In order to identify annual and inter-annual land surface changes, a times series of surface reflectance was used to capture seasonal variability. Daily surface reflectance images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) at 500m resolution were used to invert a Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) model to create the seamless time series. Given the limited number of cloud-free observations, a BRDF climatology was used to constrain the model inversion and where no high-scientific quality observations were available at all, as a gap filler. The Land Cover Map 2007 (LC2007) produced by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) was used for training and testing purposes. A land cover product was created for 2003 to 2015 and a bayesian approach was created to identified land cover changes. We will present the results of the time series development and the first exercises when creating the land cover and land cover changes products.

  12. Tropical land use land cover mapping in Pará (Brazil) using discriminative Markov random fields and multi-temporal TerraSAR-X data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hagensieker, Ron; Roscher, Ribana; Rosentreter, Johannes; Jakimow, Benjamin; Waske, Björn

    2017-12-01

    Remote sensing satellite data offer the unique possibility to map land use land cover transformations by providing spatially explicit information. However, detection of short-term processes and land use patterns of high spatial-temporal variability is a challenging task. We present a novel framework using multi-temporal TerraSAR-X data and machine learning techniques, namely discriminative Markov random fields with spatio-temporal priors, and import vector machines, in order to advance the mapping of land cover characterized by short-term changes. Our study region covers a current deforestation frontier in the Brazilian state Pará with land cover dominated by primary forests, different types of pasture land and secondary vegetation, and land use dominated by short-term processes such as slash-and-burn activities. The data set comprises multi-temporal TerraSAR-X imagery acquired over the course of the 2014 dry season, as well as optical data (RapidEye, Landsat) for reference. Results show that land use land cover is reliably mapped, resulting in spatially adjusted overall accuracies of up to 79% in a five class setting, yet limitations for the differentiation of different pasture types remain. The proposed method is applicable on multi-temporal data sets, and constitutes a feasible approach to map land use land cover in regions that are affected by high-frequent temporal changes.

  13. Quantifying outdoor water consumption of urban land use/land cover: sensitivity to drought.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaplan, Shai; Myint, Soe W; Fan, Chao; Brazel, Anthony J

    2014-04-01

    Outdoor water use is a key component in arid city water systems for achieving sustainable water use and ensuring water security. Using evapotranspiration (ET) calculations as a proxy for outdoor water consumption, the objectives of this research are to quantify outdoor water consumption of different land use and land cover types, and compare the spatio-temporal variation in water consumption between drought and wet years. An energy balance model was applied to Landsat 5 TM time series images to estimate daily and seasonal ET for the Central Arizona Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research region (CAP-LTER). Modeled ET estimations were correlated with water use data in 49 parks within CAP-LTER and showed good agreement (r² = 0.77), indicating model effectiveness to capture the variations across park water consumption. Seasonally, active agriculture shows high ET (>500 mm) for both wet and dry conditions, while the desert and urban land cover types experienced lower ET during drought (<300 mm). Within urban locales of CAP-LTER, xeric neighborhoods show significant differences from year to year, while mesic neighborhoods retain their ET values (400-500 mm) during drought, implying considerable use of irrigation to sustain their greenness. Considering the potentially limiting water availability of this region in the future due to large population increases and the threat of a warming and drying climate, maintaining large water-consuming, irrigated landscapes challenges sustainable practices of water conservation and the need to provide amenities of this desert area for enhancing quality of life.

  14. Effects of plant cover on soil N mineralization during the growing season in a sandy soil

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yao, Y.; Shao, M.; Wei, X.; Fu, X.

    2017-12-01

    Soil nitrogen (N) mineralization and its availability plays a vital role in regulating ecosystem productivity and C cycling, particularly in semiarid and desertified ecosystems. To determine the effect of plant cover on N turnover in a sandy soil ecosystem, we measured soil N mineralization and inorganic N pools in soil solution during growing season in a sandy soil covered with various plant species (Artemisia desertorum, Salix psammophila, and Caragana korshinskii). A bare sandy soil without any plant was selected as control. Inorganic N pools and N mineralization rates decreased overtime during the growing season, and were not affected by soil depth in bare land soils, but were significantly higher at the 0-10 cm layer than those at the 10-20 cm soil layer under any plant species. Soil inorganic N pool was dominated by ammonium, and N mineralization was dominated by nitrification regardless of soil depth and plant cover. Soils under C. korshinskii have significant higher inorganic N pools and N mineralization rate than soils under bare land and A. desertorum and S. psammophila, and the effects of plant cover were greater at the 0-10 cm soil layer than at the 10-20 cm layer. The effects of C. korshinskii on soil inorganic N pools and mineralization rate varied with the stage of growing season, with greater effects on N pools in the middle growing season, and greater effects on mineralization rate at the last half of the growing season. The results from this study indicate that introduction of C. korshinskii has the potential to increase soil N turnover and availability in sandy soils, and thus to decrease N limitation. Caragana korshinskii is therefore recommend for the remediation of the desertified land.

  15. The seasonal cycle of snow cover, sea ice and surface albedo

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robock, A.

    1980-01-01

    The paper examines satellite data used to construct mean snow cover caps for the Northern Hemisphere. The zonally averaged snow cover from these maps is used to calculate the seasonal cycle of zonally averaged surface albedo. The effects of meltwater on the surface, solar zenith angle, and cloudiness are parameterized and included in the calculations of snow and ice albedo. The data allows a calculation of surface albedo for any land or ocean 10 deg latitude band as a function of surface temperature ice and snow cover; the correct determination of the ice boundary is more important than the snow boundary for accurately simulating the ice and snow albedo feedback.

  16. CLC2000 land cover database of the Netherlands; monitoring land cover changes between 1986 and 2000

    OpenAIRE

    Hazeu, G.W.

    2003-01-01

    The 1986 CORINE land cover database of the Netherlands was revised and updated on basis of Landsat satellite images and ancillary data. Interpretation of satellite images from 1986 and 2000 resulted in the CLC2000, CLC1986rev and CLCchange databases. A standard European legend and production methodology was applied. Thirty land cover classes were discerned. Most extended land cover types were pastures (231), arable land (211) and complex cultivation patterns (242). Between 1986 and 2000 aroun...

  17. CHANGE DETECTION IN LAND-USE AND LAND-COVER DYNAMICS AT A REGIONAL SCALE FROM MODIS TIME-SERIES IMAGERY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Y. Setiawan

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Remote sensing has long been used as a means of detecting and classifying changes on the land. Analysis of multi-year time series of land surface attributes and their seasonal change indicates a complexity of land use land cover change (LULCC. This paper explores the temporal complexity of land change considering temporal vegetation dynamics, in other words, distinguishing the changes regarding to their properties in long-term image analysis. This study is based on the hypothesis that land cover might be dynamics; however, consistent land use has a typical, distinct and repeated temporal pattern of vegetation index inter-annually. Therefore, pixels represent a change when the inter-annual temporal dynamics is changed. We analysed the dynamics pattern of long-term image data of wavelet-filtered MODIS EVI from 2001 to 2007. The change of temporal vegetation dynamics was detected by differentiating distance between two successive annual EVI patterns. Moreover, we defined the type of changes using the clustering method, which were then validated by ground check points and secondary data sets.

  18. Runoff changes have a land cover specific effect on the seasonal fluxes of terminal electron acceptors in the boreal catchments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mattsson, Tuija; Lehtoranta, Jouni; Ekholm, Petri; Palviainen, Marjo; Kortelainen, Pirkko

    2017-12-01

    Climate change influences the volume and seasonal distribution of runoff in the northern regions. Here, we study how the seasonal variation in the runoff affects the concentrations and export of terminal electron acceptors (i.e. TEAs: NO 3 , Mn, Fe and SO 4 ) in different boreal land-cover classes. Also, we make a prediction how the anticipated climate change induced increase in runoff will alter the export of TEAs in boreal catchments. Our results show that there is a strong positive relationship between runoff and the concentration of NO 3 -N, Mn and Fe in agricultural catchments. In peaty catchments, the relationship is poorer and the concentrations of TEAs tend to decrease with increasing runoff. In forested catchments, the correlation between runoff and TEA concentrations was weak. In most catchments, the concentrations of SO 4 decrease with an increase in runoff regardless of the land cover or season. The wet years export much higher amounts of TEAs than the dry years. In southern agricultural catchments, the wet years increased the TEA export for both spring (January-May) and autumn (September-December) periods, while in the peaty and forested catchments in eastern and northern Finland the export only increased in the autumn. Our predictions for the year 2099 indicate that the export of TEAs will increase especially from agricultural but also from forested catchments. Additionally, the predictions show an increase in the export of Fe and SO 4 for all the catchments for the autumn. Thus, the climate induced change in the runoff regime is likely to alter the exported amount of TEAs and the timing of the export downstream. The changes in the amounts and timing in the export of TEAs have a potential to modify the mineralization pathways in the receiving water bodies, with feedbacks in the cycling of C, nutrients and metals in aquatic ecosystems. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  19. Pairing FLUXNET sites to validate model representations of land-use/land-cover change

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Liang; Dirmeyer, Paul A.; Guo, Zhichang; Schultz, Natalie M.

    2018-01-01

    Land surface energy and water fluxes play an important role in land-atmosphere interactions, especially for the climatic feedback effects driven by land-use/land-cover change (LULCC). These have long been documented in model-based studies, but the performance of land surface models in representing LULCC-induced responses has not been investigated well. In this study, measurements from proximate paired (open versus forest) flux tower sites are used to represent observed deforestation-induced changes in surface fluxes, which are compared with simulations from the Community Land Model (CLM) and the Noah Multi-Parameterization (Noah-MP) land model. Point-scale simulations suggest the CLM can represent the observed diurnal and seasonal changes in net radiation (Rnet) and ground heat flux (G), but difficulties remain in the energy partitioning between latent (LE) and sensible (H) heat flux. The CLM does not capture the observed decreased daytime LE, and overestimates the increased H during summer. These deficiencies are mainly associated with models' greater biases over forest land-cover types and the parameterization of soil evaporation. Global gridded simulations with the CLM show uncertainties in the estimation of LE and H at the grid level for regional and global simulations. Noah-MP exhibits a similar ability to simulate the surface flux changes, but with larger biases in H, G, and Rnet change during late winter and early spring, which are related to a deficiency in estimating albedo. Differences in meteorological conditions between paired sites is not a factor in these results. Attention needs to be devoted to improving the representation of surface heat flux processes in land models to increase confidence in LULCC simulations.

  20. Allegheny County Land Cover Areas

    Data.gov (United States)

    Allegheny County / City of Pittsburgh / Western PA Regional Data Center — The Land Cover dataset demarcates 14 land cover types by area; such as Residential, Commercial, Industrial, Forest, Agriculture, etc. If viewing this description on...

  1. Combining NLCD and MODIS to create a land cover-albedo database for the continental United States

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wickham, J.; Barnes, Christopher A.; Nash, M.S.; Wade, T.G.

    2015-01-01

    Land surface albedo is an essential climate variable that is tightly linked to land cover, such that specific land cover classes (e.g., deciduous broadleaf forest, cropland) have characteristic albedos. Despite the normative of land-cover class specific albedos, there is considerable variability in albedo within a land cover class. The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) albedo product were combined to produce a long-term (14 years) integrated land cover-albedo database for the continental United States that can be used to examine the temporal behavior of albedo as a function of land cover. The integration identifies areas of homogeneous land cover at the nominal spatial resolution of the MODIS (MCD43A) albedo product (500 m × 500 m) from the NLCD product (30 m × 30 m), and provides an albedo data record per 500 m × 500 m pixel for 14 of the 16 NLCD land cover classes. Individual homogeneous land cover pixels have up to 605 albedo observations, and 75% of the pixels have at least 319 MODIS albedo observations (≥ 50% of the maximum possible number of observations) for the study period (2000–2013). We demonstrated the utility of the database by conducting a multivariate analysis of variance of albedo for each NLCD land cover class, showing that locational (pixel-to-pixel) and inter-annual variability were significant factors in addition to expected seasonal (intra-annual) and geographic (latitudinal) effects.

  2. Contrasting Convective Flux Gradients in the U.S. Corn Belt as a Result of Vegetation Land Cover Type

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hiestand, M.

    2017-12-01

    Phenological differences between extensive croplands and remnant forests in the U.S. Corn Belt have been suggested as enhancing spatial gradients of latent and sensible heat fluxes that contribute to the distribution and amounts of convective rainfall on mesoscales. However, the exact magnitude of the intra-seasonal variability in convective fluxes between these two land-cover types has yet to be quantified. Previous work suggesting that non-classical mesoscale circulations operate within the Corn Belt has not involved direct flux observations obtained using the eddy flux covariance technique. This study compares five day running means of daily heat fluxes between two Ameriflux towers (US-Bo1 in Illinois and US-MMS in Indiana) representing rain-fed cropland and remnant forest, respectively for the growing seasons of 1999-2008. Latent heat values normalized to the net radiation show higher rates of evapotranspiration at the forested site than over the cropland during the start of the growing season. However, toward the end of the growing season, latent heat fluxes from the forest decrease and the cropland becomes the dominate source of evapotranspiration. Conversely, croplands dominate sensible heat fluxes at the start of the growing season whereas the remnant forests are associated with strong sensible heat fluxes in late summer. These intra-seasonal spatial differences of latent and sensible heat fluxes across the Corn Belt imply differences in moisture pooling that are suggested as enhancing atmospheric convection during favorable synoptic conditions, especially near the boundaries of these two land cover types. Understanding the physical mechanisms by which the spatial distribution of vegetated land cover can generate contrasting latent and sensible heat fluxes will lay the groundwork for improving mesoscale precipitation forecasts in the Corn Belt, and determining the possible impacts of ongoing land-cover and climate changes there.

  3. Scenarios of land cover in China

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yue, Tian Xiang; Fan, Ze Meng; Liu, Ji Yuan

    2007-02-01

    A method for surface modeling of land cover change (SMLC) is developed on the basis of establishing transition probability matrixes between land cover types and HLZ types. SMLC is used to simulate land cover scenarios of China for the years 2039, 2069 and 2099, for which HLZ scenarios are first simulated in terms of HadCM3 climatic scenarios that are downscaled in zonal model of spatial climate change in China. This paper also analyzes spatial distribution of land cover types, area change and mean center shift of each land cover type, ecotope diversity, and patch connectivity under the land cover scenarios. The results show that cultivated land would decrease and woodland would expand greatly with climatic change, which coincides with consequences expected by implementation of Grain-for-Green policy. Nival area would shrink, and desertification area would expand at a comparatively slow rate in future 100 years. Climate change would generally cause less ecotope diversity and more patch connectivity. Ecosystems in China would have a pattern of beneficial cycle after efficient ecological conservation and restoration. However, if human activities would exceed regulation capacity of ecosystems themselves, the ecosystems in China might deteriorate more seriously.

  4. The National Land Cover Database

    Science.gov (United States)

    Homer, Collin G.; Fry, Joyce A.; Barnes, Christopher A.

    2012-01-01

    The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) serves as the definitive Landsat-based, 30-meter resolution, land cover database for the Nation. NLCD provides spatial reference and descriptive data for characteristics of the land surface such as thematic class (for example, urban, agriculture, and forest), percent impervious surface, and percent tree canopy cover. NLCD supports a wide variety of Federal, State, local, and nongovernmental applications that seek to assess ecosystem status and health, understand the spatial patterns of biodiversity, predict effects of climate change, and develop land management policy. NLCD products are created by the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium, a partnership of Federal agencies led by the U.S. Geological Survey. All NLCD data products are available for download at no charge to the public from the MRLC Web site: http://www.mrlc.gov.

  5. Land use and land use change effects on nitrous oxide emissions in the seasonally dry ecosystems of Zimbabwe

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nyamadzawo, G; Chirinda, Ngoni; Mapanda, F

    2012-01-01

    . The savanna woodlands cover over 95% of Zimbabwe’s forest area, and are divided into five woodland types: Acacia, miombo, mopane, teak (Baikiaea Plurijuga) and Terminalia-Combretaceae. This review is aimed at exploring the effects of land-use changes and land management practices on N2O emissions in Zimbabwe...... emissions were mainly concentrated in the wet season as N2O production is strongly enhanced by high soil moisture. During the dry season pyrogenic emissions were also important sources of N2O, contributing, an estimated 6.7 Gg N2O annually. Land use change in the form of biomass burning and conversion...... of emissions of N2O. Land-use change from savanna to agricultural production results in an immediate increase in N2O emissions. However, the emissions will decrease with time. The current estimates are associated with large uncertainties, thus, there is need for more detailed studies on the effects of land-use...

  6. The Regional Land Cover Monitoring System: Building regional capacity through innovative land cover mapping approaches

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saah, D.; Tenneson, K.; Hanh, Q. N.; Aekakkararungroj, A.; Aung, K. S.; Goldstein, J.; Cutter, P. G.; Maus, P.; Markert, K. N.; Anderson, E.; Ellenburg, W. L.; Ate, P.; Flores Cordova, A. I.; Vadrevu, K.; Potapov, P.; Phongsapan, K.; Chishtie, F.; Clinton, N.; Ganz, D.

    2017-12-01

    Earth observation and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools, products, and services are vital to support the environmental decision making by governmental institutions, non-governmental agencies, and the general public. At the heart of environmental decision making is the monitoring land cover and land use change (LCLUC) for land resource planning and for ecosystem services, including biodiversity conservation and resilience to climate change. A major challenge for monitoring LCLUC in developing regions, such as Southeast Asia, is inconsistent data products at inconsistent intervals that have different typologies across the region and are typically made in without stakeholder engagement or input. Here we present the Regional Land Cover Monitoring System (RLCMS), a novel land cover mapping effort for Southeast Asia, implemented by SERVIR-Mekong, a joint NASA-USAID initiative that brings Earth observations to improve environmental decision making in developing countries. The RLCMS focuses on mapping biophysical variables (e.g. canopy cover, tree height, or percent surface water) at an annual interval and in turn using those biophysical variables to develop land cover maps based on stakeholder definitions of land cover classes. This allows for flexible and consistent land cover classifications that can meet the needs of different institutions across the region. Another component of the RLCMS production is the stake-holder engagement through co-development. Institutions that directly benefit from this system have helped drive the development for regional needs leading to services for their specific uses. Examples of services for regional stakeholders include using the RLCMS to develop maps using the IPCC classification scheme for GHG emission reporting and developing custom annual maps as an input to hydrologic modeling/flood forecasting systems. In addition to the implementation of this system and the service stemming from the RLCMS in Southeast Asia, it is

  7. Land cover fire proneness in Europe

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mario Gonzalez Pereira

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Aim of study: This study aims to identify and characterize the spatial and temporal evolution of the types of vegetation that are most affected by forest fires in Europe. The characterization of the fuels is an important issue of the fire regime in each specific ecosystem while, on the other hand, fire is an important disturbance for global vegetation dynamics.Area of study: Southern European countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece.Material and Methods: Corine Land Cover maps for 2000 and 2006 (CLC2000, CLC2006 and burned area (BA perimeters, from 2000 to 2013 in Europe are combined to access the spatial and temporal evolution of the types of vegetation that are most affected by wild fires using descriptive statistics and Geographical Information System (GIS techniques.Main results: The spatial and temporal distribution of BA perimeters, vegetation and burnt vegetation by wild fires was performed and different statistics were obtained for Mediterranean and entire Europe, confirming the usefulness of the proposed land cover system. A fire proneness index is proposed to assess the fire selectivity of land cover classes. The index allowed to quantify and to compare the propensity of vegetation classes and countries to fire.Research highlights: The usefulness and efficiency of the land cover classification scheme and fire proneness index. The differences between northern Europe and southern Europe and among the Mediterranean region in what concerns to vegetation cover, fire incidence, area burnt in land cover classes and fire proneness between classes for the different countries.Keywords: Fire proneness; Mixed forests; Land cover/land use; Fire regime; Europe; GIS; Corine land cover

  8. Land Surface Phenology from MODIS: Characterization of the Collection 5 Global Land Cover Dynamics Product

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ganguly, Sangram; Friedl, Mark A.; Tan, Bin; Zhang, Xiaoyang; Verma, Manish

    2010-01-01

    Information related to land surface phenology is important for a variety of applications. For example, phenology is widely used as a diagnostic of ecosystem response to global change. In addition, phenology influences seasonal scale fluxes of water, energy, and carbon between the land surface and atmosphere. Increasingly, the importance of phenology for studies of habitat and biodiversity is also being recognized. While many data sets related to plant phenology have been collected at specific sites or in networks focused on individual plants or plant species, remote sensing provides the only way to observe and monitor phenology over large scales and at regular intervals. The MODIS Global Land Cover Dynamics Product was developed to support investigations that require regional to global scale information related to spatiotemporal dynamics in land surface phenology. Here we describe the Collection 5 version of this product, which represents a substantial refinement relative to the Collection 4 product. This new version provides information related to land surface phenology at higher spatial resolution than Collection 4 (500-m vs. 1-km), and is based on 8-day instead of 16-day input data. The paper presents a brief overview of the algorithm, followed by an assessment of the product. To this end, we present (1) a comparison of results from Collection 5 versus Collection 4 for selected MODIS tiles that span a range of climate and ecological conditions, (2) a characterization of interannual variation in Collections 4 and 5 data for North America from 2001 to 2006, and (3) a comparison of Collection 5 results against ground observations for two forest sites in the northeastern United States. Results show that the Collection 5 product is qualitatively similar to Collection 4. However, Collection 5 has fewer missing values outside of regions with persistent cloud cover and atmospheric aerosols. Interannual variability in Collection 5 is consistent with expected ranges of

  9. Using ASTER Imagery in Land Use/cover Classification of Eastern Mediterranean Landscapes According to CORINE Land Cover Project

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Recep Gundogan

    2008-02-01

    Full Text Available The satellite imagery has been effectively utilized for classifying land covertypes and detecting land cover conditions. The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emissionand Reflection Radiometer (ASTER sensor imagery has been widely used in classificationprocess of land cover. However, atmospheric corrections have to be made by preprocessingsatellite sensor imagery since the electromagnetic radiation signals received by the satellitesensors can be scattered and absorbed by the atmospheric gases and aerosols. In this study,an ASTER sensor imagery, which was converted into top-of-atmosphere reflectance(TOA, was used to classify the land use/cover types, according to COoRdination ofINformation on the Environment (CORINE land cover nomenclature, for an arearepresenting the heterogonous characteristics of eastern Mediterranean regions inKahramanmaras, Turkey. The results indicated that using the surface reflectance data ofASTER sensor imagery can provide accurate (i.e. overall accuracy and kappa values of83.2% and 0.79, respectively and low-cost cover mapping as a part of inventory forCORINE Land Cover Project.

  10. Geovisualization of land use and land cover using bivariate maps and Sankey flow diagrams

    Science.gov (United States)

    Strode, Georgianna; Mesev, Victor; Thornton, Benjamin; Jerez, Marjorie; Tricarico, Thomas; McAlear, Tyler

    2018-05-01

    The terms `land use' and `land cover' typically describe categories that convey information about the landscape. Despite the major difference of land use implying some degree of anthropogenic disturbance, the two terms are commonly used interchangeably, especially when anthropogenic disturbance is ambiguous, say managed forestland or abandoned agricultural fields. Cartographically, land use and land cover are also sometimes represented interchangeably within common legends, giving with the impression that the landscape is a seamless continuum of land use parcels spatially adjacent to land cover tracts. We believe this is misleading, and feel we need to reiterate the well-established symbiosis of land uses as amalgams of land covers; in other words land covers are subsets of land use. Our paper addresses this spatially complex, and frequently ambiguous relationship, and posits that bivariate cartographic techniques are an ideal vehicle for representing both land use and land cover simultaneously. In more specific terms, we explore the use of nested symbology as ways to represent graphically land use and land cover, where land cover are circles nested with land use squares. We also investigate bivariate legends for representing statistical covariance as a means for visualizing the combinations of land use and cover. Lastly, we apply Sankey flow diagrams to further illustrate the complex, multifaceted relationships between land use and land cover. Our work is demonstrated on data representing land use and cover data for the US state of Florida.

  11. Estimating land use / land cover changes in Denmark from 1990 - 2012

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Levin, Gregor; Kastrup Blemmer, Morten; Gyldenkærne, Steen

    According to the article 3(4) of the Kyoto Protocol, Denmark is obliged to document sequestration and emission of carbon dioxide from land use and land cover and changes in these. This report documents and describes applied data end developed methods aiming at estimating amounts and changes in land...... use and land cover for Denmark for since 1990. Estimation of land use and land cover categories and changes in these is predominantly based on existing categorical (i.e. pre-classified) geographical information. Estimations are elaborated for the period from 1990 to 2005, from 2005 to 2011 and from...... 2011 to 2012. Due to limited availability of historical spatially explicit information, estimations of change in land use and land cover from 1990 up to 2011 do, to some degree, involve decisions based on expert knowledge. Due to a significant increase in the availability of detailed spatially specific...

  12. The impact of organochlorines cycling in the cryosphere on global distributions and fate – 2. Land ice and temporary snow cover

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hofmann, Lorenz; Stemmler, Irene; Lammel, Gerhard

    2012-01-01

    Global fate and transport of γ-HCH and DDT was studied using a global multicompartment chemistry-transport model, MPI-MCTM, with and without inclusion of land ice (in Antarctica and Greenland) or snow cover (dynamic). MPI-MCTM is based on coupled ocean and atmosphere general circulation models. After a decade of simulation 4.2% γ-HCH and 2.3% DDT are stored in land ice and snow. Neglection of land ice and snow in modelling would underestimate the total environmental residence time, τ ov , of γ-HCH and overestimate τ ov for DDT, both on the order of 1% and depending on actual compartmental distribution. Volatilisation of DDT from boreal, seasonally snow covered land is enhanced throughout the year, while volatilisation of γ-HCH is only enhanced during the snow-free season. Including land ice and snow cover in modelling matters in particular for the Arctic, where higher burdens are predicted to be stored. - Highlights: ► Land ice and snow hosts 2–4% of the global environmental burden of γ-HCH and DDT. ► Inclusion of land ice and snow cover matters for global environmental residence time. ► Including of land ice and snow cover matters in particular for the Arctic. - The inclusion of cycling in temporary snow cover and land ice in the model is found relevant for predicted POPs multicompartmental distribution and fate in the Arctic and on the global scale.

  13. Border Lakes land-cover classification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marvin Bauer; Brian Loeffelholz; Doug. Shinneman

    2009-01-01

    This document contains metadata and description of land-cover classification of approximately 5.1 million acres of land bordering Minnesota, U.S.A. and Ontario, Canada. The classification focused on the separation and identification of specific forest-cover types. Some separation of the nonforest classes also was performed. The classification was derived from multi-...

  14. Carbon Assessment of Hawaii Land Cover Map (CAH_LandCover)

    Data.gov (United States)

    Department of the Interior — While there have been many maps produced that depict vegetation for the state of Hawai‘i only a few of these display land cover for all of the main Hawaiian Islands,...

  15. Mapping of the Land Cover Spatiotemporal Characteristics in Northern Russia Caused by Climate Change

    Science.gov (United States)

    Panidi, E.; Tsepelev, V.; Torlopova, N.; Bobkov, A.

    2016-06-01

    The study is devoted to the investigation of regional climate change in Northern Russia. Due to sparseness of the meteorological observation network in northern regions, we investigate the application capabilities of remotely sensed vegetation cover as indicator of climate change at the regional scale. In previous studies, we identified statistically significant relationship between the increase of surface air temperature and increase of the shrub vegetation productivity. We verified this relationship using ground observation data collected at the meteorological stations and Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data produced from Terra/MODIS satellite imagery. Additionally, we designed the technique of growing seasons separation for detailed investigation of the land cover (shrub cover) dynamics. Growing seasons are the periods when the temperature exceeds +5°C and +10°C. These periods determine the vegetation productivity conditions (i.e., conditions that allow growth of the phytomass). We have discovered that the trend signs for the surface air temperature and NDVI coincide on planes and river floodplains. On the current stage of the study, we are working on the automated mapping technique, which allows to estimate the direction and magnitude of the climate change in Northern Russia. This technique will make it possible to extrapolate identified relationship between land cover and climate onto territories with sparse network of meteorological stations. We have produced the gridded maps of NDVI and NDWI for the test area in European part of Northern Russia covered with the shrub vegetation. Basing on these maps, we may determine the frames of growing seasons for each grid cell. It will help us to obtain gridded maps of the NDVI linear trend for growing seasons on cell-by-cell basis. The trend maps can be used as indicative maps for estimation of the climate change on the studied areas.

  16. Towards realistic Holocene land cover scenarios: integration of archaeological, palynological and geomorphological records and comparison to global land cover scenarios.

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Brue, Hanne; Verstraeten, Gert; Broothaerts, Nils; Notebaert, Bastiaan

    2016-04-01

    Accurate and spatially explicit landscape reconstructions for distinct time periods in human history are essential for the quantification of the effect of anthropogenic land cover changes on, e.g., global biogeochemical cycles, ecology, and geomorphic processes, and to improve our understanding of interaction between humans and the environment in general. A long-term perspective covering Mid and Late Holocene land use changes is recommended in this context, as it provides a baseline to evaluate human impact in more recent periods. Previous efforts to assess the evolution and intensity of agricultural land cover in past centuries or millennia have predominantly focused on palynological records. An increasing number of quantitative techniques has been developed during the last two decades to transfer palynological data to land cover estimates. However, these techniques have to deal with equifinality issues and, furthermore, do not sufficiently allow to reconstruct spatial patterns of past land cover. On the other hand, several continental and global databases of historical anthropogenic land cover changes based on estimates of global population and the required agricultural land per capita have been developed in the past decennium. However, at such long temporal and spatial scales, reconstruction of past anthropogenic land cover intensities and spatial patterns necessarily involves many uncertainties and assumptions as well. Here, we present a novel approach that combines archaeological, palynological and geomorphological data for the Dijle catchment in the central Belgium Loess Belt in order to arrive at more realistic Holocene land cover histories. Multiple land cover scenarios (> 60.000) are constructed using probabilistic rules and used as input into a sediment delivery model (WaTEM/SEDEM). Model outcomes are confronted with a detailed geomorphic dataset on Holocene sediment fluxes and with REVEALS based estimates of vegetation cover using palynological data from

  17. 1990 Kansas Land Cover Patterns Update

    Data.gov (United States)

    Kansas Data Access and Support Center — In 2008, an update of the 1990 Kansas Land Cover Patterns (KLCP) database was undertaken. The 1990 KLCP database depicts 10 general land cover classes for the State...

  18. VT National Land Cover Dataset - 2001

    Data.gov (United States)

    Vermont Center for Geographic Information — (Link to Metadata) The NLCD2001 layer available from VCGI is a subset of the the National Land Cover Database 2001 land cover layer for mapping zone 65 was produced...

  19. Land cover changes in central Sonora Mexico

    Science.gov (United States)

    Diego Valdez-Zamudio; Alejandro Castellanos-Villegas; Stuart Marsh

    2000-01-01

    Remote sensing techniques have been demonstrated to be very effective tools to help detect, analyze, and evaluate land cover changes in natural areas of the world. Changes in land cover can generally be attributed to either natural or anthropogenic forces. Multitemporal satellite imagery and airborne videography were used to detect, analyze, and evaluate land cover...

  20. Environmental, land cover and land use constraints on the distributional patterns of anurans: Leptodacylus species (Anura, Leptodactylidae from Dry Chaco

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Regina Gabriela Medina

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Subtropical dry forests are among the most vulnerable biomes to land transformation at a global scale. Among them, the Dry Chaco suffers an accelerated change due to agriculture expansion and intensification. The Dry Chaco ecoregion is characterized by high levels of endemisms and species diversity, which are the result of a variety of climates and reliefs, allowing a wide variety of environments. The amphibian group exhibits a high richness in the Dry Chaco, which has been barely studied in relation to land cover changes. We used ecological niche models (ENMs to assess the potential geographic distribution of 10 Leptodactylus species (Anura, Leptodactylidae, which are mainly distributed within the Dry Chaco. We characterized these distributions environmentally, analyzed their overlap with land cover classes, and assessed their diversity of ecoregions. Also, we evaluated how these species potential distribution is affected by the transformation of land, and quantified the proportional area of the potential distribution in protected areas. We found that temperature seasonality is the main constraint to the occurrence of the species studied, whose main habitats are savannas, grasslands and croplands. The main threats to these species are the effects of climate change over spatial patterns of seasonality, which could affect their breeding and reproduction mode; the loss of their natural habitat; the exposure to contaminants used by intensive agriculture and their underrepresentation in protected areas.

  1. Classification of Land Cover and Land Use Based on Convolutional Neural Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Chun; Rottensteiner, Franz; Heipke, Christian

    2018-04-01

    Land cover describes the physical material of the earth's surface, whereas land use describes the socio-economic function of a piece of land. Land use information is typically collected in geospatial databases. As such databases become outdated quickly, an automatic update process is required. This paper presents a new approach to determine land cover and to classify land use objects based on convolutional neural networks (CNN). The input data are aerial images and derived data such as digital surface models. Firstly, we apply a CNN to determine the land cover for each pixel of the input image. We compare different CNN structures, all of them based on an encoder-decoder structure for obtaining dense class predictions. Secondly, we propose a new CNN-based methodology for the prediction of the land use label of objects from a geospatial database. In this context, we present a strategy for generating image patches of identical size from the input data, which are classified by a CNN. Again, we compare different CNN architectures. Our experiments show that an overall accuracy of up to 85.7 % and 77.4 % can be achieved for land cover and land use, respectively. The classification of land cover has a positive contribution to the classification of the land use classification.

  2. Spatial Relationships between Biomass Burning and Land Use / Land Cover Dynamics in Northern Sub-Saharan Africa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ellison, L.; Ichoku, C. M.

    2016-12-01

    Biomass burning (BB) is an extensive and persistent phenomenon across the world, and is a result of either natural (via lightning strikes) or anthropogenic processes, depending on the location. In Northern Sub-Saharan Africa (NSSA), where access to affordable modern farming equipment is extremely limited, agricultural practices dominate and BB is completely anthropogenic for all practical purposes, resulting in NSSA consistently contributing 15-20% of the total global annual emission of particulate matter from fires, according to estimates from version 1.0 of the Fire Energetics and Emissions Research BB emissions inventory (FEERv1.0, http://feer.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/emissions/). The FEERv1.0 algorithm uses a land cover type (LCT) product at either 0.5° or 0.1° resolutions for the conversion of total particulate matter estimates to various other smoke constituents. Due to the fact that fires are closely associated with land cover types, it became apparent that a fire-prone land cover type product at those spatial resolutions were needed, resulting in the FEERv1 BB-LCT product (http://feer.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/landcover/). In version 2 of the product, it was found that 6% of all grid cells with partial or full land cover in the original 0.5° LCT product is reclassified when considering BB practices. In NSSA, we see that the differences fall mainly along the borders between major regions of different LCT. Roughly speaking, fires along the cropland/savanna and savanna/forest borders in NSSA are mostly from from savanna burning. An in-depth analysis of the spatial extent and variability of fires and land cover in NSSA reveals that within the last one-and-a-half decades, the maximum fire activity occurred in the 2006/07 fire season and has been decreasing ever since. Interestingly, despite this decrease in fire activity, we observe a continuing increase in land cover conversion to cropland over the same time period at a rate of 0.3%/yr, which is equal to ≈37,500 km2/yr

  3. From land cover change to land function dynamics: A major challenge to improve land characterization

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Verburg, P.H.; Steeg, van de J.; Veldkamp, A.; Willemen, L.

    2009-01-01

    Land cover change has always had a central role in land change science. This central role is largely the result of the possibilities to map and characterize land cover based on observations and remote sensing. This paper argues that more attention should be given to land use and land functions and

  4. LandSat-Based Land Use-Land Cover (Vector)

    Data.gov (United States)

    Minnesota Department of Natural Resources — Vector-based land cover data set derived from classified 30 meter resolution Thematic Mapper satellite imagery. Classification is divided into 16 classes with source...

  5. LandSat-Based Land Use-Land Cover (Raster)

    Data.gov (United States)

    Minnesota Department of Natural Resources — Raster-based land cover data set derived from 30 meter resolution Thematic Mapper satellite imagery. Classification is divided into 16 classes with source imagery...

  6. Climate variability and land cover change over the North American monsoon region (Invited)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, X.; Scheftic, W. D.; Broxton, P. D.

    2013-12-01

    The North American Monsoon System over Mexico and southwestern United States represents a weather/climate and ecosystem coupled "macrosystem". The weather and climate affect the seasonal and interannual variability of ecosystem, while the ecosystem change affects surface energy, water, and carbon fluxes that, in turn, affect weather and climate. Furthermore, long-term weather/climate data have a much coarser horizontal resolution than the satellite land cover data. Here the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) data at 32 km grid spacing will be combined with various satellite remote sensing products at 1 km and/or 8 km resolution from AVHRR, MODIS, and SPOT for the period of 1982 to present. Our analysis includes: a) precipitation, wind, and precipitable water data from NARR to characterize the North American monsoon; b) land cover type, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), green vegetation fraction, and leaf-area index (LAI) data to characterize the seasonal and interannual variability of ecosystem; c) assessing the consistency of various satellite products; and d) testing the coherence in the weather/climate and ecosystem variability.

  7. Exploring dust emission responses to land cover change using an ecological land classification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Galloza, Magda S.; Webb, Nicholas P.; Bleiweiss, Max P.; Winters, Craig; Herrick, Jeffrey E.; Ayers, Eldon

    2018-06-01

    Despite efforts to quantify the impacts of land cover change on wind erosion, assessment uncertainty remains large. We address this uncertainty by evaluating the application of ecological site concepts and state-and-transition models (STMs) for detecting and quantitatively describing the impacts of land cover change on wind erosion. We apply a dust emission model over a rangeland study area in the northern Chihuahuan Desert, New Mexico, USA, and evaluate spatiotemporal patterns of modelled horizontal sediment mass flux and dust emission in the context of ecological sites and their vegetation states; representing a diversity of land cover types. Our results demonstrate how the impacts of land cover change on dust emission can be quantified, compared across land cover classes, and interpreted in the context of an ecological model that encapsulates land management intensity and change. Results also reveal the importance of established weaknesses in the dust model soil characterisation and drag partition scheme, which appeared generally insensitive to the impacts of land cover change. New models that address these weaknesses, coupled with ecological site concepts and field measurements across land cover types, could significantly reduce assessment uncertainties and provide opportunities for identifying land management options.

  8. Land use/land cover and scale influences on in-stream nitrogen uptake kinetics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Covino, Tim; McGlynn, Brian; McNamara, Rebecca

    2012-06-01

    Land use/land cover change often leads to increased nutrient loading to streams; however, its influence on stream ecosystem nutrient transport remains poorly understood. Given the deleterious impacts elevated nutrient loading can have on aquatic ecosystems, it is imperative to improve understanding of nutrient retention capacities across stream scales and watershed development gradients. We performed 17 nutrient addition experiments on six streams across the West Fork Gallatin Watershed, Montana, USA, to quantify nitrogen uptake kinetics and retention dynamics across stream sizes (first to fourth order) and along a watershed development gradient. We observed that stream nitrogen (N) uptake kinetics and spiraling parameters varied across streams of different development intensity and scale. In more developed watersheds we observed a fertilization affect. This fertilization affect was evident as increased ash-free dry mass, chlorophylla, and ambient and maximum uptake rates in developed as compared to undeveloped streams. Ash-free dry mass, chlorophylla, and the number of structures in a subwatershed were significantly correlated to nutrient spiraling and kinetic parameters, while ambient and average annual N concentrations were not. Additionally, increased maximum uptake capacities in developed streams contributed to low in-stream nutrient concentrations during the growing season, and helped maintain watershed export at low levels during base flow. Our results indicate that land use/land cover change can enhance in-stream uptake of limiting nutrients and highlight the need for improved understanding of the watershed dynamics that control nutrient export across scales and development intensities for mitigation and protection of aquatic ecosystems.

  9. GAP Land Cover - Vector

    Data.gov (United States)

    Minnesota Department of Natural Resources — This vector dataset is a detailed (1-acre minimum), hierarchically organized vegetation cover map produced by computer classification of combined two-season pairs of...

  10. Impacts of Rainfall Variability, Land Use and Land Cover Change on Stream Flow of the Black Volta Basin, West Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Komlavi Akpoti

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Potential implications of rainfall variability along with Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULC on stream flow have been assessed in the Black Volta basin using the SWAT model. The spatio-temporal variability of rainfall over the Black Volta was assessed using the Mann-Kendall monotonic trend test and the Sen’s slope for the period 1976–2011. The statistics of the trend test showed that 61.4% of the rain gauges presented an increased precipitation trend whereas the rest of the stations showed a decreased trend. However, the test performed at the 95% confidence interval level showed that the detected trends in the rainfall data were not statistically significant. Land use trends between the year 2000 and 2013 show that within thirteen years, land use classes like bare land, urban areas, water bodies, agricultural lands, deciduous forests and evergreen forests have increased respectively by 67.06%, 33.22%, 7.62%, 29.66%, 60.18%, and 38.38%. Only grass land has decreased by 44.54% within this period. Changes in seasonal stream flow due to LULC were assessed by defining dry and wet seasons. The results showed that from year 2000 to year 2013, the dry season discharge has increased by 6% whereas the discharge of wet season has increased by 1%. The changes in stream flows components such us surface run-off (SURF_Q, lateral flow (LAT_Q and ground water contribution to stream flow (GW_Q and also on evapotranspiration (ET changes due to LULC was evaluated. The results showed that between the year 2000 and 2013, SURF_Q and LAT_Q have respectively increased by 27% and 19% while GW_Q has decreased by 6% while ET has increased by 4.59%. The resultant effects are that the water yield to stream flow has increased by 4%.

  11. EnviroAtlas - Land Cover for the Conterminous United States

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This dataset represents the percentage of land area that is classified as forest land cover, modified forest land cover, and natural land cover using the 2006...

  12. Development of a 30 m Spatial Resolution Land Cover of Canada: Contribution to the Harmonized North America Land Cover Dataset

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pouliot, D.; Latifovic, R.; Olthof, I.

    2017-12-01

    Land cover is needed for a large range of environmental applications regarding climate impacts and adaption, emergency response, wildlife habitat, air quality, water yield, etc. In Canada a 2008 user survey revealed that the most practical scale for provision of land cover data is 30 m, nationwide, with an update frequency of five years (Ball, 2008). In response to this need the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing has generated a 30 m land cover of Canada for the base year 2010 as part of a planned series of maps at the recommended five year update frequency. This land cover is the Canadian contribution to the North American Land Change Monitoring System initiative, which seeks to provide harmonized land cover across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The methodology developed in this research utilized a combination of unsupervised and machine learning techniques to map land cover, blend results between mapping units, locally optimize results, and process some thematic attributes with specific features sets. Accuracy assessment with available field data shows it was on average 75% for the five study areas assessed. In this presentation an overview of the unique processing aspects, example results, and initial accuracy assessment will be discussed.

  13. Annual land cover change mapping using MODIS time series to improve emissions inventories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    López Saldaña, G.; Quaife, T. L.; Clifford, D.

    2014-12-01

    Understanding and quantifying land surface changes is necessary for estimating greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions, and for meeting air quality limits and targets. More sophisticated inventories methodologies for at least key emission source are needed due to policy-driven air quality directives. Quantifying land cover changes on an annual basis requires greater spatial and temporal disaggregation of input data. The main aim of this study is to develop a methodology for using Earth Observations (EO) to identify annual land surface changes that will improve emissions inventories from agriculture and land use/land use change and forestry (LULUCF) in the UK. First goal is to find the best sets of input features that describe accurately the surface dynamics. In order to identify annual and inter-annual land surface changes, a times series of surface reflectance was used to capture seasonal variability. Daily surface reflectance images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) at 500m resolution were used to invert a Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) model to create the seamless time series. Given the limited number of cloud-free observations, a BRDF climatology was used to constrain the model inversion and where no high-scientific quality observations were available at all, as a gap filler. The Land Cover Map 2007 (LC2007) produced by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) was used for training and testing purposes. A prototype land cover product was created for 2006 to 2008. Several machine learning classifiers were tested as well as different sets of input features going from the BRDF parameters to spectral Albedo. We will present the results of the time series development and the first exercises when creating the prototype land cover product.

  14. Validation of Land Cover Products Using Reliability Evaluation Methods

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wenzhong Shi

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Validation of land cover products is a fundamental task prior to data applications. Current validation schemes and methods are, however, suited only for assessing classification accuracy and disregard the reliability of land cover products. The reliability evaluation of land cover products should be undertaken to provide reliable land cover information. In addition, the lack of high-quality reference data often constrains validation and affects the reliability results of land cover products. This study proposes a validation schema to evaluate the reliability of land cover products, including two methods, namely, result reliability evaluation and process reliability evaluation. Result reliability evaluation computes the reliability of land cover products using seven reliability indicators. Process reliability evaluation analyzes the reliability propagation in the data production process to obtain the reliability of land cover products. Fuzzy fault tree analysis is introduced and improved in the reliability analysis of a data production process. Research results show that the proposed reliability evaluation scheme is reasonable and can be applied to validate land cover products. Through the analysis of the seven indicators of result reliability evaluation, more information on land cover can be obtained for strategic decision-making and planning, compared with traditional accuracy assessment methods. Process reliability evaluation without the need for reference data can facilitate the validation and reflect the change trends of reliabilities to some extent.

  15. A Review of Land-Cover Mapping Activities in Coastal Alabama and Mississippi

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Kathryn E.L.; Nayegandhi, Amar; Brock, John C.

    2010-01-01

    -based land-use classifications. Aerial photography is typically selected for smaller landscapes (watershed-basin scale), for greater definition of the land-use categories, and for increased spatial resolution. Disadvantages of using photography include time-consuming digitization, high costs for imagery collection, and lack of seasonal data. Recently, the availability of high-resolution satellite imagery has generated a new category of LULC data product. These new datasets have similar strengths to the aerial-photo-based LULC in that they possess the potential for refined definition of land-use categories and increased spatial resolution but also have the benefit of satellite-based classifications, such as repeatability for change analysis. LULC classification based on high-resolution satellite imagery is still in the early stages of development but merits greater attention because environmental-monitoring and landscape-modeling programs rely heavily on LULC data. This publication summarizes land-use and land-cover mapping activities for Alabama and Mississippi coastal areas within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM) Ecosystem Change and Hazard Susceptibility Project boundaries. Existing LULC datasets will be described, as well as imagery data sources and ancillary data that may provide ground-truth or satellite training data for a forthcoming land-cover classification. Finally, potential areas for a high-resolution land-cover classification in the Alabama-Mississippi region will be identified.

  16. Alluvial Mountain Meadow Source-Sink Dynamics: Land-Cover Effects on Water and Fluvial Carbon Export

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weiss, T.; Covino, T. P.; Wohl, E.; Rhoades, C.; Fegel, T.; Clow, D. W.

    2017-12-01

    Fluvial networks of historically glaciated mountain landscapes alternate between confined and unconfined valley segments. In low-gradient unconfined reaches, river-connected wet meadows commonly establish, and have been recognized as important locations of long-term water, carbon, and nutrient storage. Among connected meadow floodplains, sink-source behavior shifts as a function of flow state; storing water at high flows (snowmelt) and contributing toward higher late-season baseflows. Despite these benefits, historical and contemporary land-use practices often result in the simplification of wet meadow systems, leading to reduced river-floodplain connectivity, lower water-tables and reductions in hydrologic buffering capacity. In this study, we are exploring hydrologic-carbon relationships across a gradient of valley confinement and river-floodplain connectivity (connected, n=3; disconnected, n=4) within the Colorado Rockies. Our approach includes hydrologic analysis, fluorometric assays, water chemistry, instream metabolic measures, and land-cover assessment to examine patterns between land-form, carbon quantity and quality, and stream ecosystem productivity. Between different meadow types, preliminary results suggest differences between instream productivity, carbon qualities, and hydrologic-carbon sink-source dynamics across the season. These data and analyses will provide insight into water, carbon and nutrient flux dynamics as a function of land-cover in mountain headwaters.

  17. Monitoring land use/land cover changes using CORINE land cover data: a case study of Silivri coastal zone in Metropolitan Istanbul.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yilmaz, Rüya

    2010-06-01

    The objective of the present study was to assess changes in land use/land cover patterns in the coastal town of Silivri, a part of greater Istanbul administratively. In the assessment, remotely sensed data, in the form of satellite images, and geographic information systems were used. Types of land use/land cover were designated as the percentage of the total area studied. Results calculated from the satellite data for land cover classification were compared successfully with the database Coordination of Information on the Environment (CORINE). This served as a reference to appraise the reliability of the study presented here. The CORINE Program was established by the European Commission to create a harmonized Geographical Information System on the state of the environment in the European Community. Unplanned urbanization is causing land use changes mainly in developing countries such as Turkey. This situation in Turkey is frequently observed in the city of Istanbul. There are only a few studies of land use-land cover changes which provide an integrated assessment of the biophysical and societal causes and consequences of environmental degradation in Istanbul. The research area comprised greater Silivri Town which is situated by the coast of Marmara Sea, and it is located approximately 60 km west of Istanbul. The city of Istanbul is one of the largest metropolises in Europe with ca. 15 million inhabitants. Additionally, greater Silivri is located near the terminal point of the state highway connecting Istanbul with Europe. Measuring of changes occurring in land use would help control future planning of settlements; hence, it is of importance for the Greater Silivri and Silivri Town. Following our evaluations, coastal zone of Silivri was classified into the land use groups of artificial surfaces agricultural areas and forests and seminatural areas with 47.1%, 12.66%, and 22.62%, respectively.

  18. Computer implemented land cover classification using LANDSAT MSS digital data: A cooperative research project between the National Park Service and NASA. 3: Vegetation and other land cover analysis of Shenandoah National Park

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cibula, W. G.

    1981-01-01

    Four LANDSAT frames, each corresponding to one of the four seasons were spectrally classified and processed using NASA-developed computer programs. One data set was selected or two or more data sets were marged to improve surface cover classifications. Selected areas representing each spectral class were chosen and transferred to USGS 1:62,500 topographic maps for field use. Ground truth data were gathered to verify the accuracy of the classifications. Acreages were computed for each of the land cover types. The application of elevational data to seasonal LANDSAT frames resulted in the separation of high elevation meadows (both with and without recently emergent perennial vegetation) as well as areas in oak forests which have an evergreen understory as opposed to other areas which do not.

  19. ISLSCP II Historical Land Cover and Land Use, 1700-1990

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — ABSTRACT: The Historical Land Cover and Land Use data set was developed to provide the global change community with historical land use estimates. The data set...

  20. Seasonal albedo of an urban/rural landscape from satellite observations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brest, Christopher L.

    1987-01-01

    Using data from 27 calibrated Landsat observations of the Hartford, Connecticut area, the spatial distribution and seasonal variation of surface reflectance and albedo were examined. Mean values of visible reflectance, near-IR reflectance, and albedo are presented (for both snow-free and snow-cover observations) according to 14 land use/land cover categories. A diversity of albedo values was found to exist in this type of environment, associated with land cover. Many land-cover categories display a seasonal dependence, with intracategory seasonal differences being of comparable magnitude to intercategory differences. Key factors in determining albedo (and its seasonal dynamics) are the presence or absence of vegetation and the canopy structure. Snow-cover/snow-free differences range from a few percent (for urban land covers) to over 40 percent (for low-canopy vegetation).

  1. Towards Seamless Validation of Land Cover Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chuprikova, Ekaterina; Liebel, Lukas; Meng, Liqiu

    2018-05-01

    This article demonstrates the ability of the Bayesian Network analysis for the recognition of uncertainty patterns associated with the fusion of various land cover data sets including GlobeLand30, CORINE (CLC2006, Germany) and land cover data derived from Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) such as Open Street Map (OSM). The results of recognition are expressed as probability and uncertainty maps which can be regarded as a by-product of the GlobeLand30 data. The uncertainty information may guide the quality improvement of GlobeLand30 by involving the ground truth data, information with superior quality, the know-how of experts and the crowd intelligence. Such an endeavor aims to pave a way towards a seamless validation of global land cover data on the one hand and a targeted knowledge discovery in areas with higher uncertainty values on the other hand.

  2. South African National Land-Cover Change Map

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Fritz Schoeman

    monitoring land-cover change at a national scale over time using EO data. 2. .... assist with final results reporting and analysis on a sub-national level. ..... South African Land-Cover Characteristics Database: A synopsis of the landscape.

  3. Correlations between land covers and honey bee colony losses in a country with industrialized and rural regions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clermont, Antoine; Eickermann, Michael; Kraus, François; Hoffmann, Lucien; Beyer, Marco

    2015-11-01

    High levels of honey bee colony losses were recently reported from Canada, China, Europe, Israel, Turkey and the United States, raising concerns of a global pollinator decline and questioning current land use practices, in particular intense agricultural cropping systems. Sixty-seven crops (data from the years 2010-2012) and 66 mid-term stable land cover classes (data from 2007) were analysed for statistical relationships with the honey bee colony losses experienced over the winters 2010/11-2012/13 in Luxembourg (Western Europe). The area covered by each land cover class, the shortest distance between each land cover class and the respective apiary, the number of plots covered by each land use class and the size of the biggest plot of each land cover class within radii of 2 km and 5 km around 166 apiaries (2010), 184 apiaries (2011) and 188 apiaries (2012) were tested for correlations with honey bee colony losses (% per apiary) experienced in the winter following the season when the crops were grown. Artificial water bodies, open urban areas, large industrial facilities including heavy industry, railways and associated installations, buildings and installations with socio-cultural purpose, camping-, sports-, playgrounds, golf courts, oilseed crops other than oilseed rape like sunflower or linseed, some spring cereals and former forest clearcuts or windthrows were the land cover classes most frequently associated with high honey bee colony losses. Grain maize, mixed forest and mixed coniferous forest were the land cover classes most frequently associated with low honey bee colony losses. The present data suggest that land covers related to transport, industry and leisure may have made a more substantial contribution to winter honey bee colony losses in developed countries than anticipated so far. Recommendations for the positioning of apiaries are discussed. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  4. Regional seasonal warming anomalies and land-surface feedbacks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coffel, E.; Horton, R. M.

    2017-12-01

    Significant seasonal variations in warming are projected in some regions, especially central Europe, the southeastern U.S., and central South America. Europe in particular may experience up to 2°C more warming during June, July, and August than in the annual mean, enhancing the risk of extreme summertime heat. Previous research has shown that heat waves in Europe and other regions are tied to seasonal soil moisture variations, and that in general land-surface feedbacks have a strong effect on seasonal temperature anomalies. In this study, we show that the seasonal anomalies in warming are also due in part to land-surface feedbacks. We find that in regions with amplified warming during the hot season, surface soil moisture levels generally decline and Bowen ratios increase as a result of a preferential partitioning of incoming energy into sensible vs. latent. The CMIP5 model suite shows significant variability in the strength of land-atmosphere coupling and in projections of future precipitation and soil moisture. Due to the dependence of seasonal warming on land-surface processes, these inter-model variations influence the projected summertime warming amplification and contribute to the uncertainty in projections of future extreme heat.

  5. Review of Land Use and Land Cover Change research progress

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Yue; Hou, Kang; Li, Xuxiang; Zhang, Yunwei; Chen, Pei

    2018-02-01

    Land Use and Land Cover Change (LUCC) can reflect the pattern of human land use in a region, and plays an important role in space soil and water conservation. The study on the change of land use patterns in the world is of great significance to cope with global climate change and sustainable development. This paper reviews the main research progress of LUCC at home and abroad, and suggests that land use change has been shifted from land use planning and management to land use change impact and driving factors. The development of remote sensing technology provides the basis and data for LUCC with dynamic monitoring and quantitative analysis. However, there is no uniform standard for land use classification at present, which brings a lot of inconvenience to the collection and analysis of land cover data. Globeland30 is an important milestone contribution to the study of international LUCC system. More attention should be paid to the accuracy and results contrasting test of land use classification obtained by remote sensing technology.

  6. Statistical Monitoring of Changes to Land Cover

    KAUST Repository

    Zerrouki, Nabil; Harrou, Fouzi; Sun, Ying

    2018-01-01

    Accurate detection of changes in land cover leads to better understanding of the dynamics of landscapes. This letter reports the development of a reliable approach to detecting changes in land cover based on remote sensing and radiometric data

  7. A Decade of Annual National Land Cover Products - the Cropland Data Layer

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mueller, R.; Johnson, D. M.; Sandborn, A.; Willis, P.; Ebinger, L.; Yang, Z.; Seffrin, R.; Boryan, C. G.; Hardin, R.

    2017-12-01

    The Cropland Data Layer (CDL) is a national land cover product produced by the US Department of Agriculture/National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to assess planted crop acreage on an annual basis. The 2017 CDL product serves as the decadal anniversary for the mapping of conterminous US agriculture. The CDL is a supervised land cover classification derived from medium resolution Earth observing satellites that capture crop phenology throughout the growing season, leveraging confidentially held ground reference information from the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) as training data. The CDL currently uses ancillary geospatial data from the US Geological Survey's National Land Cover Database (NLCD), and Imperviousness and Forest Canopy layers as well as the National Elevation Dataset as training for the non-agricultural domain. Accuracy assessments are documented and released annually with metadata publication. NASS is currently reprocessing the 2008 and 2009 CDL products to 30m resolution. They were originally processed and released at 56m based on the Resourcesat-1 AWiFS sensor. Additionally, best practices learned from processing the FSA ground reference data were applied to the historical training set, providing an enhanced classification at 30m. The release of these reprocessed products in the fall of 2017, along with the 2017 CDL annual product will be discussed and will complete a decade's worth of annual 30m products. Discussions of change and trend analytics as well as partnerships with key industry stakeholders will be displayed on the evolution and improvements made to this decadal geospatial crop specific land cover product.

  8. Assessment of environmental responses to land use/land cover ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    aghomotsegin

    2013-12-17

    Dec 17, 2013 ... 49.86% of the land cover has been converted to other land uses, ... management information system and policies that will ensure sustainable management of fragile ...... growth in agricultural output such as food and fiber.

  9. Impact of Land Use Land Cover Change on East Asian monsoon

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chilukoti, N.; Xue, Y.; Liu, Y.; Lee, J.

    2017-12-01

    Humans modify the Earth's terrestrial surface on a continental scale by removing natural vegetation for crops/grazing. The current rates, extents and intensities of Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULCC) are greater than ever in history. The earlier studies of Land-atmosphere interactions used specified land surface conditions without interannual variations. In this study using NCEP CFSv2 coupled with Simplified Simple Biosphere (SSiB) model, biogeophysical impacts of LULCC on climate variability, anomaly, and changes are investigated by using the LULCC map from the Hurtt et al. (2006, 2011), which covered 66 years from 1950-2015 with annual variability. We combined the changes in crop and pasture fractions and consider as LULCC. A methodology had been developed to convert the Hurtt LULCC change map with 1° resolution to the GCM grid points. Since the GCM has only one dominant type, when the crop and pasture frction value at one point was larger than the critical value, that grid was assigned as degraded. Comprehensive evaluation was conducted to ensure the consistence of the trend of land degradation in the Hurtt's map and in the GCM LULCC map. In the degraded point, trees were changed to low vegetation or grasses, and low vegetation to bare soil. A set of surface parameters such as leaf area index, vegetation height, roughness length, and soil parameters, associated with vegetation are changed to show the degradation effects. We integrated the model with the potential vegetation map and the map with LULCC from 1950 to 2015, and the results indicate the LULCC causes precipitation reduction globally, with the strongest signals over monsoon regions. For instance, the degradation in Mexico, West Africa, south and East Asia and South America produced significant precipitation anomalies, some of which are consistent with observed regional precipitation anomalies. Meanwhile, it has also found that the LULCC enhances the surface warming during the summer in monsoon

  10. Land cover mapping of Greater Mesoamerica using MODIS data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giri, Chandra; Jenkins, Clinton N.

    2005-01-01

    A new land cover database of Greater Mesoamerica has been prepared using moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS, 500 m resolution) satellite data. Daily surface reflectance MODIS data and a suite of ancillary data were used in preparing the database by employing a decision tree classification approach. The new land cover data are an improvement over traditional advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) based land cover data in terms of both spatial and thematic details. The dominant land cover type in Greater Mesoamerica is forest (39%), followed by shrubland (30%) and cropland (22%). Country analysis shows forest as the dominant land cover type in Belize (62%), Cost Rica (52%), Guatemala (53%), Honduras (56%), Nicaragua (53%), and Panama (48%), cropland as the dominant land cover type in El Salvador (60.5%), and shrubland as the dominant land cover type in Mexico (37%). A three-step approach was used to assess the quality of the classified land cover data: (i) qualitative assessment provided good insight in identifying and correcting gross errors; (ii) correlation analysis of MODIS- and Landsat-derived land cover data revealed strong positive association for forest (r2 = 0.88), shrubland (r2 = 0.75), and cropland (r2 = 0.97) but weak positive association for grassland (r2 = 0.26); and (iii) an error matrix generated using unseen training data provided an overall accuracy of 77.3% with a Kappa coefficient of 0.73608. Overall, MODIS 500 m data and the methodology used were found to be quite useful for broad-scale land cover mapping of Greater Mesoamerica.

  11. Wet-dry seasonal and vertical geochemical variations in soil water and their driving forces under different land covers in southwest China karst

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Peng; Hu, Bill X.; Wu, Chuanhao; Xu, Kai

    2017-04-01

    Karst aquifers supply drinking water for 25% of the world's population, and they are, however, vulnerable to climate change. Bimonthly hydrochemical data in karst soil water samples from July 2010 to July 2011 were obtained to reveal the seasonal and vertical geochemical variations in soil water under five vegetation types in Qingmuguan, a small karst catchment in southwest China. Soil water chemistry was dominated by Ca2+, HCO3-, and SO42- because of the dissolution of limestone, dolomite, and gypsum minerals in the strata. The predominant hydrochemical types in soil water were Ca2+-HCO3-, Ca2+-SO42-, and mixed Ca2+-HCO3-SO42-. Ca2+ and HCO3- concentrations ranked in the following order: shrub land > dry land > afforestation farmland > bamboo land > grassland. In warm and wet seasons, the main ion concentrations in soil water from grasslands were low. Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, HCO3-, SO42-, and Cl- concentrations in soil water from other lands were high. An opposite trend was observed in cold and dry seasons. Marked seasonal variations were observed in Ca2+, HCO3-, and NO3- in soil water from dry land. The main ion concentrations in soil water from bamboo lands decreased as soil depth increased. By contrast, the chemistry of soil water from other lands increased as soil depth increased. Their ions were accumulated in depth. A consistent high and low variation between the main ions in soil water and the contents of carbonate and CO2 was found in the soil. Hydrochemical changes in soil water were regulated by the effects of dilution and soil CO2.

  12. Examining Land Cover and Greenness Dynamics in Hangzhou Bay in 1985–2016 Using Landsat Time-Series Data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dengqiu Li

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Land cover changes significantly influence vegetation greenness in different regions. Dense Landsat time series stacks provide unique opportunity to analyze land cover change and vegetation greenness trends at finer spatial scale. In the past three decades, large reclamation activities have greatly changed land cover and vegetation growth of coastal areas. However, rarely has research investigated these frequently changed coastal areas. In this study, Landsat Normalized Difference Vegetation Index time series (1984–2016 data and the Breaks For Additive Seasonal and Trend algorithm were used to detect the intensity and dates of abrupt changes in a typical coastal area—Hangzhou Bay, China. The prior and posterior land cover categories of each change were classified using phenology information through a Random Forest model. The impacts of land cover change on vegetation greenness trends of the inland and reclaimed areas were analyzed through distinguishing gradual and abrupt changes. The results showed that the intensity and date of land cover change were detected successfully with overall accuracies of 88.7% and 86.1%, respectively. The continuous land cover dynamics were retrieved accurately with an overall accuracy of 91.0% for ten land cover classifications. Coastal reclamation did not alleviate local cropland occupation, but prompted the vegetation greenness of the reclaimed area. Most of the inland area showed a browning trend. The main contributors to the greenness and browning trends were also quantified. These findings will help the natural resource management community generate better understanding of coastal reclamation and make better management decisions.

  13. Modeling Rainfall-Runoff Response to Land Use and Land Cover Change in Rwanda (1990–2016

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fidele Karamage

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available Stormwater runoff poses serious environmental problems and public health issues in Rwanda, a tropical country that is increasingly suffering from severe floods, landslides, soil erosion and water pollution. Using the WetSpa Extension model, this study assessed the changes in rainfall runoff depth in Rwanda from 1990 to 2016 in response to precipitation and land use changes. Our results show that Rwanda has experienced a significant conversion of natural forest and grassland to cropland and built-up areas. During the period 1990–2016, 7090.02 km2 (64.5% and 1715.26 km2 (32.1% of forest and grassland covers were lost, respectively, while the cropland and built-up areas increased by 135.3% (8503.75 km2 and 304.3% (355.02 km2, respectively. According to our estimates, the land use change effect resulted in a national mean runoff depth increase of 2.33 mm/year (0.38%. Although precipitation change affected the inter-annual fluctuation of runoff, the long-term trend of runoff was dominated by land use change. The top five districts that experienced the annual runoff depth increase (all >3.8 mm/year are Rubavu, Nyabihu, Ngororero, Gakenke, and Musanze. Their annual runoff depths increased at a rate of >3.8 mm/year during the past 27 years, due to severe deforestation (ranging from 62% to 85% and cropland expansion (ranging from 123% to 293%. These areas require high priority in runoff control using terracing in croplands and rainwater harvesting systems such as dam/reservoirs, percolation tanks, storage tanks, etc. The wet season runoff was three times higher than the dry season runoff in Rwanda; appropriate rainwater management and reservation could provide valuable irrigation water for the dry season or drought years (late rainfall onsets or early rainfall cessations. It was estimated that a reservation of 30.5% (3.99 km3 of the runoff in the wet season could meet the cropland irrigation water gap during the dry season in 2016.

  14. The Land Cover Dynamics and Conversion of Agricultural Land in Northwestern Bangladesh, 1973-2003.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pervez, M.; Seelan, S. K.; Rundquist, B. C.

    2006-05-01

    The importance of land cover information describing the nature and extent of land resources and changes over time is increasing; this is especially true in Bangladesh, where land cover is changing rapidly. This paper presents research into the land cover dynamics of northwestern Bangladesh for the period 1973-2003 using Landsat satellite images in combination with field survey data collected in January and February 2005. Land cover maps were produced for eight different years during the study period with an average 73 percent overall classification accuracy. The classification results and post-classification change analysis showed that agriculture is the dominant land cover (occupying 74.5 percent of the study area) and is being reduced at a rate of about 3,000 ha per year. In addition, 6.7 percent of the agricultural land is vulnerable to temporary water logging annually. Despite this loss of agricultural land, irrigated agriculture increased substantially until 2000, but has since declined because of diminishing water availability and uncontrolled extraction of groundwater driven by population pressures and the extended need for food. A good agreement (r = 0.73) was found between increases in irrigated land and the depletion of the shallow groundwater table, a factor affecting widely practiced small-scale irrigation in northwestern Bangladesh. Results quantified the land cover change patterns and the stresses placed on natural resources; additionally, they demonstrated an accurate and economical means to map and analyze changes in land cover over time at a regional scale, which can assist decision makers in land and natural resources management decisions.

  15. Towards monitoring land-cover and land-use changes at a global scale: the global land survey 2005

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gutman, G.; Byrnes, Raymond A.; Masek, J.; Covington, S.; Justice, C.; Franks, S.; Headley, Rachel

    2008-01-01

    Land cover is a critical component of the Earth system, infl uencing land-atmosphere interactions, greenhouse gas fl uxes, ecosystem health, and availability of food, fi ber, and energy for human populations. The recent Integrated Global Observations of Land (IGOL) report calls for the generation of maps documenting global land cover at resolutions between 10m and 30m at least every fi ve years (Townshend et al., in press). Moreover, despite 35 years of Landsat observations, there has not been a unifi ed global analysis of land-cover trends nor has there been a global assessment of land-cover change at Landsat-like resolution. Since the 1990s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have supported development of data sets based on global Landsat observations (Tucker et al., 2004). These land survey data sets, usually referred to as GeoCover ™, provide global, orthorectifi ed, typically cloud-free Landsat imagery centered on the years 1975, 1990, and 2000, with a preference for leaf-on conditions. Collectively, these data sets provided a consistent set of observations to assess land-cover changes at a decadal scale. These data are freely available via the Internet from the USGS Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) (see http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov or http://glovis.usgs.gov). This has resulted in unprecedented downloads of data, which are widely used in scientifi c studies of land-cover change (e.g., Boone et al., 2007; Harris et al., 2005; Hilbert, 2006; Huang et al. 2007; Jantz et al., 2005, Kim et al., 2007; Leimgruber, 2005; Masek et al., 2006). NASA and USGS are continuing to support land-cover change research through the development of GLS2005 - an additional global Landsat assessment circa 20051 . Going beyond the earlier initiatives, this data set will establish a baseline for monitoring changes on a 5-year interval and will pave the way toward continuous global land-cover

  16. Land Use and Land Cover Change in Guangzhou, China, from 1998 to 2003, Based on Landsat TM /ETM+ Imagery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yunpeng Wang

    2007-07-01

    Full Text Available Land use and land cover change is a major issue in global environment change,and is especially significant in rapidly developing regions in the world. With its economicdevelopment, population growth, and urbanization, Guangzhou, a major metropolitan inSouth China, have experienced a dramatic land use and land cover (LULC change over thepast 30 years. Fast LULC change have resulted in degradation of its ecosystems andaffected adversely the environment. It is urgently needed to monitor its LULC changes andto analyses the consequences of these changes in order to provide information for policy-makers to support sustainable development. This study employed two Landsat TM/ETM images in the dry season to detect LULC patterns in 1998 and 2003, and to examine LULCchanges during the period from 1998 to 2003. The type, rate, and pattern of the changesamong five counties of Guangzhou Municipality were analyzed in details by post-classification method. LULC conversion matrix was produced for each county in order toexplore and explain the urban expansion and cropland loss, the most significant types ofLULC change. Land use conversion matrixes of five counties were discussed respectivelyin order to explore and explain the inherence of land use change. The results showed thaturban expansion in these five counties kept an even rate of increase, while substantialamount of cropland vanished during the period. It is also noted that the conversion between cropland and orchard land was intensive. Forest land became the main source of new croplands.

  17. Statistical Monitoring of Changes to Land Cover

    KAUST Repository

    Zerrouki, Nabil

    2018-04-06

    Accurate detection of changes in land cover leads to better understanding of the dynamics of landscapes. This letter reports the development of a reliable approach to detecting changes in land cover based on remote sensing and radiometric data. This approach integrates the multivariate exponentially weighted moving average (MEWMA) chart with support vector machines (SVMs) for accurate and reliable detection of changes to land cover. Here, we utilize the MEWMA scheme to identify features corresponding to changed regions. Unfortunately, MEWMA schemes cannot discriminate between real changes and false changes. If a change is detected by the MEWMA algorithm, then we execute the SVM algorithm that is based on features corresponding to detected pixels to identify the type of change. We assess the effectiveness of this approach by using the remote-sensing change detection database and the SZTAKI AirChange benchmark data set. Our results show the capacity of our approach to detect changes to land cover.

  18. Spatio-temporal variability of land use/land cover change (LULCC within the Huron River: Effects on stream flows

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cheyenne Lei

    Full Text Available We investigated possible influences of land use/land cover change (LULCC and precipitation on spatiotemporal changes in extreme stream flows within the watershed of the Huron River Basin during the summer seasons from 1992 to 2011. Within the basin, the urban landscape increased from 8% to 16% during the study period, while forest and agricultural lands declined by 7%. There was an increase in landscape heterogeneity within the watershed that varied from 1.21% in 1992 to 1.34% in 2011, with agricultural practices and forest regions competing due to the expansion of varying intensities of urban development. Normalized stream discharge from multiple subwatersheds increased over time, with an average increase from 0.21 m3 s−1 m to 1.64 m3 s−1 m over the study period. Land use and precipitation affected stream discharge, with increasing urban development exhibiting a 37% chance of affecting extreme stream flows within the watershed. More importantly, much of the precipitation observed within the watershed temporally affected stream discharge based on expansion of urban settlement within the basin. This caused a higher likelihood of flashiness, as runoff is more concentrated and stream flow became more variable. We concluded that, within the watersheds of the Huron River, LULCC is the major determinant of increased stream flow and potential flooding. Keywords: Urbanization, Land use, Land cover, Climate, Hydrology, ArcGIS, FRAGSTATS

  19. CORINE land cover and floristic variation in a Mediterranean wetland.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giallonardo, Tommaso; Landi, Marco; Frignani, Flavio; Geri, Francesco; Lastrucci, Lorenzo; Angiolini, Claudia

    2011-11-01

    The aims of the present study were to: (1) investigate whether CORINE land cover classes reflect significant differences in floristic composition, using a very detailed CORINE land cover map (scale 1:5000); (2) decompose the relationships between floristic assemblages and three groups of explanatory variables (CORINE land cover classes, environmental characteristics and spatial structure) into unique and interactive components. Stratified sampling was used to select a set of 100-m(2) plots in each land cover class identified in the semi-natural wetland surrounding a lake in central Italy. The following six classes were considered: stable meadows, deciduous oak dominated woods, hygrophilous broadleaf dominated woods, heaths and shrublands, inland swamps, canals or watercourses. The relationship between land cover classes and floristic composition was tested using several statistical techniques in order to determine whether the results remained consistent with different procedures. The variation partitioning approach was applied to identify the relative importance of three groups of explanatory variables in relation to floristic variation. The most important predictor was land cover, which explained 20.7% of the variation in plant distribution, although the hypothesis that each land cover class could be associated with a particular floristic pattern was not verified. Multi Response Permutation Analysis did not indicate a strong floristic separability between land cover classes and only 9.5% of species showed a significant indicator value for a specific land cover class. We suggest that land cover classes linked with hygrophilous and herbaceous communities in a wetland may have floristic patterns that vary with fine scale and are not compatible with a land cover map.

  20. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: MA Rapid Land Cover Change

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: MA Rapid Land Cover Change provides data and information on global and regional land cover change in raster format for...

  1. Land use/Land Cover Changes and Causes of Deforestation in the ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The objective of this paper is to provide the non-existent data on land use/land cover changes in the Wilberforce Island for the purposes of determining the causes of deforestation and changes in the vegetation cover for a 13 – year period. Accordingly, 125 questionnaires were administered in five communities to determine ...

  2. The causes of land-use and land-cover change : moving beyond the myths

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lambin, E.F.; Turner, B.L.; Geist, H.J.; Agbola, S.B.; Angelsen, A.; Bruce, J.W.; Coomes, O.T.; Dirzo, R.; Fischer, G.; Folke, C.; George, P.S.; Homewood, K.; Imbernon, J.; Leemans, R.; Xiubin Li,; Moran, E.F.; Mortimore, M.; Ramakrishnan, P.S.; Richards, J.F.; Skanes, H.; Steffen, W.; Stone, G.D.; Svedin, U.; Veldkamp, A.; Vogel, C.; Jianchu Xu,

    2001-01-01

    Common understanding of the causes of land-use and land-cover change is dominated by simplifications which, in turn, underlie many environment-development policies. This article tracks some of the major myths on driving forces of land-cover change and proposes alternative pathways of change that are

  3. Land cover and topography affect the land transformation caused by wind facilities.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jay E Diffendorfer

    Full Text Available Land transformation (ha of surface disturbance/MW associated with wind facilities shows wide variation in its reported values. In addition, no studies have attempted to explain the variation across facilities. We digitized land transformation at 39 wind facilities using high resolution aerial imagery. We then modeled the effects of turbine size, configuration, land cover, and topography on the levels of land transformation at three spatial scales. The scales included strings (turbines with intervening roads only, sites (strings with roads connecting them, buried cables and other infrastructure, and entire facilities (sites and the roads or transmission lines connecting them to existing infrastructure. An information theoretic modeling approach indicated land cover and topography were well-supported variables affecting land transformation, but not turbine size or configuration. Tilled landscapes, despite larger distances between turbines, had lower average land transformation, while facilities in forested landscapes generally had the highest land transformation. At site and string scales, flat topographies had the lowest land transformation, while facilities on mesas had the largest. The results indicate the landscape in which the facilities are placed affects the levels of land transformation associated with wind energy. This creates opportunities for optimizing wind energy production while minimizing land cover change. In addition, the results indicate forecasting the impacts of wind energy on land transformation should include the geographic variables affecting land transformation reported here.

  4. Simulating feedbacks in land use and land cover change models

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Verburg, P.H.

    2006-01-01

    In spite of the many advances in land use and land cover change modelling over the past decade many challenges remain. One of these challenges relates to the explicit treatment of feedback mechanisms in descriptive models of the land use system. This paper argues for model-based analysis to explore

  5. Evaluating The Land Use And Land Cover Dynamics In Borena ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The integration of satellite remote sensing and GIS was an effective approach for analyzing the direction, rate, and spatial pattern of land use change. Three land use and land cover maps were produced by analyzing remotely sensed images of Landsat satellite imageries at three time points (1972,1985,and 2003) .

  6. Land use and land cover mapping: City of Palm Bay, Florida

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barile, D. D.; Pierce, R.

    1977-01-01

    Two different computer systems were compared for use in making land use and land cover maps. The Honeywell 635 with the LANDSAT signature development program (LSDP) produced a map depicting general patterns, but themes were difficult to classify as specific land use. Urban areas were unclassified. The General Electric Image 100 produced a map depicting eight land cover categories classifying 68 percent of the total area. Ground truth, LSDP, and Image 100 maps were all made to the same scale for comparison. LSDP agreed with the ground truth 60 percent and 64 percent within the two test areas compared and Image 100 was in agreement 70 percent and 80 percent.

  7. Deriving a per-field land use and land cover map in an agricultural mosaic catchment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seo, B.; Bogner, C.; Poppenborg, P.; Martin, E.; Hoffmeister, M.; Jun, M.; Koellner, T.; Reineking, B.; Shope, C. L.; Tenhunen, J.

    2014-09-01

    Detailed data on land use and land cover constitute important information for Earth system models, environmental monitoring and ecosystem services research. Global land cover products are evolving rapidly; however, there is still a lack of information particularly for heterogeneous agricultural landscapes. We censused land use and land cover field by field in the agricultural mosaic catchment Haean in South Korea. We recorded the land cover types with additional information on agricultural practice. In this paper we introduce the data, their collection and the post-processing protocol. Furthermore, because it is important to quantitatively evaluate available land use and land cover products, we compared our data with the MODIS Land Cover Type product (MCD12Q1). During the studied period, a large portion of dry fields was converted to perennial crops. Compared to our data, the forested area was underrepresented and the agricultural area overrepresented in MCD12Q1. In addition, linear landscape elements such as waterbodies were missing in the MODIS product due to its coarse spatial resolution. The data presented here can be useful for earth science and ecosystem services research. The data are available at the public repository Pangaea (doi:110.1594/PANGAEA.823677).

  8. Temporal change detection of land use/land cover using GIS and ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Satellite images for the years 1972, 1989, 1999 and 2016 were used for LULC ... built-up areas, pastures and bare land, agricultural land and water bodies. For the accuracy of assessment classifications, matrix error and KAPPA ... Keywords: land use/land cover change; change detection; classification; remote sensing; GIS ...

  9. Land Cover Classification Using ALOS Imagery For Penang, Malaysia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sim, C K; Abdullah, K; MatJafri, M Z; Lim, H S

    2014-01-01

    This paper presents the potential of integrating optical and radar remote sensing data to improve automatic land cover mapping. The analysis involved standard image processing, and consists of spectral signature extraction and application of a statistical decision rule to identify land cover categories. A maximum likelihood classifier is utilized to determine different land cover categories. Ground reference data from sites throughout the study area are collected for training and validation. The land cover information was extracted from the digital data using PCI Geomatica 10.3.2 software package. The variations in classification accuracy due to a number of radar imaging processing techniques are studied. The relationship between the processing window and the land classification is also investigated. The classification accuracies from the optical and radar feature combinations are studied. Our research finds that fusion of radar and optical significantly improved classification accuracies. This study indicates that the land cover/use can be mapped accurately by using this approach

  10. Land-cover change in the Ozark Highlands, 1973-2000

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karstensen, Krista A.

    2010-01-01

    Led by the Geographic Analysis and Monitoring Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Land-Cover Trends Project was initiated in 1999 and aims to document the types, geographic distributions, and rates of land-cover change on a region by region basis for the conterminous United States, and to determine some of the key drivers and consequences of the change (Loveland and others, 2002). For 1973, 1980, 1986, 1992, and 2000 land-cover maps derived from the Landsat series are classified by visual interpretation, inspection of historical aerial photography and ground survey, into 11 land-cover classes. The classes are defined to capture land cover that is discernable in Landsat data. A stratified probability-based sampling methodology undertaken within the 84 Omernik Level III Ecoregions (Omernik, 1987) was used to locate the blocks, with 9 to 48 blocks per ecoregion. The sampling was designed to enable a statistically robust 'scaling up' of the sample-classification data to estimate areal land-cover change within each ecoregion (Loveland and others, 2002; Stehman and others, 2005). At the time of writing, approximately 90 percent of the 84 conterminous United States ecoregions have been processed by the Land-Cover Trends Project. Results from these completed ecoregions illustrate that across the conterminous United States there is no single profile of land-cover/land-use change, rather, there are varying pulses affected by clusters of change agents (Loveland and others, 2002). Land-Cover Trends Project results for the conterminous United States to-date are being used for collaborative environmental change research with partners such as; the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The strategy has also been adapted for use in a NASA global

  11. U.S. landowner behavior, land use and land cover changes, and climate change mitigation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ralph J. Alig

    2003-01-01

    Landowner behavior is a major determinant of land use and land cover changes. an important consideration for policy analysts concerned with global change. Study of landowner behavior aids in designing more effective incentives for inducing land use and land cover changes to help mitigate climate change by reducing net greenhouse gas emissions. Afforestation,...

  12. Effects of Land Cover / Land Use, Soil Texture, and Vegetation on the Water Balance of Lake Chad Basin

    Science.gov (United States)

    Babamaaji, R. A.; Lee, J.

    2013-12-01

    Lake Chad Basin (LCB) has experienced drastic changes of land cover and poor water management practices during the last 50 years. The successive droughts in the 1970s and 1980s resulted in the shortage of surface water and groundwater resources. This problem of drought has a devastating implication on the natural resources of the Basin with great consequence on food security, poverty reduction and quality of life of the inhabitants in the LCB. Therefore, understanding the effects of land use / land cover must be a first step to find how they disturb cycle especially the groundwater in the LCB. The abundance of groundwater is affected by the climate change through the interaction with surface water, such as lakes and rivers, and disuse recharge through an infiltration process. Quantifying the impact of climate change on the groundwater resource requires reliable forecasting of changes in the major climatic variables and other spatial variations including the land use/land cover, soil texture, topographic slope, and vegetation. In this study, we employed a spatially distributed water balance model WetSpass to simulate a long-term average change of groundwater recharge in the LCB of Africa. WetSpass is a water balance-based model to estimate seasonal and spatial distribution of surface runoff, interception, evapotranspiration, and groundwater recharge. The model is especially suitable for studying the effect of land use/land cover change on the water regime in the LCB. The present study describes the concept of the model and its application to the development of recharge map of the LCB. The study shows that major role in the water balance of LCB. The mean yearly actual evapotranspiration (ET) from the basin range from 60mm - 400 mm, which is 90 % (69mm - 430) of the annual precipitation from 2003 - 2010. It is striking that about 50 - 60 % of the total runoff is produced on build-up (impervious surfaces), while much smaller contributions are obtained from vegetated

  13. Land-cover change and avian diversity in the conterminous United States

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chadwick D. Rittenhouse; Anna M. Pidgeon; Thomas P. Albright; Patrick D. Culbert; Murray K. Clayton; Curtis H. Flather; Jeffrey G. Masek; Volker C. Radeloff

    2012-01-01

    Changes in land use and land cover have affected and will continue to affect biological diversity worldwide. Yet, understanding the spatially extensive effects of land-cover change has been challenging because data that are consistent over space and time are lacking. We used the U.S. National Land Cover Dataset Land Cover Change Retrofit Product and North American...

  14. Modeled impact of anthropogenic land cover change on climate

    Science.gov (United States)

    Findell, K.L.; Shevliakova, E.; Milly, P.C.D.; Stouffer, R.J.

    2007-01-01

    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 biophysical changes associated with the land cover change (albedo, root and stomatal properties, roughness length), which is almost exclusively a conversion from forest to grassland in the model; the effects of irrigation or other water management practices and the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide changes associated with land cover conversion are not included in these experiments. The model suggests that observed land cover changes have little or no impact on globally averaged climatic variables (e.g., 2-m air temperature is 0.008 K warmer in a simulation with 1990 land cover compared to a simulation with potential natural vegetation cover). Differences in the annual mean climatic fields analyzed did not exhibit global field significance. Within some of the regions of land cover change, however, there are relatively large changes of many surface climatic variables. These changes are highly significant locally in the annual mean and in most months of the year in eastern Europe and northern India. They can be explained mainly as direct and indirect consequences of model-prescribed increases in surface albedo, decreases in rooting depth, and changes of stomatal control that accompany deforestation. ?? 2007 American Meteorological Society.

  15. Land use and land cover change based on historical space-time model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Qiong; Zhang, Chi; Liu, Min; Zhang, Yongjing

    2016-09-01

    Land use and cover change is a leading edge topic in the current research field of global environmental changes and case study of typical areas is an important approach understanding global environmental changes. Taking the Qiantang River (Zhejiang, China) as an example, this study explores automatic classification of land use using remote sensing technology and analyzes historical space-time change by remote sensing monitoring. This study combines spectral angle mapping (SAM) with multi-source information and creates a convenient and efficient high-precision land use computer automatic classification method which meets the application requirements and is suitable for complex landform of the studied area. This work analyzes the histological space-time characteristics of land use and cover change in the Qiantang River basin in 2001, 2007 and 2014, in order to (i) verify the feasibility of studying land use change with remote sensing technology, (ii) accurately understand the change of land use and cover as well as historical space-time evolution trend, (iii) provide a realistic basis for the sustainable development of the Qiantang River basin and (iv) provide a strong information support and new research method for optimizing the Qiantang River land use structure and achieving optimal allocation of land resources and scientific management.

  16. Temporal Land Cover Analysis for Net Ecosystem Improvement

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ke, Yinghai; Coleman, Andre M.; Diefenderfer, Heida L.

    2013-04-09

    We delineated 8 watersheds contributing to previously defined river reaches within the 1,468-km2 historical floodplain of the tidally influenced lower Columbia River and estuary. We assessed land-cover change at the watershed, reach, and restoration site scales by reclassifying remote-sensing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coastal Change Analysis Program’s land cover/land change product into forest, wetland, and urban categories. The analysis showed a 198.3 km2 loss of forest cover during the first 6 years of the Columbia Estuary Ecosystem Restoration Program, 2001–2006. Total measured urbanization in the contributing watersheds of the estuary during the full 1996-2006 change analysis period was 48.4 km2. Trends in forest gain/loss and urbanization differed between watersheds. Wetland gains and losses were within the margin of error of the satellite imagery analysis. No significant land cover change was measured at restoration sites, although it was visible in aerial imagery, therefore, the 30-m land-cover product may not be appropriate for assessment of early-stage wetland restoration. These findings suggest that floodplain restoration sites in reaches downstream of watersheds with decreasing forest cover will be subject to increased sediment loads, and those downstream of urbanization will experience effects of increased impervious surfaces on hydrologic processes.

  17. GlobeLand30 as an alternative fine-scale global land cover map

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jokar Arsanjani, Jamal; Tayyebi, A.; Vaz, E.

    2016-01-01

    land cover information such as developing countries. In this study, we look at GlobeLand30 of 2010 for Iran in order to find out the accuracy of this dataset as well as its implications. By having looked at 6 selected study sites around larger cities representing dissimilar eco-regions covering rural...

  18. Historical Land-Cover Change and Land-Use Conversions Global Dataset

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — A set of three estimates of land-cover types and annual transformations of land use are provided on a global 0.5 x0.5 degree lat/lon grid at annual time steps. The...

  19. Stratifying Tropical Fires by Land Cover: Insights into Amazonian Fires, Aerosol Loading, and Regional Deforestation

    Science.gov (United States)

    TenHoeve, J. E.; Remer, L. A.; Jacobson, M. Z.

    2010-01-01

    This study analyzes changes in the number of fires detected on forest, grass, and transition lands during the 2002-2009 biomass burning seasons using fire detection data and co-located land cover classifications from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). We find that the total number of detected fires correlates well with MODIS mean aerosol optical depth (AOD) from year to year, in accord with other studies. However, we also show that the ratio of forest to savanna fires varies substantially from year to year. Forest fires have trended downward, on average, since the beginning of 2006 despite a modest increase in 2007. Our study suggests that high particulate matter loading detected in 2007 was likely due to a large number of savanna/agricultural fires that year. Finally, we illustrate that the correlation between annual Brazilian deforestation estimates and MODIS fires is considerably higher when fires are stratified by MODIS-derived land cover classifications.

  20. Historical Image Registration and Land-Use Land-Cover Change Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fang-Ju Jao

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Historical aerial images are important to retain past ground surface information. The land-use land-cover change in the past can be identified using historical aerial images. Automatic historical image registration and stitching is essential because the historical image pose information was usually lost. In this study, the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT algorithm was used for feature extraction. Subsequently, the present study used the automatic affine transformation algorithm for historical image registration, based on SIFT features and control points. This study automatically determined image affine parameters and simultaneously transformed from an image coordinate system to a ground coordinate system. After historical aerial image registration, the land-use land-cover change was analyzed between two different years (1947 and 1975 at the Tseng Wen River estuary. Results show that sandbars and water zones were transformed into a large number of fish ponds between 1947 and 1975.

  1. Development of 2010 national land cover database for the Nepal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uddin, Kabir; Shrestha, Him Lal; Murthy, M S R; Bajracharya, Birendra; Shrestha, Basanta; Gilani, Hammad; Pradhan, Sudip; Dangol, Bikash

    2015-01-15

    Land cover and its change analysis across the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region is realized as an urgent need to support diverse issues of environmental conservation. This study presents the first and most complete national land cover database of Nepal prepared using public domain Landsat TM data of 2010 and replicable methodology. The study estimated that 39.1% of Nepal is covered by forests and 29.83% by agriculture. Patch and edge forests constituting 23.4% of national forest cover revealed proximate biotic interferences over the forests. Core forests constituted 79.3% of forests of Protected areas where as 63% of area was under core forests in the outside protected area. Physiographic regions wise forest fragmentation analysis revealed specific conservation requirements for productive hill and mid mountain regions. Comparative analysis with Landsat TM based global land cover product showed difference of the order of 30-60% among different land cover classes stressing the need for significant improvements for national level adoption. The online web based land cover validation tool is developed for continual improvement of land cover product. The potential use of the data set for national and regional level sustainable land use planning strategies and meeting several global commitments also highlighted. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Hydrometric, Hydrochemical, and Hydrogeophysical Runoff Characterization Across Multiple Land Covers in the Agua Salud Project, Panama

    Science.gov (United States)

    Litt, Guy Finley

    As the Panama Canal Authority faces sensitivity to water shortages, managing water resources becomes crucial for the global shipping industry's security. These studies address knowledge gaps in tropical water resources to aid hydrological model development and validation. Field-based hydrological investigations in the Agua Salud Project within the Panama Canal Watershed employed multiple tools across a variety of land covers to investigate hydrological processes. Geochemical tracers informed where storm runoff in a stream comes from and identified electrical conductivity (EC) as an economical, high sample frequency tracer during small storms. EC-based hydrograph separation coupled with hydrograph recession rate analyses identified shallow and deep groundwater storage-discharge relationships that varied by season and land cover. A series of plot-scale electrical resistivity imaging geophysical experiments coupled with rainfall simulation characterized subsurface flow pathway behavior and quantified respectively increasing infiltration rates across pasture, 10 year old secondary succession forest, teak (tectona grandis), and 30 year old secondary succession forest land covers. Additional soil water, groundwater, and geochemical studies informed conceptual model development in subsurface flow pathways and groundwater, and identified future research needs.

  3. Monitoring land Cover Changes and Fragmentation dynamics in the ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Monitoring land Cover Changes and Fragmentation dynamics in the subtropical thicket of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. ... Baseline land use/cover maps and fragmentation analyses in a temporal framework are valuable for gaining insights into, among other things, carbon stock change trends. Keywords: Land ...

  4. GLOBAL LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION USING MODIS SURFACE REFLECTANCE PROSUCTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    K. Fukue

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this study is to develop high accuracy land cover classification algorithm for Global scale by using multi-temporal MODIS land reflectance products. In this study, time-domain co-occurrence matrix was introduced as a classification feature which provides time-series signature of land covers. Further, the non-parametric minimum distance classifier was introduced for timedomain co-occurrence matrix, which performs multi-dimensional pattern matching for time-domain co-occurrence matrices of a classification target pixel and each classification classes. The global land cover classification experiments have been conducted by applying the proposed classification method using 46 multi-temporal(in one year SR(Surface Reflectance and NBAR(Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance products, respectively. IGBP 17 land cover categories were used in our classification experiments. As the results, SR and NBAR products showed similar classification accuracy of 99%.

  5. The impact of Future Land Use and Land Cover Changes on Atmospheric Chemistry-Climate Interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ganzeveld, L.N.; Bouwman, L.

    2010-01-01

    To demonstrate potential future consequences of land cover and land use changes beyond those for physical climate and the carbon cycle, we present an analysis of large-scale impacts of land cover and land use changes on atmospheric chemistry using the chemistry-climate model EMAC (ECHAM5/MESSy

  6. Next generation of global land cover characterization, mapping, and monitoring

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giri, Chandra; Pengra, Bruce; Long, J.; Loveland, Thomas R.

    2013-01-01

    Land cover change is increasingly affecting the biophysics, biogeochemistry, and biogeography of the Earth's surface and the atmosphere, with far-reaching consequences to human well-being. However, our scientific understanding of the distribution and dynamics of land cover and land cover change (LCLCC) is limited. Previous global land cover assessments performed using coarse spatial resolution (300 m–1 km) satellite data did not provide enough thematic detail or change information for global change studies and for resource management. High resolution (∼30 m) land cover characterization and monitoring is needed that permits detection of land change at the scale of most human activity and offers the increased flexibility of environmental model parameterization needed for global change studies. However, there are a number of challenges to overcome before producing such data sets including unavailability of consistent global coverage of satellite data, sheer volume of data, unavailability of timely and accurate training and validation data, difficulties in preparing image mosaics, and high performance computing requirements. Integration of remote sensing and information technology is needed for process automation and high-performance computing needs. Recent developments in these areas have created an opportunity for operational high resolution land cover mapping, and monitoring of the world. Here, we report and discuss these advancements and opportunities in producing the next generations of global land cover characterization, mapping, and monitoring at 30-m spatial resolution primarily in the context of United States, Group on Earth Observations Global 30 m land cover initiative (UGLC).

  7. VT Generalized Land Cover Land Use for Champlain Basin - SAL 1992

    Data.gov (United States)

    Vermont Center for Geographic Information — (Link to Metadata) Circa 1992 land use - land cover (LULC) for the Lake Champlain Basin. This layer was created by performing a retrospective change detection on the...

  8. VT Generalized Land Cover Land Use for Champlain Basin - SAL 2001

    Data.gov (United States)

    Vermont Center for Geographic Information — (Link to Metadata) Circa 2001 land use / land cover (LULC) for the Lake Champlain Basin. The goal in creating this layer was to generate an "improved" version of...

  9. Land-Cover Change in the East Central Texas Plains, 1973-2000

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karstensen, Krista A.

    2009-01-01

    Project Background: The Geographic Analysis and Monitoring (GAM) Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Land Cover Trends project is focused on understanding the rates, trends, causes, and consequences of contemporary U.S. land-use and land-cover change. The objectives of the study are to: (1) develop a comprehensive methodology for using sampling and change analysis techniques and Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) and Thematic Mapper (TM) data for measuring regional land-cover change across the United States, (2) characterize the types, rates and temporal variability of change for a 30-year period, (3) document regional driving forces and consequences of change, and (4) prepare a national synthesis of land-cover change (Loveland and others, 1999). Using the 1999 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Level III ecoregions derived from Omernik (1987) as the geographic framework, geospatial data collected between 1973 and 2000 were processed and analyzed to characterize ecosystem responses to land-use changes. The 27-year study period was divided into five temporal periods: 1973-1980, 1980-1986, 1986-1992, 1992-2000, and 1973-2000. General land-cover classes such as water, developed, grassland/shrubland, and agriculture for these periods were interpreted from Landsat MSS, TM, and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus imagery to categorize land-cover change and evaluate using a modified Anderson Land-Use Land-Cover Classification System for image interpretation. The interpretation of these land-cover classes complement the program objective of looking at land-use change with cover serving as a surrogate for land use. The land-cover change rates are estimated using a stratified, random sampling of 10-kilometer (km) by 10-km blocks allocated within each ecoregion. For each sample block, satellite images are used to interpret land-cover change for the five time periods previously mentioned. Additionally, historical aerial photographs from similar timeframes and other

  10. National Land Cover Database 2001 (NLCD01)

    Science.gov (United States)

    LaMotte, Andrew E.

    2016-01-01

    This 30-meter data set represents land use and land cover for the conterminous United States for the 2001 time period. The data have been arranged into four tiles to facilitate timely display and manipulation within a Geographic Information System (see http://water.usgs.gov/GIS/browse/nlcd01-partition.jpg). The National Land Cover Data Set for 2001 was produced through a cooperative project conducted by the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium. The MRLC Consortium is a partnership of Federal agencies (http://www.mrlc.gov), consisting of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). One of the primary goals of the project is to generate a current, consistent, seamless, and accurate National Land Cover Database (NLCD) circa 2001 for the United States at medium spatial resolution. For a detailed definition and discussion on MRLC and the NLCD 2001 products, refer to Homer and others (2004), (see: http://www.mrlc.gov/mrlc2k.asp). The NLCD 2001 was created by partitioning the United States into mapping zones. A total of 68 mapping zones (see http://water.usgs.gov/GIS/browse/nlcd01-mappingzones.jpg), were delineated within the conterminous United States based on ecoregion and geographical characteristics, edge-matching features, and the size requirement of Landsat mosaics. Mapping zones encompass the whole or parts of several states. Questions about the NLCD mapping zones can be directed to the NLCD 2001 Land Cover Mapping Team at the USGS/EROS, Sioux Falls, SD (605) 594-6151 or mrlc@usgs.gov.

  11. Automated Land Cover Change Detection and Mapping from Hidden Parameter Estimates of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) Time-Series

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chakraborty, S.; Banerjee, A.; Gupta, S. K. S.; Christensen, P. R.; Papandreou-Suppappola, A.

    2017-12-01

    Multitemporal observations acquired frequently by satellites with short revisit periods such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), is an important source for modeling land cover. Due to the inherent seasonality of the land cover, harmonic modeling reveals hidden state parameters characteristic to it, which is used in classifying different land cover types and in detecting changes due to natural or anthropogenic factors. In this work, we use an eight day MODIS composite to create a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time-series of ten years. Improved hidden parameter estimates of the nonlinear harmonic NDVI model are obtained using the Particle Filter (PF), a sequential Monte Carlo estimator. The nonlinear estimation based on PF is shown to improve parameter estimation for different land cover types compared to existing techniques that use the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), due to linearization of the harmonic model. As these parameters are representative of a given land cover, its applicability in near real-time detection of land cover change is also studied by formulating a metric that captures parameter deviation due to change. The detection methodology is evaluated by considering change as a rare class problem. This approach is shown to detect change with minimum delay. Additionally, the degree of change within the change perimeter is non-uniform. By clustering the deviation in parameters due to change, this spatial variation in change severity is effectively mapped and validated with high spatial resolution change maps of the given regions.

  12. Use of UAV-Borne Spectrometer for Land Cover Classification

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sowmya Natesan

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV are being used for low altitude remote sensing for thematic land classification using visible light and multi-spectral sensors. The objective of this work was to investigate the use of UAV equipped with a compact spectrometer for land cover classification. The UAV platform used was a DJI Flamewheel F550 hexacopter equipped with GPS and Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU navigation sensors, and a Raspberry Pi processor and camera module. The spectrometer used was the FLAME-NIR, a near-infrared spectrometer for hyperspectral measurements. RGB images and spectrometer data were captured simultaneously. As spectrometer data do not provide continuous terrain coverage, the locations of their ground elliptical footprints were determined from the bundle adjustment solution of the captured images. For each of the spectrometer ground ellipses, the land cover signature at the footprint location was determined to enable the characterization, identification, and classification of land cover elements. To attain a continuous land cover classification map, spatial interpolation was carried out from the irregularly distributed labeled spectrometer points. The accuracy of the classification was assessed using spatial intersection with the object-based image classification performed using the RGB images. Results show that in homogeneous land cover, like water, the accuracy of classification is 78% and in mixed classes, like grass, trees and manmade features, the average accuracy is 50%, thus, indicating the contribution of hyperspectral measurements of low altitude UAV-borne spectrometers to improve land cover classification.

  13. A modified temporal criterion to meta-optimize the extended Kalman filter for land cover classification of remotely sensed time series

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salmon, B. P.; Kleynhans, W.; Olivier, J. C.; van den Bergh, F.; Wessels, K. J.

    2018-05-01

    Humans are transforming land cover at an ever-increasing rate. Accurate geographical maps on land cover, especially rural and urban settlements are essential to planning sustainable development. Time series extracted from MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface reflectance products have been used to differentiate land cover classes by analyzing the seasonal patterns in reflectance values. The proper fitting of a parametric model to these time series usually requires several adjustments to the regression method. To reduce the workload, a global setting of parameters is done to the regression method for a geographical area. In this work we have modified a meta-optimization approach to setting a regression method to extract the parameters on a per time series basis. The standard deviation of the model parameters and magnitude of residuals are used as scoring function. We successfully fitted a triply modulated model to the seasonal patterns of our study area using a non-linear extended Kalman filter (EKF). The approach uses temporal information which significantly reduces the processing time and storage requirements to process each time series. It also derives reliability metrics for each time series individually. The features extracted using the proposed method are classified with a support vector machine and the performance of the method is compared to the original approach on our ground truth data.

  14. Anthropogenic Influences in Land Use/Land Cover Changes in Mediterranean Forest Landscapes in Sicily

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Donato S. La Mela Veca

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper analyzes and quantifies the land use/land cover changes of the main forest and semi-natural landscape types in Sicily between 1955 and 2012. We analyzed seven representative forest and shrubland landscapes in Sicily. These study areas were chosen for their importance in the Sicilian forest panorama. We carried out a diachronic survey on historical and current aerial photos; all the aerial images used to survey the land use/land cover changes were digitalized and georeferenced in the UTM WGS84 system. In order to classify land use, the Regional Forest Inventory 2010 legend was adopted for the more recent images, and the CORINE Land Cover III level used for the older, lower resolution images. This study quantifies forest landscape dynamics; our results show for almost all study areas an increase of forest cover and expansion, whereas a regressive dynamic is found in rural areas due to intensive agricultural and pasturage uses. Understanding the dynamics of forest landscapes could enhance the role of forestry policy as a tool for landscape management and regional planning.

  15. Satellite-derived land covers for runoff estimation using SCS-CN method in Chen-You-Lan Watershed, Taiwan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Wen-Yan; Lin, Chao-Yuan

    2017-04-01

    The Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN) method, which was originally developed by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, is widely used to estimate direct runoff volume from rainfall. The runoff Curve Number (CN) parameter is based on the hydrologic soil group and land use factors. In Taiwan, the national land use maps were interpreted from aerial photos in 1995 and 2008. Rapid updating of post-disaster land use map is limited due to the high cost of production, so the classification of satellite images is the alternative method to obtain the land use map. In this study, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in Chen-You-Lan Watershed was derived from dry and wet season of Landsat imageries during 2003 - 2008. Land covers were interpreted from mean value and standard deviation of NDVI and were categorized into 4 groups i.e. forest, grassland, agriculture and bare land. Then, the runoff volume of typhoon events during 2005 - 2009 were estimated using SCS-CN method and verified with the measured runoff data. The result showed that the model efficiency coefficient is 90.77%. Therefore, estimating runoff by using the land cover map classified from satellite images is practicable.

  16. Impact of land cover and land use change on runoff characteristics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sajikumar, N; Remya, R S

    2015-09-15

    Change in Land Cover and Land Use (LCLU) influences the runoff characteristics of a drainage basin to a large extent, which in turn, affects the surface and groundwater availability of the area, and hence leads to further change in LCLU. This forms a vicious circle. Hence it becomes essential to assess the effect of change in LCLU on the runoff characteristics of a region in general and of small watershed levels (sub-basin levels) in particular. Such an analysis can effectively be carried out by using watershed simulation models with integrated GIS frame work. SWAT (Soil and Water Analysis Tool) model, being one of the versatile watershed simulation models, is found to be suitable for this purpose as many GIS integration modules are available for this model (e.g. ArcSWAT, MWSWAT). Watershed simulation using SWAT requires the land use and land cover data, soil data and many other features. With the availability of repository of satellite imageries, both from Indian and foreign sources, it becomes possible to use the concurrent local land use and land cover data, thereby enabling more accurate modelling of small watersheds. Such availability will also enable us to assess the effect of LCLU on runoff characteristics and their reverse impact. The current study assesses the effect of land use and land cover on the runoff characteristics of two watersheds in Kerala, India. It also assesses how the change in land use and land cover in the last few decades affected the runoff characteristics of these watersheds. It is seen that the reduction in the forest area amounts to 60% and 32% in the analysed watersheds. However, the changes in the surface runoff for these watersheds are not comparable with the changes in the forest area but are within 20%. Similarly the maximum (peak) value of runoff has increased by an amount of 15% only. The lesser (aforementioned) effect than expected might be due to the fact that forest has been converted to agricultural purpose with major

  17. Microphysical and radiative effects of aerosols on warm clouds during the Amazon biomass burning season as observed by MODIS: impacts of water vapor and land cover

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. E. Ten Hoeve

    2011-04-01

    aerosols and both CWV and clouds over varying land surface types is also analyzed. The study finds that the difference in CWV between forested and deforested land is not correlated with aerosol loading, supporting the assumption that temporal variation of CWV is primarily a function of the larger-scale meteorology. However, a difference in the response of CF to increasing AOD is observed between forested and deforested land. This suggests that dissimilarities between other meteorological factors, such as atmospheric stability, may have an impact on aerosol-cloud correlations between different land cover types.

  18. Enhanced land use/cover classification of heterogeneous tropical landscapes using support vector machines and textural homogeneity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paneque-Gálvez, Jaime; Mas, Jean-François; Moré, Gerard; Cristóbal, Jordi; Orta-Martínez, Martí; Luz, Ana Catarina; Guèze, Maximilien; Macía, Manuel J.; Reyes-García, Victoria

    2013-08-01

    Land use/cover classification is a key research field in remote sensing and land change science as thematic maps derived from remotely sensed data have become the basis for analyzing many socio-ecological issues. However, land use/cover classification remains a difficult task and it is especially challenging in heterogeneous tropical landscapes where nonetheless such maps are of great importance. The present study aims at establishing an efficient classification approach to accurately map all broad land use/cover classes in a large, heterogeneous tropical area, as a basis for further studies (e.g., land use/cover change, deforestation and forest degradation). Specifically, we first compare the performance of parametric (maximum likelihood), non-parametric (k-nearest neighbor and four different support vector machines - SVM), and hybrid (unsupervised-supervised) classifiers, using hard and soft (fuzzy) accuracy assessments. We then assess, using the maximum likelihood algorithm, what textural indices from the gray-level co-occurrence matrix lead to greater classification improvements at the spatial resolution of Landsat imagery (30 m), and rank them accordingly. Finally, we use the textural index that provides the most accurate classification results to evaluate whether its usefulness varies significantly with the classifier used. We classified imagery corresponding to dry and wet seasons and found that SVM classifiers outperformed all the rest. We also found that the use of some textural indices, but particularly homogeneity and entropy, can significantly improve classifications. We focused on the use of the homogeneity index, which has so far been neglected in land use/cover classification efforts, and found that this index along with reflectance bands significantly increased the overall accuracy of all the classifiers, but particularly of SVM. We observed that improvements in producer's and user's accuracies through the inclusion of homogeneity were different

  19. Impacts of land use/cover classification accuracy on regional climate simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ge, Jianjun; Qi, Jiaguo; Lofgren, Brent M.; Moore, Nathan; Torbick, Nathan; Olson, Jennifer M.

    2007-03-01

    Land use/cover change has been recognized as a key component in global change. Various land cover data sets, including historically reconstructed, recently observed, and future projected, have been used in numerous climate modeling studies at regional to global scales. However, little attention has been paid to the effect of land cover classification accuracy on climate simulations, though accuracy assessment has become a routine procedure in land cover production community. In this study, we analyzed the behavior of simulated precipitation in the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) over a range of simulated classification accuracies over a 3 month period. This study found that land cover accuracy under 80% had a strong effect on precipitation especially when the land surface had a greater control of the atmosphere. This effect became stronger as the accuracy decreased. As shown in three follow-on experiments, the effect was further influenced by model parameterizations such as convection schemes and interior nudging, which can mitigate the strength of surface boundary forcings. In reality, land cover accuracy rarely obtains the commonly recommended 85% target. Its effect on climate simulations should therefore be considered, especially when historically reconstructed and future projected land covers are employed.

  20. Land-cover change research at the U.S. Geological Survey-assessing our nation's dynamic land surface

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, Tamara S.

    2011-01-01

    The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently completed an unprecedented, 27-year assessment of land-use and land-cover change for the conterminous United States. For the period 1973 to 2000, scientists generated estimates of change in major types of land use and land cover, such as development, mining, agriculture, forest, grasslands, and wetlands. To help provide the insight that our Nation will need to make land-use decisions in coming decades, the historical trends data is now being used by the USGS to help model potential future land use/land cover under different scenarios, including climate, environmental, economic, population, public policy, and technological change.

  1. Consideration of land-use and land-cover changes in the projection of climate extremes over North America by the end of the twenty-first century

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alexandru, Adelina

    2018-03-01

    Changes in the essential climate extremes indices and surface variables for the end of the twenty-first century are assessed in this study based on two transient climate change simulations, with and without land-use and land-cover changes (LULCC), but identical atmospheric forcing. The two simulations are performed with the 5th generation of the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5) driven by the Canadian Earth System Model for the (2006-2100)-Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5) scenario. For the simulation with LULCC, land-cover data sets are taken from the global change assessment model (GCAM) representing the RCP4.5 scenario for the period 2006-2100. LULCC in RCP4.5 scenario suggest significant reduction in cultivated land (e.g. Canadian Prairies and Mississippi basin) due to afforestation. CRCM5 climate projections imply a general warming by the end of the twenty-first century, especially over the northern regions in winter. CRCM5 projects more warm spell-days per year over most areas of the continent, and implicitly more summer days and tropical nights at the expense of cold-spell, frost and ice days whose number is projected to decrease by up to 40% by the end of the twenty-first century with respect to the baseline period 1971-2000. Most land areas north of 45°N, in all seasons, as well as the southeastern United States in summer, exhibit increases in mean precipitation under the RCP4.5 scenario. In contrast, central parts of the continent in summer and much of Mexico in all seasons show reduced precipitation. In addition, large areas of North America exhibit changes of 10 to 40% (depending on the season and geographical location) in the number of heavy precipitation days. Results also suggest that the biogeophysical effects of LULCC on climate, assessed through differences between the two simulations, lead to warmer regional climates, especially in winter. The investigation of processes leading to this response shows high sensitivity of the

  2. Land use/land cover changes around Rameshwaram Island, east coast of India

    Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

    Gowthaman, R.; Dwarakish, G.S.; Sanilkumar, V.

    Land-use/land cover changes are studied using the Indian Remote Sensing satellite (IRS-1C, IRS-6) Linear Image Self-scan Sensor (LISS) III data of 1998 and 2010 Coastal land use categories such as sand, vegetation, coral reef and water have been...

  3. Land cover/land use change in semi-arid Inner Mongolia: 1992-2004

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    John, Ranjeet; Chen Jiquan; Lu Nan; Wilske, Burkhard, E-mail: ranjeet.john@utoledo.ed [Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606 (United States)

    2009-10-15

    The semi-arid grasslands in Inner Mongolia (IM) are under increasing stress owing to climate change and rapid socio-economic development in the recent past. We investigated changes in land cover/land use and landscape structure between 1992 and 2004 through the analysis of AVHRR and MODIS derived land cover data. The scale of analysis included the regional level (i.e. the whole of IM) as well as the level of the dominant biomes (i.e. the grassland and desert). We quantified proportional change, rate of change and the changes in class-level landscape metrics using the landscape structure analysis program FRAGSTATS. The dominant land cover types, grassland and barren, 0.47 and 0.27 million km{sup 2}, respectively, have increased proportionally. Cropland and urban land use also increased to 0.15 million km{sup 2} and 2197 km{sup 2}, respectively. However, the results further indicated increases in both the homogeneity and fragmentation of the landscape. Increasing homogeneity was mainly related to the reduction in minority cover types such as savanna, forests and permanent wetlands and increasing cohesion, aggregation index and clumpy indices. Conversely, increased fragmentation of the landscape was based on the increase in patch density and the interspersion/juxtaposition index (IJI). It is important to note the socio-economic growth in this fragile ecosystem, manifested by an increasing proportion of agricultural and urban land use not just at the regional level but also at the biome level in the context of regional climate change and increasing water stress.

  4. Land cover/land use change in semi-arid Inner Mongolia: 1992-2004

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    John, Ranjeet; Chen Jiquan; Lu Nan; Wilske, Burkhard

    2009-01-01

    The semi-arid grasslands in Inner Mongolia (IM) are under increasing stress owing to climate change and rapid socio-economic development in the recent past. We investigated changes in land cover/land use and landscape structure between 1992 and 2004 through the analysis of AVHRR and MODIS derived land cover data. The scale of analysis included the regional level (i.e. the whole of IM) as well as the level of the dominant biomes (i.e. the grassland and desert). We quantified proportional change, rate of change and the changes in class-level landscape metrics using the landscape structure analysis program FRAGSTATS. The dominant land cover types, grassland and barren, 0.47 and 0.27 million km 2 , respectively, have increased proportionally. Cropland and urban land use also increased to 0.15 million km 2 and 2197 km 2 , respectively. However, the results further indicated increases in both the homogeneity and fragmentation of the landscape. Increasing homogeneity was mainly related to the reduction in minority cover types such as savanna, forests and permanent wetlands and increasing cohesion, aggregation index and clumpy indices. Conversely, increased fragmentation of the landscape was based on the increase in patch density and the interspersion/juxtaposition index (IJI). It is important to note the socio-economic growth in this fragile ecosystem, manifested by an increasing proportion of agricultural and urban land use not just at the regional level but also at the biome level in the context of regional climate change and increasing water stress.

  5. Impacts of land use and land cover changes on biogenic emissions of volatile organic compounds in China from the late 1980s to the mid-2000s: implications for tropospheric ozone and secondary organic aerosol

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yu Fu

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available Based on the MEGAN (Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature module embedded within the global chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem, we estimate the changes in emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs and their impacts on surface-layer O3 and secondary organic aerosols (SOA in China between the late 1980s and the mid-2000s by using the land cover dataset derived from remote sensing images and land use survey. The land cover change in China from the late 1980s to the mid-2000s can be characterised by an expansion of urban areas (the total urban area in the mid-2000s was four times that in the late 1980s and a reduction in total vegetation coverage by 4%. Regionally, the fractions of land covered by forests exhibited increases in southeastern and northeastern China by 10–30 and 5–15%, respectively, those covered by cropland decreased in most regions except that the farming–pastoral zone in northern China increased by 5–20%, and the factions of grassland in northern China showed a large reduction of 5–30%. With changes in both land cover and meteorological fields, annual BVOC emission in China is estimated to increase by 11.4% in the mid-2000s relative to the late 1980s. With anthropogenic emissions of O3 precursors, aerosol precursors and aerosols fixed at year 2005 levels, the changes in land cover and meteorological parameters from the late 1980s to the mid-2000s are simulated to change the seasonal mean surface-layer O3 concentrations by −4 to +6 ppbv (−10 to +20% and to change the seasonal mean surface-layer SOA concentrations by −0.4 to +0.6 µg m−3 (−20 to +30% over China. We find that the decadal changes in meteorological parameters had larger collective effects on BVOC emissions and surface-layer concentrations of O3 and SOA than those in land cover and land use alone. We also perform a sensitivity simulation to compare the impacts of changes in anthropogenic emissions on concentrations of O3

  6. Theorizing Land Cover and Land Use Changes: The Case of Tropical Deforestation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Robert

    2004-01-01

    This article addresses land-cover and land-use dynamics from the perspective of regional science and economic geography. It first provides an account of the so-called spatially explicit model, which has emerged in recent years as a key empirical approach to the issue. The article uses this discussion as a springboard to evaluate the potential utility of von Thuenen to the discourse on land-cover and land-use change. After identifying shortcomings of current theoretical approaches to land use in mainly urban models, the article filters a discussion of deforestation through the lens of bid-rent and assesses its effectiveness in helping us comprehend the destruction of tropical forest in the Amazon basin. The article considers the adjustments that would have to be made to existing theory to make it more useful to the empirical issues.

  7. [Effects of sand-covering on apple trees transpiration and fruit quality in dry land orchards of Longdong, Gansu].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Kun; Yin, Xiao-ning; Liu, Xiao-yong; Wang, Fa-lin

    2010-11-01

    Aiming at the seasonal drought in the dry land orchards of Longdong, Gansu Province, a sand-covering experiment was conducted with 15-year-old Nagafu No. 2 apple trees, with the soil water content, temperature, stem sap flow velocity, leaf stomatal conductance, and fruit quality measured. In the orchard covered with 5-cm-thick riversand, the increment of soil temperature in February-April was lower than 1 degrees C, while in June-July, it was 2.44 degrees C and 2.61 degrees C on sunny and cloudy days, respectively. The soil water content was over 60% of field capacity throughout the growing season. On sunny days with high soil water content (H season), the stem sap flow curve presented a wide peak. Under sand- covering, the sap flow started 0.6 h earlier, and the maximum sap flow velocity was 25.5% higher than the control. On cloudy days of H season, the maximum sap flow velocity was 165.6% higher than the control. On sunny days with low soil water content (L season), the sap flow curve had a single peak, and under sand covering, the sap flow started 0.5-1 h earlier than the control on sunny days. The maximum sap flow velocity was 794 g x h(-1). On cloudy days of L season, the sap flow started 1 h earlier, and the maximum sap flow velocity was 311.0% higher than the control. The evaporation of the control was 156.0% higher than that of sand-covering from March to July, suggesting that excessive ground water evaporation was the main reason to cause soil drought. Under sand-covering, single fruit mass was improved obviously whereas fruit firmness was reduced slightly, and soluble solids, vitamin C, total sugar, and organic acid contents were somewhat promoted.

  8. The managed clearing: An overlooked land-cover type in urbanizing regions?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Madden, Marguerite; Gray, Josh; Meentemeyer, Ross K.

    2018-01-01

    Urban ecosystem assessments increasingly rely on widely available map products, such as the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) National Land Cover Database (NLCD), and datasets that use generic classification schemes to detect and model large-scale impacts of land-cover change. However, utilizing existing map products or schemes without identifying relevant urban class types such as semi-natural, yet managed land areas that account for differences in ecological functions due to their pervious surfaces may severely constrain assessments. To address this gap, we introduce the managed clearings land-cover type–semi-natural, vegetated land surfaces with varying degrees of management practices–for urbanizing landscapes. We explore the extent to which managed clearings are common and spatially distributed in three rapidly urbanizing areas of the Charlanta megaregion, USA. We visually interpreted and mapped fine-scale land cover with special attention to managed clearings using 2012 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) images within 150 randomly selected 1-km2 blocks in the cities of Atlanta, Charlotte, and Raleigh, and compared our maps with National Land Cover Database (NLCD) data. We estimated the abundance of managed clearings relative to other land use and land cover types, and the proportion of land-cover types in the NLCD that are similar to managed clearings. Our study reveals that managed clearings are the most common land cover type in these cities, covering 28% of the total sampled land area– 6.2% higher than the total area of impervious surfaces. Managed clearings, when combined with forest cover, constitutes 69% of pervious surfaces in the sampled region. We observed variability in area estimates of managed clearings between the NAIP-derived and NLCD data. This suggests using high-resolution remote sensing imagery (e.g., NAIP) instead of modifying NLCD data for improved representation of spatial heterogeneity and

  9. Hydrological impacts of global land cover change and human water use

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. H. C. Bosmans

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Human impacts on global terrestrial hydrology have been accelerating during the 20th century. These human impacts include the effects of reservoir building and human water use, as well as land cover change. To date, many global studies have focussed on human water use, but only a few focus on or include the impact of land cover change. Here we use PCR-GLOBWB, a combined global hydrological and water resources model, to assess the impacts of land cover change as well as human water use globally in different climatic zones. Our results show that land cover change has a strong effect on the global hydrological cycle, on the same order of magnitude as the effect of human water use (applying irrigation, abstracting water, for industrial use for example, including reservoirs, etc.. When globally averaged, changing the land cover from that of 1850 to that of 2000 increases discharge through reduced evapotranspiration. The effect of land cover change shows large spatial variability in magnitude and sign of change depending on, for example, the specific land cover change and climate zone. Overall, land cover effects on evapotranspiration are largest for the transition of tall natural vegetation to crops in energy-limited equatorial and warm temperate regions. In contrast, the inclusion of irrigation, water abstraction and reservoirs reduces global discharge through enhanced evaporation over irrigated areas and reservoirs as well as through water consumption. Hence, in some areas land cover change and water distribution both reduce discharge, while in other areas the effects may partly cancel out. The relative importance of both types of impacts varies spatially across climatic zones. From this study we conclude that land cover change needs to be considered when studying anthropogenic impacts on water resources.

  10. Land Use/Cover Changes between 1966 and 1996 in Chirokella ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Abstract: Keywords: Land Cover; Dynamic; Expansion; Exposed Land; ReductionTwo periods of panchromatic aerial photographs taken in 1966 and 1996 were analyzed to determine spatial and temporal land cover changes occurring in Chirokella micro-watershed, Southeastern Ethiopia. Theresults of the analysis were ...

  11. Changes in land cover, rainfall and stream flow in Upper Gilgel Abbay catchment, Blue Nile basin – Ethiopia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    T. H. M. Rientjes

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available In this study we evaluated changes in land cover and rainfall in the Upper Gilgel Abbay catchment in the Upper Blue Nile basin and how changes affected stream flow in terms of annual flow, high flows and low flows. Land cover change assessment was through classification analysis of remote sensing based land cover data while assessments on rainfall and stream flow data are by statistical analysis. Results of the supervised land cover classification analysis indicated that 50.9 % and 16.7 % of the catchment area was covered by forest in 1973 and 2001, respectively. This significant decrease in forest cover is mainly due to expansion of agricultural land.

    By use of a change detection procedure, three periods were identified for which changes in rainfall and stream flow were analyzed. Rainfall was analyzed at monthly base by use of the Mann-Kendall test statistic and results indicated a statistically significant, decreasing trend for most months of the year. However, for the wet season months of June, July and August rainfall has increased. In the period 1973–2005, the annual flow of the catchment decreased by 12.1 %. Low flow and high flow at daily base were analyzed by a low flow and a high flow index that is based on a 95 % and 5 % exceedance probability. Results of the low flow index indicated decreases of 18.1 % and 66.6 % for the periods 1982–2000 and 2001–2005 respectively. Results of high flows indicated an increase of 7.6 % and 46.6 % for the same periods. In this study it is concluded that over the period 1973–2005 stream flow has changed in the Gilgel Abbay catchment by changes in land cover and changes in rainfall.

  12. The effects of changing land cover on streamflow simulation in Puerto Rico

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Beusekom, Ashley; Hay, Lauren E.; Viger, Roland; Gould, William A.; Collazo, Jaime; Henareh Khalyani, Azad

    2014-01-01

    This study quantitatively explores whether land cover changes have a substantive impact on simulated streamflow within the tropical island setting of Puerto Rico. The Precipitation Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) was used to compare streamflow simulations based on five static parameterizations of land cover with those based on dynamically varying parameters derived from four land cover scenes for the period 1953-2012. The PRMS simulations based on static land cover illustrated consistent differences in simulated streamflow across the island. It was determined that the scale of the analysis makes a difference: large regions with localized areas that have undergone dramatic land cover change may show negligible difference in total streamflow, but streamflow simulations using dynamic land cover parameters for a highly altered subwatershed clearly demonstrate the effects of changing land cover on simulated streamflow. Incorporating dynamic parameterization in these highly altered watersheds can reduce the predictive uncertainty in simulations of streamflow using PRMS. Hydrologic models that do not consider the projected changes in land cover may be inadequate for water resource management planning for future conditions.

  13. Does estuarine health relate to catchment land-cover in the East ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Possible links between catchment and buffer zone land-cover class composition and the health of the East Kleinemonde Estuary were explored. There was a relationship between catchment land-cover and estuarine health within all assessed catchment delineations. Natural land-cover was determined to be the best ...

  14. Comparison of two Classification methods (MLC and SVM) to extract land use and land cover in Johor Malaysia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rokni Deilmai, B.; Ahmad, B. Bin; Zabihi, H.

    2014-06-01

    Mapping is essential for the analysis of the land use and land cover, which influence many environmental processes and properties. For the purpose of the creation of land cover maps, it is important to minimize error. These errors will propagate into later analyses based on these land cover maps. The reliability of land cover maps derived from remotely sensed data depends on an accurate classification. In this study, we have analyzed multispectral data using two different classifiers including Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). To pursue this aim, Landsat Thematic Mapper data and identical field-based training sample datasets in Johor Malaysia used for each classification method, which results indicate in five land cover classes forest, oil palm, urban area, water, rubber. Classification results indicate that SVM was more accurate than MLC. With demonstrated capability to produce reliable cover results, the SVM methods should be especially useful for land cover classification.

  15. Comparison of two Classification methods (MLC and SVM) to extract land use and land cover in Johor Malaysia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Deilmai, B Rokni; Ahmad, B Bin; Zabihi, H

    2014-01-01

    Mapping is essential for the analysis of the land use and land cover, which influence many environmental processes and properties. For the purpose of the creation of land cover maps, it is important to minimize error. These errors will propagate into later analyses based on these land cover maps. The reliability of land cover maps derived from remotely sensed data depends on an accurate classification. In this study, we have analyzed multispectral data using two different classifiers including Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). To pursue this aim, Landsat Thematic Mapper data and identical field-based training sample datasets in Johor Malaysia used for each classification method, which results indicate in five land cover classes forest, oil palm, urban area, water, rubber. Classification results indicate that SVM was more accurate than MLC. With demonstrated capability to produce reliable cover results, the SVM methods should be especially useful for land cover classification

  16. LAND COVER ASSESSMENT OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN THE BOSAWAS REGION OF NICARAGUA

    Science.gov (United States)

    Data derived from remotely sensed images were utilized to conduct land cover assessments of three indigenous communities in northern Nicaragua. Historical land use, present land cover and land cover change processes were all identified through the use of a geographic informat...

  17. The impact of land use/land cover changes on land degradation dynamics: a Mediterranean case study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bajocco, S; De Angelis, A; Perini, L; Ferrara, A; Salvati, L

    2012-05-01

    In the last decades, due to climate changes, soil deterioration, and Land Use/Land Cover Changes (LULCCs), land degradation risk has become one of the most important ecological issues at the global level. Land degradation involves two interlocking systems: the natural ecosystem and the socio-economic system. The complexity of land degradation processes should be addressed using a multidisciplinary approach. Therefore, the aim of this work is to assess diachronically land degradation dynamics under changing land covers. This paper analyzes LULCCs and the parallel increase in the level of land sensitivity to degradation along the coastal belt of Sardinia (Italy), a typical Mediterranean region where human pressure affects the landscape characteristics through fires, intensive agricultural practices, land abandonment, urban sprawl, and tourism concentration. Results reveal that two factors mainly affect the level of land sensitivity to degradation in the study area: (i) land abandonment and (ii) unsustainable use of rural and peri-urban areas. Taken together, these factors represent the primary cause of the LULCCs observed in coastal Sardinia. By linking the structural features of the Mediterranean landscape with its functional land degradation dynamics over time, these results contribute to orienting policies for sustainable land management in Mediterranean coastal areas.

  18. The Impact of Land Use/Land Cover Changes on Land Degradation Dynamics: A Mediterranean Case Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bajocco, S.; De Angelis, A.; Perini, L.; Ferrara, A.; Salvati, L.

    2012-05-01

    In the last decades, due to climate changes, soil deterioration, and Land Use/Land Cover Changes (LULCCs), land degradation risk has become one of the most important ecological issues at the global level. Land degradation involves two interlocking systems: the natural ecosystem and the socio-economic system. The complexity of land degradation processes should be addressed using a multidisciplinary approach. Therefore, the aim of this work is to assess diachronically land degradation dynamics under changing land covers. This paper analyzes LULCCs and the parallel increase in the level of land sensitivity to degradation along the coastal belt of Sardinia (Italy), a typical Mediterranean region where human pressure affects the landscape characteristics through fires, intensive agricultural practices, land abandonment, urban sprawl, and tourism concentration. Results reveal that two factors mainly affect the level of land sensitivity to degradation in the study area: (i) land abandonment and (ii) unsustainable use of rural and peri-urban areas. Taken together, these factors represent the primary cause of the LULCCs observed in coastal Sardinia. By linking the structural features of the Mediterranean landscape with its functional land degradation dynamics over time, these results contribute to orienting policies for sustainable land management in Mediterranean coastal areas.

  19. Seasonal use of conservation reserve program lands by white-tailed deer in east-central South Dakota

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gould, Jeffrey H.; Jenkins, Kurt J.

    1993-01-01

    The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP_, a provision of the 1985 Food Security Act, subsidizes landowners to take highly erodible lands out of cultivation and seed them to perennial cover for 10years. In eastern South Dakota, 0.5 million ha were enrolled in the CRP from 1985 to 1990 (Agric. Stabilization and Conserv. Serv., Brookings, S.D., unpubl. Data), which represents the largest change in conservation land-use practices in the region since the 1956 Soil Bank Program (Goetz 1987).Although the CRP is anticipated to produce substantial benefits for some wildlife species, particularly ground-nesting birds, its significance to white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the northern Great Plains agricultural region is poorly understood. Higgins et al. (1987) speculated that proliferation of CRP grasslands may provide a missing habitat component in intensively managed farmland, thereby enhancing several species of wildlife, including white-tailed deer. Deer managers in the region have expressed concerns that improved cover associated with DRP plantings on private land could attract deer and reduce hunter success rates or lead to increased depredation of adjacent croplands or stored winter forages (L. Rice, S.D. Dep. Game, Fish, and Parks, Rapid City, pers. comm., 1989). Our objectives were to describe variation in deer use of CRP lands by season, diel period, and deer activity class as a means of assessing seasonal importance of CRP fields to white-tailed deer in agricultural Midwest.

  20. Land cover change detection of Hatiya Island, Bangladesh, using remote sensing techniques

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Lalit; Ghosh, Manoj Kumer

    2012-01-01

    Land cover change is a significant issue for environmental managers for sustainable management. Remote sensing techniques have been shown to have a high probability of recognizing land cover patterns and change detection due to periodic coverage, data integrity, and provision of data in a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum. We evaluate the applicability of remote sensing techniques for land cover pattern recognition, as well as land cover change detection of the Hatiya Island, Bangladesh, and quantify land cover changes from 1977 to 1999. A supervised classification approach was used to classify Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM), Thematic Mapper (TM), and Multispectral Scanner (MSS) images into eight major land cover categories. We detected major land cover changes over the 22-year study period. During this period, marshy land, mud, mud with small grass, and bare soil had decreased by 85%, 46%, 44%, and 24%, respectively, while agricultural land, medium forest, forest, and settlement had positive changes of 26%, 45%, 363%, and 59%, respectively. The primary drivers of such landscape change were erosion and accretion processes, human pressure, and the reforestation and land reclamation programs of the Bangladesh Government.

  1. Land cover change of watersheds in Southern Guam from 1973 to 2001.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wen, Yuming; Khosrowpanah, Shahram; Heitz, Leroy

    2011-08-01

    Land cover change can be caused by human-induced activities and natural forces. Land cover change in watershed level has been a main concern for a long time in the world since watersheds play an important role in our life and environment. This paper is focused on how to apply Landsat Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS) satellite image of 1973 and Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite image of 2001 to determine the land cover changes of coastal watersheds from 1973 to 2001. GIS and remote sensing are integrated to derive land cover information from Landsat satellite images of 1973 and 2001. The land cover classification is based on supervised classification method in remote sensing software ERDAS IMAGINE. Historical GIS data is used to replace the areas covered by clouds or shadows in the image of 1973 to improve classification accuracy. Then, temporal land cover is utilized to determine land cover change of coastal watersheds in southern Guam. The overall classification accuracies for Landsat MSS image of 1973 and Landsat TM image of 2001 are 82.74% and 90.42%, respectively. The overall classification of Landsat MSS image is particularly satisfactory considering its coarse spatial resolution and relatively bad data quality because of lots of clouds and shadows in the image. Watershed land cover change in southern Guam is affected greatly by anthropogenic activities. However, natural forces also affect land cover in space and time. Land cover information and change in watersheds can be applied for watershed management and planning, and environmental modeling and assessment. Based on spatio-temporal land cover information, the interaction behavior between human and environment may be evaluated. The findings in this research will be useful to similar research in other tropical islands.

  2. Measurement of semantic similarity for land use and land cover classification systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deng, Dongpo

    2008-12-01

    Land use and land cover (LULC) data is essential to environmental and ecological research. However, semantic heterogeneous of land use and land cover classification are often resulted from different data resources, different cultural contexts, and different utilities. Therefore, there is need to develop a method to measure, compare and integrate between land cover categories. To understand the meaning and the use of terminology from different domains, the common ontology approach is used to acquire information regarding the meaning of terms, and to compare two terms to determine how they might be related. Ontology is a formal specification of a shared conceptualization of a domain of interest. LULC classification system is a ontology. The semantic similarity method is used to compare to entities of three LULC classification systems: CORINE (European Environmental Agency), Oregon State, USA), and Taiwan. The semantic properties and relations firstly have been extracted from their definitions of LULC classification systems. Then semantic properties and relations of categories in three LULC classification systems are mutually compared. The visualization of semantic proximity is finally presented to explore the similarity or dissimilarity of data. This study shows the semantic similarity method efficiently detect semantic distance in three LULC classification systems and find out the semantic similar objects.

  3. Operational monitoring of land-cover change using multitemporal remote sensing data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rogan, John

    2005-11-01

    Land-cover change, manifested as either land-cover modification and/or conversion, can occur at all spatial scales, and changes at local scales can have profound, cumulative impacts at broader scales. The implication of operational land-cover monitoring is that researchers have access to a continuous stream of remote sensing data, with the long term goal of providing for consistent and repetitive mapping. Effective large area monitoring of land-cover (i.e., >1000 km2) can only be accomplished by using remotely sensed images as an indirect data source in land-cover change mapping and as a source for land-cover change model projections. Large area monitoring programs face several challenges: (1) choice of appropriate classification scheme/map legend over large, topographically and phenologically diverse areas; (2) issues concerning data consistency and map accuracy (i.e., calibration and validation); (3) very large data volumes; (4) time consuming data processing and interpretation. Therefore, this dissertation research broadly addresses these challenges in the context of examining state-of-the-art image pre-processing, spectral enhancement, classification, and accuracy assessment techniques to assist the California Land-cover Mapping and Monitoring Program (LCMMP). The results of this dissertation revealed that spatially varying haze can be effectively corrected from Landsat data for the purposes of change detection. The Multitemporal Spectral Mixture Analysis (MSMA) spectral enhancement technique produced more accurate land-cover maps than those derived from the Multitemporal Kauth Thomas (MKT) transformation in northern and southern California study areas. A comparison of machine learning classifiers showed that Fuzzy ARTMAP outperformed two classification tree algorithms, based on map accuracy and algorithm robustness. Variation in spatial data error (positional and thematic) was explored in relation to environmental variables using geostatistical interpolation

  4. Long Term Quantification of Climate and Land Cover Change Impacts on Streamflow in an Alpine River Catchment, Northwestern China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhenliang Yin

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Quantifying the long term impacts of climate and land cover change on streamflow is of great important for sustainable water resources management in inland river basins. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT model was employed to simulate the streamflow in the upper reaches of Heihe River Basin, northwestern China, over the last half century. The Sequential Uncertainty Fitting algorithm (SUFI-2 was selected to calibrate and validate the SWAT model. The results showed that both Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE and determination coefficient (R2 were over 0.93 for calibration and validation periods, the percent bias (PBIAS of the two periods were—3.47% and 1.81%, respectively. The precipitation, average, maximum, and minimum air temperature were all showing increasing trends, with 14.87 mm/10 years, 0.30 °C/10 years, 0.27 °C/10 year, and 0.37 °C/10 years, respectively. Runoff coefficient has increased from 0.36 (averaged during 1964 to 1988 to 0.39 (averaged during 1989 to 2013. Based on the SWAT simulation, we quantified the contribution of climate and land cover change to streamflow change, indicated that the land cover change had a positive impact on river discharge by increasing 7.12% of the streamflow during 1964 to 1988, and climate change contributed 14.08% for the streamflow increasing over last 50 years. Meanwhile, the climate change impact was intensive after 2000s. The increasing of streamflow contributed to the increasing of total streamflow by 64.1% for cold season (November to following March and 35.9% for warm season (April to October. The results provide some references for dealing with climate and land cover change in an inland river basin for water resource management and planning.

  5. Error and Uncertainty in the Accuracy Assessment of Land Cover Maps

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sarmento, Pedro Alexandre Reis

    Traditionally the accuracy assessment of land cover maps is performed through the comparison of these maps with a reference database, which is intended to represent the "real" land cover, being this comparison reported with the thematic accuracy measures through confusion matrixes. Although, these reference databases are also a representation of reality, containing errors due to the human uncertainty in the assignment of the land cover class that best characterizes a certain area, causing bias in the thematic accuracy measures that are reported to the end users of these maps. The main goal of this dissertation is to develop a methodology that allows the integration of human uncertainty present in reference databases in the accuracy assessment of land cover maps, and analyse the impacts that uncertainty may have in the thematic accuracy measures reported to the end users of land cover maps. The utility of the inclusion of human uncertainty in the accuracy assessment of land cover maps is investigated. Specifically we studied the utility of fuzzy sets theory, more precisely of fuzzy arithmetic, for a better understanding of human uncertainty associated to the elaboration of reference databases, and their impacts in the thematic accuracy measures that are derived from confusion matrixes. For this purpose linguistic values transformed in fuzzy intervals that address the uncertainty in the elaboration of reference databases were used to compute fuzzy confusion matrixes. The proposed methodology is illustrated using a case study in which the accuracy assessment of a land cover map for Continental Portugal derived from Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) is made. The obtained results demonstrate that the inclusion of human uncertainty in reference databases provides much more information about the quality of land cover maps, when compared with the traditional approach of accuracy assessment of land cover maps. None

  6. Recent land cover history and nutrient retention in riparian wetlands

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hogan, D.M.; Walbridge, M.R.

    2009-01-01

    Wetland ecosystems are profoundly affected by altered nutrient and sediment loads received from anthropogenic activity in their surrounding watersheds. Our objective was to compare a gradient of agricultural and urban land cover history during the period from 1949 to 1997, with plant and soil nutrient concentrations in, and sediment deposition to, riparian wetlands in a rapidly urbanizing landscape. We observed that recent agricultural land cover was associated with increases in Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P) concentrations in a native wetland plant species. Conversely, recent urban land cover appeared to alter receiving wetland environmental conditions by increasing the relative availability of P versus N, as reflected in an invasive, but not a native, plant species. In addition, increases in surface soil Fe content suggests recent inputs of terrestrial sediments associated specifically with increasing urban land cover. The observed correlation between urban land cover and riparian wetland plant tissue and surface soil nutrient concentrations and sediment deposition, suggest that urbanization specifically enhances the suitability of riparian wetland habitats for the invasive species Japanese stiltgrass [Microstegium vimenium (Trinius) A. Camus]. ?? 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

  7. Monitoring the variations of evapotranspiration due to land use/cover change in a semiarid shrubland

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gong, Tingting; Lei, Huimin; Yang, Dawen; Jiao, Yang; Yang, Hanbo

    2017-02-01

    Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important process in the hydrological cycle, and vegetation change is a primary factor that affects ET. In this study, we analyzed the annual and inter-annual characteristics of ET using continuous observation data from eddy covariance (EC) measurement over 4 years (1 July 2011 to 30 June 2015) in a semiarid shrubland of Mu Us Sandy Land, China. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was demonstrated as the predominant factor that influences the seasonal variations in ET. Additionally, during the land degradation and vegetation rehabilitation processes, ET and normalized ET both increased due to the integrated effects of the changes in vegetation type, topography, and soil surface characteristics. This study could improve our understanding of the effects of land use/cover change on ET in the fragile ecosystem of semiarid regions and provide a scientific reference for the sustainable management of regional land and water resources.

  8. Land Cover Classification in a Complex Urban-Rural Landscape with Quickbird Imagery

    OpenAIRE

    Moran, Emilio Federico.

    2010-01-01

    High spatial resolution images have been increasingly used for urban land use/cover classification, but the high spectral variation within the same land cover, the spectral confusion among different land covers, and the shadow problem often lead to poor classification performance based on the traditional per-pixel spectral-based classification methods. This paper explores approaches to improve urban land cover classification with Quickbird imagery. Traditional per-pixel spectral-based supervi...

  9. Internal Migration and Land Use and Land Cover Changes in the Middle Mountains of Nepal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bhawana KC

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available The movement of rural households from remote uplands to valley floors and to semiurban and urban areas (internal migration is a common phenomenon in the middle mountain districts of Nepal. Understanding the causes and effects of internal migration is critical to the development and implementation of policies that promote land use planning and sustainable resource management. Using geospatial information technologies and social research methods, we investigated the causes and effects of internal migration on land use and land cover patterns in a western mountain district of Nepal between 1998 and 2013. The results show a decreasing number of households at high elevations (above 1400 m, where an increase in forest cover has been observed with a consequent decrease in agricultural land and shrub- or grassland. At lower elevations (below 1400 m, forest cover has remained constant over the last 25 years, and the agricultural land area has increased but has become geometrically complex to meet the diverse needs and living requirements of the growing population. Our findings indicate that internal migration plays an important role in shaping land use and land cover change in the middle mountains of Nepal and largely determines the resource management, utilization, and distribution patterns within a small geographic unit. Therefore, land use planning must take an integrated and interdisciplinary approach rather than considering social, environmental, and demographic information in isolation.

  10. INTER-SEASONAL DYNAMICS OF VEGETATION COVER AND SURFACE TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION: A CASE STUDY OF ONDO STATE, NIGERIA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    H. A. Ibitolu

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available This study employs Landsat ETM+ satellite imagery to access the inter-seasonal variations of Surface Temperature and Vegetation cover in Ondo State in 2013. Also, air temperature data for year 2013 acquired from 3 synoptic meteorological stations across the state were analyzed. The Single-channel Algorithm was used to extract the surface temperature maps from the digital number embedded within the individual pixel. To understand the spatio-temporal distribution of LST and vegetation across the various landuse types, 200 sample points were randomly chosen, so that each land-use covers 40 points. Imagery for the raining season where unavailable because of the intense cloud cover. Result showed that the lowest air temperature of 20.9°C was in January, while the highest air temperature of 34°C occurred in January and March. There was a significant shift in the vegetation greenness over Ondo State, as average NDVI tend to increase from a weak positive value (0.189 to a moderate value (0.419. The LULC map revealed that vegetation cover occupied the largest area (65% followed by Built-up (26%, Swampy land (4%, Rock outcrop (3% and water bodies (2%. The surface temperature maps revealed that January has the lowest temperature of 10°C experienced in the coastal riverine areas of Ilaje and Igbokoda, while the highest temperature of 39°C observed in September is experienced on the rocky grounds. The study also showed the existence of pockets of Urban Heat Islands (UHI that are well scattered all over the state. This finding proves the capability and reliability of Satellite remote sensing for environmental studies.

  11. Land use/land cover study of urban features using spot imagery

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mahmood, S.A.; Qureshi, J.; Abbas, I.

    2005-01-01

    This study is based on visual interpretation and classification of the urban area of Peshawar. Cloud free satellite image of the French SPOT System in panchromatic mode at 100m/pixel spatial detail was used for this purpose. The coverage area comprised nearly (7.5 x 6)sq. km. on the ground depicting the major portion of the city. Various image interpretation elements were exploited to accomplish the study, thirteen land cover classes were identified and demarcated on a tracing sheet. Having prepared the base map. Satellite image map was constructed by assigning disparate colors to the identified features. Dimensions of some of the prominent, regular and liner features were computed from the image. The results indicate that high-resolution satellite image can be effectively used for mapping and area estimation of urban land use/land cover features. (author)

  12. Modelling the effects of land cover and climate change on soil water partitioning in a boreal headwater catchment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Hailong; Tetzlaff, Doerthe; Soulsby, Chris

    2018-03-01

    Climate and land cover are two major factors affecting the water fluxes and balance across spatiotemporal scales. These two factors and their impacts on hydrology are often interlinked. The quantification and differentiation of such impacts is important for developing sustainable land and water management strategies. Here, we calibrated the well-known Hydrus-1D model in a data-rich boreal headwater catchment in Scotland to assess the role of two dominant vegetation types (shrubs vs. trees) in regulating the soil water partitioning and balance. We also applied previously established climate projections for the area and replaced shrubs with trees to imitate current land use change proposals in the region, so as to quantify the potential impacts of climate and land cover changes on soil hydrology. Under tree cover, evapotranspiration and deep percolation to recharge groundwater was about 44% and 57% of annual precipitation, whilst they were about 10% lower and 9% higher respectively under shrub cover in this humid, low energy environment. Meanwhile, tree canopies intercepted 39% of annual precipitation in comparison to 23% by shrubs. Soils with shrub cover stored more water than tree cover. Land cover change was shown to have stronger impacts than projected climate change. With a complete replacement of shrubs with trees under future climate projections at this site, evapotranspiration is expected to increase by ∼39% while percolation to decrease by 21% relative to the current level, more pronounced than the modest changes in the two components (seasons, which may result in water stress experienced by the vegetation. The findings provide an important evidence base for adaptive management strategies of future changes in low-energy humid environments, where vegetation growth is usually restricted by radiative energy and not water availability while few studies that quantify soil water partitioning exist.

  13. Tularosa, NM 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 1986

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This dataset contains boundaries for land use and land cover polygons in New Mexico at a scale of 1:250,000. It is in a vector digital data structure. The source...

  14. Carbon dioxide emissions from forestry and peat land using land-use/land-cover changes in North Sumatra, Indonesia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Basyuni, M.; Sulistyono, N.; Slamet, B.; Wati, R.

    2018-03-01

    Forestry and peat land including land-based is one of the critical sectors in the inventory of CO2 emissions and mitigation efforts of climate change. The present study analyzed the land-use and land-cover changes between 2006 and 2012 in North Sumatra, Indonesia with emphasis to CO2 emissions. The land-use/land-cover consists of twenty-one classes. Redd Abacus software version 1.1.7 was used to measure carbon emission source as well as the predicted 2carbon dioxide emissions from 2006-2024. Results showed that historical emission (2006-2012) in this province, significant increases in the intensive land use namely dry land agriculture (109.65%), paddy field (16.23%) and estate plantation (15.11%). On the other hand, land-cover for forest decreased significantly: secondary dry land forest (7.60%), secondary mangrove forest (9.03%), secondary swamp forest (33.98%), and the largest one in the mixed dry land agriculture (79.96%). The results indicated that North Sumatra province is still a CO2 emitter, and the most important driver of emissions mostly derived from agricultural lands that contributed 2carbon dioxide emissions by 48.8%, changing from forest areas into degraded lands (classified as barren land and shrub) shared 30.6% and estate plantation of 22.4%. Mitigation actions to reduce carbon emissions was proposed such as strengthening the forest land, rehabilitation of degraded area, development and plantation forest, forest protection and forest fire control, and reforestation and conservation activity. These mitigation actions have been simulated to reduce 15% for forestry and 18% for peat land, respectively. This data is likely to contribute to the low emission development in North Sumatra.

  15. Extraction of land cover change information from ENVISAT-ASAR data in Chengdu Plain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Wenbo; Fan, Jinlong; Huang, Jianxi; Tian, Yichen; Zhang, Yong

    2006-10-01

    Land cover data are essential to most global change research objectives, including the assessment of current environmental conditions and the simulation of future environmental scenarios that ultimately lead to public policy development. Chinese Academy of Sciences generated a nationwide land cover database in order to carry out the quantification and spatial characterization of land use/cover changes (LUCC) in 1990s. In order to improve the reliability of the database, we will update the database anytime. But it is difficult to obtain remote sensing data to extract land cover change information in large-scale. It is hard to acquire optical remote sensing data in Chengdu plain, so the objective of this research was to evaluate multitemporal ENVISAT advanced synthetic aperture radar (ASAR) data for extracting land cover change information. Based on the fieldwork and the nationwide 1:100000 land cover database, the paper assesses several land cover changes in Chengdu plain, for example: crop to buildings, forest to buildings, and forest to bare land. The results show that ENVISAT ASAR data have great potential for the applications of extracting land cover change information.

  16. Using remote sensing imagery and GIS to identify land cover and land use within Ceahlau Massif (Romania

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    GEORGE CRACU

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available Using remote sensing imagery and GIS to identify land cover and land use within Ceahlău Massif (Romania. In this study we considerer land cover and land use asessment within Ceahlău Massif (Romania using satellite imagery and GIS . To achieve this goal, we used a Landsat 7 ETM + satellite image, which was processed using specialized software in analyzing satellite images and GIS software in several stages:  Downloading, importing and layer stack of all spectral bands composing satellite image;  Establishment of areas of interest for each category of land cover and land use, which were digitized on - screen and for which spectral signatures characteristics were established;  Supervised image classification using Maximum Likelihood Method;  Importing the resulting m ap (raster in GIS environment and creating the final land cover/land use map for Ceahlău Massif. In the study area we identified nine land cover/land use classes: deciduous forests, mixed forests, coniferous forests, secondary grasslands, subalpine vegeta tion, alpine meadows, agricultural land, lakes and built area. By analizing the spatial distribution of these classes, it was found that forests are the best represented class, occupying an area of 188.4 km² (56.4% of total, followed by secondary grassl and, which occupies an area of 68.2 km² (20.4% of total, lakes (26.6 km² or 7.98% of total and agricultural land (16.1 km² or 4.86%

  17. Land use, population dynamics, and land-cover change in Eastern Puerto Rico

    Science.gov (United States)

    W.A. Gould; S. Martinuzzi; I.K. Páres-Ramos

    2012-01-01

    We assessed current and historic land use and land cover in the Luquillo Mountains and surrounding area in eastern Puerto Rico, including four small subwatersheds that are study watersheds of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Water, Energy, and Biogeochemical Budgets (WEBB) program. This region occupies an area of 1,616 square kilometers, about 18 percent of the total land...

  18. Consistent seasonal snow cover depth and duration variability over ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Decline in consistent seasonal snow cover depth, duration and changing snow cover build- up pattern over the WH in recent decades indicate that WH has undergone considerable climate change and winter weather patterns are changing in the WH. 1. Introduction. Mountainous regions around the globe are storehouses.

  19. Spatio-temporal Assessment of Land Use/ Land Cover Dynamics and Urban Heat Island of Jaipur City using Satellite Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jalan, S.; Sharma, K.

    2014-11-01

    Urban Heat Island (UHI) refers to the phenomena of higher surface temperature occurring in urban areas as compared to the surrounding countryside attributable to urbanization. Spatio-temporal changes in UHI can be quantified through Land Surface Temperature (LST) derived from satellite imageries. Spatial variations in LST occur due to complexity of land surface - combination of impervious surface materials, vegetation, exposed soils as well as water surfaces. Jaipur city has observed rapid urbanization over the last decade. Due to rising population pressure the city has expanded considerably in areal extent and has also observed substantial land use/land cover (LULC) changes. The paper aims to determine changes in the LST and UHI phenomena for Jaipur city over the period from 2000 to 2011 and analyzes the spatial distribution and temporal variation of LST in context of changes in LULC. Landsat 7 ETM+ (2000) and Landsat 5 TM (2011) images of summer season have been used. Results reveal that Jaipur city has witnessed considerable growth in built up area at the cost of greener patches over the last decade, which has had clear impact on variation in LST. There has been an average rise of 2.99 °C in overall summer temperature. New suburbs of the city record 2° to 4 °C increase in LST. LST change is inversely related to change in vegetation cover and positively related to extent of built up area. The study concludes that UHI of Jaipur city has intensified and extended over new areas.

  20. Image-based change estimation for land cover and land use monitoring

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jeremy Webb; C. Kenneth Brewer; Nicholas Daniels; Chris Maderia; Randy Hamilton; Mark Finco; Kevin A. Megown; Andrew J. Lister

    2012-01-01

    The Image-based Change Estimation (ICE) project resulted from the need to provide estimates and information for land cover and land use change over large areas. The procedure uses Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plot locations interpreted using two different dates of imagery from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP). In order to determine a suitable...

  1. A proposed periodic national inventory of land use land cover change

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hans T. Schreuder; Paul W. Snook; Raymond L. Czaplewski; Glenn P. Catts

    1986-01-01

    Three alternatives using digital thematic mapper (TM), analog TM, and a combination of either digital or analog TM data with low altitude photography are discussed for level I and level II land use/land cover classes for a proposed national inventory. Digital TM data should prove satisfactory for estimating acreage in level I classes, although estimates of precision...

  2. Influence of land development on stormwater runoff from a mixed land use and land cover catchment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paule-Mercado, M A; Lee, B Y; Memon, S A; Umer, S R; Salim, I; Lee, C-H

    2017-12-01

    Mitigating for the negative impacts of stormwater runoff is becoming a concern due to increased land development. Understanding how land development influences stormwater runoff is essential for sustainably managing water resources. In recent years, aggregate low impact development-best management practices (LID-BMPs) have been implemented to reduce the negative impacts of stormwater runoff on receiving water bodies. This study used an integrated approach to determine the influence of land development and assess the ecological benefits of four aggregate LID-BMPs in stormwater runoff from a mixed land use and land cover (LULC) catchment with ongoing land development. It used data from 2011 to 2015 that monitored 41 storm events and monthly LULC, and a Personalized Computer Storm Water Management Model (PCSWMM). The four aggregate LID-BMPs are: ecological (S1), utilizing pervious covers (S2), and multi-control (S3) and (S4). These LID-BMPs were designed and distributed in the study area based on catchment characteristics, cost, and effectiveness. PCSWMM was used to simulate the monitored storm events from 2014 (calibration: R 2 and NSE>0.5; RMSE 0.5; RMSE runoff data and LULC change patterns (only 2015 for LID-BMPs) were used. Results show that the expansion of bare land and impervious cover, soil alteration, and high amount of precipitation influenced the stormwater runoff variability during different phases of land development. The four aggregate LID-BMPs reduced runoff volume (34%-61%), peak flow (6%-19%), and pollutant concentrations (53%-83%). The results of this study, in addition to supporting local LULC planning and land development activities, also could be applied to input data for empirical modeling, and designing sustainable stormwater management guidelines and monitoring strategies. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. an assessment of the land use and land cover changes in shurugwi

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Dr Osondu

    Zimbabwe's fast-track land reform programme and other economic activities have caused ... Geographic Information System and remote sensing techniques. ... 1990 and 2009 Landsat images of the district were downloaded from the Global Land cover Facility as well ... Information System (GIS) are now providing new.

  4. Quality Evaluation of Land-Cover Classification Using Convolutional Neural Network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dang, Y.; Zhang, J.; Zhao, Y.; Luo, F.; Ma, W.; Yu, F.

    2018-04-01

    Land-cover classification is one of the most important products of earth observation, which focuses mainly on profiling the physical characters of the land surface with temporal and distribution attributes and contains the information of both natural and man-made coverage elements, such as vegetation, soil, glaciers, rivers, lakes, marsh wetlands and various man-made structures. In recent years, the amount of high-resolution remote sensing data has increased sharply. Accordingly, the volume of land-cover classification products increases, as well as the need to evaluate such frequently updated products that is a big challenge. Conventionally, the automatic quality evaluation of land-cover classification is made through pixel-based classifying algorithms, which lead to a much trickier task and consequently hard to keep peace with the required updating frequency. In this paper, we propose a novel quality evaluation approach for evaluating the land-cover classification by a scene classification method Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model. By learning from remote sensing data, those randomly generated kernels that serve as filter matrixes evolved to some operators that has similar functions to man-crafted operators, like Sobel operator or Canny operator, and there are other kernels learned by the CNN model that are much more complex and can't be understood as existing filters. The method using CNN approach as the core algorithm serves quality-evaluation tasks well since it calculates a bunch of outputs which directly represent the image's membership grade to certain classes. An automatic quality evaluation approach for the land-cover DLG-DOM coupling data (DLG for Digital Line Graphic, DOM for Digital Orthophoto Map) will be introduced in this paper. The CNN model as an robustness method for image evaluation, then brought out the idea of an automatic quality evaluation approach for land-cover classification. Based on this experiment, new ideas of quality evaluation

  5. C-CAP Niihau 2005 Land Cover

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This data set consists of land cover derived from high resolution imagery according to the Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) protocol. This data set utilized 1...

  6. Drivers and Implications of Land Use and Land Cover Change in the ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This study explores the major drivers of Land-use/Land-cover (LULC) dynamics and the observed environmental degradation as a response to these changes in the Modjo watershed, central Ethiopia. Data for this study were generated through household survey and supplemented with remotely sensed image interpretation ...

  7. Minnesota Land Use and Cover - A 1990's Census of the Land - Tiled

    Data.gov (United States)

    Minnesota Department of Natural Resources — This data set integrates six different source data sets to provide a simplified overall view of Minnesota's land use / cover. The six source data sets covered...

  8. Standard land-cover classification scheme for remote-sensing applications in South Africa

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Thompson, M

    1996-01-01

    Full Text Available For large areas, satellite remote-sensing techniques have now become the single most effective method for land-cover and land-use data acquisition. However, the majority of land-cover (and land-use) classification schemes used have been developed...

  9. Decadal changes in tundra land cover on Yamal Peninsula, Northwest Siberia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forbes, B. C.; Kumpula, T.; Macias-Fauria, M.

    2017-12-01

    The Yamal-Nenets Okrug in Russia has experienced significant changes in land use and climate in recent decades. Average year-round air temperatures have increased ca. 2°C since the 1970's, with much - but not all - of the warming taking place in winter. In association with ongoing summer warming, the annual growth of erect deciduous shrubs has been accelerating while growing season seasonality has diminished, characterized by shifts in the spatial patterns of key phenological parameters. We prepared LANDSAT-derived land cover classifications for 1988 and 2014 using change detection analysis, supported by extensive ground truthing bolstered with data from Very High-Resolution (VHR) imagery (e.g. Quickbird-2, Worldview-2/3). Research was conducted within summer reindeer pastures utilized by the Yarsalinksi sovhoz, whose animals are collectively owned, as well as many privately-owned herds. The area represents bioclimatic Subzone D of the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map and covers about 8500 km2. This is a key subzone for several reasons: (1) it includes Bovanenkovo, the first and largest gas deposit on Yamal to be developed; (2) it is a zone of extremely active periglacial processes (e.g. active layer detachment slides, lake drainage and recent methane-mediated craters); and (3) it is characterized by steadily increasing growth of tall willow shrubs (Salix spp.), which comprise an important source of fodder by reindeer migrating through the area in summer. These results are unique as our dataset: (1) covers sizable inland regions lying entirely within the Russian tundra zone; (2) derives from extensive ground truthing; and (3) treats all plant taxonomic groups (vascular, bryophytes, lichens) at the plot scale. Here we present the first such classifications, based on LANDSAT images from 1988 and 2014. We identify 16 classes ranging from bare ground and drained lakes, anthropogenic disturbances, through several wetland types, to various dwarf and erect tundra shrub

  10. Simulation of Land-Cover Change in Taipei Metropolitan Area under Climate Change Impact

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Huang, Kuo-Ching; Huang, Thomas C C

    2014-01-01

    Climate change causes environment change and shows up on land covers. Through observing the change of land use, researchers can find out the trend and potential mechanism of the land cover change. Effective adaptation policies can affect pattern of land cover change and may decrease the risks of climate change impacts. By simulating land use dynamics with scenario settings, this paper attempts to explore the relationship between climate change and land-cover change through efficient adaptation polices. It involves spatial statistical model in estimating possibility of land-cover change, cellular automata model in modeling land-cover dynamics, and scenario analysis in response to adaptation polices. The results show that, without any control, the critical eco-areas, such as estuarine areas, will be destroyed and people may move to the vulnerable and important economic development areas. In the other hand, under the limited development condition for adaptation, people migration to peri-urban and critical eco-areas may be deterred

  11. The GOFC-GOLD/CEOS Land Cover Harmonization and Validation Initiative: Technical Design and Implementation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Herold, M.; Woodcock, C.; Stehman, S.; Nightingale, J.; Friedl, M.; Schmullius, C.

    2010-12-01

    A global effort to assess the accuracy of existing and future land cover products derived from a variety of satellite sensors over a range of spatial resolutions is being led by the Land Cover Implementation Team (LC-IT) of GOFC/GOLD (Global Observation of Land Cover Dynamics) in conjunction with the CEOS (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites) WGCV (Working Group on Calibration and Validation) LPV (Land Product Validation) subgroup. The first phase of this effort is complete and culminated in a publication of community consensus "best practices" for validation of global land cover datasets (2). The next phase is to implement the recommendations outlined in the "best practices" document. A "living database" of global randomized sample sites will form the basis of accuracy assessment for a host of global land cover products (GLC2000, MODIS land cover, GLOBCOVER, United Nation's Forest Resource Assessment (FRA2010), and the Mid-Decadal Global Land Survey. This "living dataset" will also be a community resource available for use in validation of regional or national mapping efforts using LCCS (UN FAO's Land Cover Classification System). Based on the known accuracy of existing land cover products, GOFC/GOLD will to develop and update a "best currently available" global land cover map. Individual geographic regions may be selected from different land cover products (global, national or regional), or they may be combined in various ways

  12. Estimating Accuracy of Land-Cover Composition From Two-Stage Clustering Sampling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Land-cover maps are often used to compute land-cover composition (i.e., the proportion or percent of area covered by each class), for each unit in a spatial partition of the region mapped. We derive design-based estimators of mean deviation (MD), mean absolute deviation (MAD), ...

  13. ISLSCP II IGBP DISCover and SiB Land Cover, 1992-1993

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This data set describes the geographic distributions of 17 classes of land cover based on the International Geosphere-Biosphere DISCover land cover legend (Loveland...

  14. NLCD - MODIS land cover- albedo dataset for the continental United States

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — The NLCD-MODIS land cover-albedo database integrates high-quality MODIS albedo observations with areas of homogeneous land cover from NLCD. The spatial resolution...

  15. CLC2000 land cover database of the Netherlands; monitoring land cover changes between 1986 and 2000

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hazeu, G.W.

    2003-01-01

    The 1986 CORINE land cover database of the Netherlands was revised and updated on basis of Landsat satellite images and ancillary data. Interpretation of satellite images from 1986 and 2000 resulted in the CLC2000, CLC1986rev and CLCchange databases. A standard European legend and production

  16. Land management and land-cover change have impacts of similar magnitude on surface temperature

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Luyssaert, Sebastiaan; Jammet, Mathilde; Stoy, Paul C.

    2014-01-01

    Anthropogenic changes to land cover (LCC) remain common, but continuing land scarcity promotes the widespread intensification of land management changes (LMC) to better satisfy societal demand for food, fibre, fuel and shelter1. The biophysical effects of LCC on surface climate are largely unders...

  17. Effects of River Discharge and Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) on Water Quality Dynamics in Migina Catchment, Rwanda

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uwimana, Abias; van Dam, Anne; Gettel, Gretchen; Bigirimana, Bonfils; Irvine, Kenneth

    2017-09-01

    Agricultural intensification may accelerate the loss of wetlands, increasing the concentrations of nutrients and sediments in downstream water bodies. The objective of this study was to assess the effects of land use and land cover and river discharge on water quality in the Migina catchment, southern Rwanda. Rainfall, discharge and water quality (total nitrogen, total phosphorus, total suspended solids, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, pH, and temperature) were measured in different periods from May 2009 to June 2013. In 2011, measurements were done at the outlets of 3 sub-catchments (Munyazi, Mukura and Akagera). Between May 2012 and May 2013 the measurements were done in 16 reaches of Munyazi dominated by rice, vegetables, grass/forest or ponds/reservoirs. Water quality was also measured during two rainfall events. Results showed seasonal trends in water quality associated with high water flows and farming activities. Across all sites, the total suspended solids related positively to discharge, increasing 2-8 times during high flow periods. Conductivity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH decreased with increasing discharge, while total nitrogen and total phosphorus did not show a clear pattern. The total suspended solids concentrations were consistently higher downstream of reaches dominated by rice and vegetable farming. For total nitrogen and total phosphorus results were mixed, but suggesting higher concentration of total nitrogen and total phosphorus during the dry and early rainy (and farming) season, and then wash out during the rainy season, with subsequent dilution at the end of the rains. Rice and vegetable farming generate the transport of sediment as opposed to ponds/reservoir and grass/forest.

  18. Land-cover effects on soil organic carbon stocks in a European city.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edmondson, Jill L; Davies, Zoe G; McCormack, Sarah A; Gaston, Kevin J; Leake, Jonathan R

    2014-02-15

    Soil is the vital foundation of terrestrial ecosystems storing water, nutrients, and almost three-quarters of the organic carbon stocks of the Earth's biomes. Soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks vary with land-cover and land-use change, with significant losses occurring through disturbance and cultivation. Although urbanisation is a growing contributor to land-use change globally, the effects of urban land-cover types on SOC stocks have not been studied for densely built cities. Additionally, there is a need to resolve the direction and extent to which greenspace management such as tree planting impacts on SOC concentrations. Here, we analyse the effect of land-cover (herbaceous, shrub or tree cover), on SOC stocks in domestic gardens and non-domestic greenspaces across a typical mid-sized U.K. city (Leicester, 73 km(2), 56% greenspace), and map citywide distribution of this ecosystem service. SOC was measured in topsoil and compared to surrounding extra-urban agricultural land. Average SOC storage in the city's greenspace was 9.9 kg m(-2), to 21 cm depth. SOC concentrations under trees and shrubs in domestic gardens were greater than all other land-covers, with total median storage of 13.5 kg m(-2) to 21 cm depth, more than 3 kg m(-2) greater than any other land-cover class in domestic and non-domestic greenspace and 5 kg m(-2) greater than in arable land. Land-cover did not significantly affect SOC concentrations in non-domestic greenspace, but values beneath trees were higher than under both pasture and arable land, whereas concentrations under shrub and herbaceous land-covers were only higher than arable fields. We conclude that although differences in greenspace management affect SOC stocks, trees only marginally increase these stocks in non-domestic greenspaces, but may enhance them in domestic gardens, and greenspace topsoils hold substantial SOC stores that require protection from further expansion of artificial surfaces e.g. patios and driveways. Copyright

  19. LBA-ECO ND-01 Land Cover Classification, Rondonia, Brazil: 1975-2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This data set provides a time series of land cover classifications for Ariquemes, Ji-Parana, and Luiza, research sites in Rondonia, Brazil. The land cover...

  20. A hierarchical approach of hybrid image classification for land use and land cover mapping

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rahdari Vahid

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Remote sensing data analysis can provide thematic maps describing land-use and land-cover (LULC in a short period. Using proper image classification method in an area, is important to overcome the possible limitations of satellite imageries for producing land-use and land-cover maps. In the present study, a hierarchical hybrid image classification method was used to produce LULC maps using Landsat Thematic mapper TM for the year of 1998 and operational land imager OLI for the year of 2016. Images were classified using the proposed hybrid image classification method, vegetation cover crown percentage map from normalized difference vegetation index, Fisher supervised classification and object-based image classification methods. Accuracy assessment results showed that the hybrid classification method produced maps with total accuracy up to 84 percent with kappa statistic value 0.81. Results of this study showed that the proposed classification method worked better with OLI sensor than with TM. Although OLI has a higher radiometric resolution than TM, the produced LULC map using TM is almost accurate like OLI, which is because of LULC definitions and image classification methods used.

  1. Evaluating the effects of historical land cover change on summertime weather and climate in New Jersey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wichansky, Paul Stuart

    The 19th-century agrarian landscape of New Jersey (NJ) and the surrounding region has been extensively transformed to the present-day land cover by urbanization, reforestation, and localized areas of deforestation. This study used a mesoscale atmospheric numerical model to investigate the sensitivity of the warm season climate of NJ to these land cover changes. Reconstructed 1880s-era and present-day land cover datasets were used as surface boundary conditions for a set of simulations performed with the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). Three-member ensembles with historical and present-day land cover were compared to examine the sensitivity of surface air and dewpoint temperatures, rainfall, the individual components of the surface energy budget, horizontal and vertical winds, and the vertical profiles of temperature and humidity to these land cover changes. Mean temperatures for the present-day landscape were 0.3-0.6°C warmer than for the historical landscape over a considerable portion of NJ and the surrounding region, with daily maximum temperatures at least 1.0°C warmer over some of the highly urbanized locations. Reforested regions in the present-day landscape, however, showed a slight cooling. Surface warming was generally associated with repartitioning of net radiation from latent to sensible heat flux, and conversely for cooling. Reduced evapotranspiration from much of the present-day land surface led to dewpoint temperature decreases of 0.3-0.6°C. While urbanization was accompanied by strong surface albedo decreases and increases in net shortwave radiation, reforestation and potential changes in forest composition have generally increased albedos and also enhanced landscape heterogeneity. The increased deciduousness of forests may have further reduced net downward longwave radiation. These land cover changes have modified boundary-layer dynamics by increasing low-level convergence and upper-level divergence in the interior of NJ, especially

  2. Multi-temporal and Dual-polarization Interferometric SAR for Land Cover Type Classification

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    WANG Xinshuang

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available In order to study SAR land cover classification method, this paper uses the multi-dimensional combination of temporal,polarization and InSAR data. The area covered by space borne data of ALOS PALSAR in Xunke County,Heilongjiang Province was chosen as test site. A land cover classification technique of SVM based on multi-temporal, multi-polarization and InSAR data had been proposed, using the sensitivity to land cover type of multi-temporal, multi-polarization SAR data and InSAR measurements, and combing time series characteristic of backscatter coefficient and correlation coefficient to identify ground objects. The results showed the problem of confusion between forest land and urban construction land can be nicely solved, using the correlation coefficient between HH and HV, and also combing the selected temporal, polarization and InSAR characteristics. The land cover classification result with higher accuracy is gotten using the classification algorithm proposed in this paper.

  3. Gallup, NM AZ 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 1986

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This dataset contains boundaries for land use and land cover polygons in New Mexico at a scale of 1:250,000. It is in a vector digital data structure. The source...

  4. Santa Fe, NM 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 1986

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This dataset contains boundaries for land use and land cover polygons in New Mexico at a scale of 1:250,000. It is in a vector digital data structure. The source...

  5. Projecting land-use and land cover change in a subtropical urban watershed

    Science.gov (United States)

    John J. Lagrosa IV; Wayne C. Zipperer; Michael G. Andreu

    2018-01-01

    Urban landscapes are heterogeneous mosaics that develop via significant land-use and land cover (LULC) change. Current LULC models project future landscape patterns, but generally avoid urban landscapes due to heterogeneity. To project LULC change for an urban landscape, we parameterize an established LULC model (Dyna-CLUE) under baseline conditions (continued current...

  6. Land use and land cover dynamics in the Brazilian Amazon: an overview

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robert Walker; Alfredo Kingo Oyama Homma

    1996-01-01

    This paper presents a theoretical discussion of processes linking land use decisions and land cover outcomes at household level, with an emphasis on small proceduers. Evidence from the literature substantiating the existence of domestic cycle phenomena is brought forward and interpreted for the Brazilian case. Also considered are the relative disposition of production...

  7. Land use/cover classification in the Brazilian Amazon using satellite images.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Dengsheng; Batistella, Mateus; Li, Guiying; Moran, Emilio; Hetrick, Scott; Freitas, Corina da Costa; Dutra, Luciano Vieira; Sant'anna, Sidnei João Siqueira

    2012-09-01

    Land use/cover classification is one of the most important applications in remote sensing. However, mapping accurate land use/cover spatial distribution is a challenge, particularly in moist tropical regions, due to the complex biophysical environment and limitations of remote sensing data per se. This paper reviews experiments related to land use/cover classification in the Brazilian Amazon for a decade. Through comprehensive analysis of the classification results, it is concluded that spatial information inherent in remote sensing data plays an essential role in improving land use/cover classification. Incorporation of suitable textural images into multispectral bands and use of segmentation-based method are valuable ways to improve land use/cover classification, especially for high spatial resolution images. Data fusion of multi-resolution images within optical sensor data is vital for visual interpretation, but may not improve classification performance. In contrast, integration of optical and radar data did improve classification performance when the proper data fusion method was used. Of the classification algorithms available, the maximum likelihood classifier is still an important method for providing reasonably good accuracy, but nonparametric algorithms, such as classification tree analysis, has the potential to provide better results. However, they often require more time to achieve parametric optimization. Proper use of hierarchical-based methods is fundamental for developing accurate land use/cover classification, mainly from historical remotely sensed data.

  8. Land and Forest Management by Land Use/ Land Cover Analysis and Change Detection Using Remote Sensing and GIS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ankana

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Remote sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS are the most effective tools in spatial data analysis. Natural resources like land, forest and water, these techniques have proved a valuable source of information generation as well as in the management and planning purposes. This study aims to suggest possible land and forest management strategies in Chakia tahsil based on land use and land cover analysis and the changing pattern observed during the last ten years. The population of Chakia tahsil is mainly rural in nature. The study has revealed that the northern part of the region, which offers for the settlement and all the agricultural practices constitutes nearly 23.48% and is a dead level plain, whereas the southern part, which constitute nearly 76.6% of the region is characterized by plateau and is covered with forest. The southern plateau rises abruptly from the northern alluvial plain with a number of escarpments. The contour line of 100 m mainly demarcates the boundary between plateau and plain. The plateau zone is deeply dissected and highly rugged terrain. The resultant topography comprises of a number of mesas and isolated hillocks showing elevation differences from 150 m to 385 m above mean sea level. Being rugged terrain in the southern part, nowadays human encroachment are taking place for more land for the cultivation. The changes were well observed in the land use and land cover in the study region. A large part of fallow land and open forest were converted into cultivated land.

  9. Integrated modelling of anthropogenic land-use and land-cover change on the global scale

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schaldach, R.; Koch, J.; Alcamo, J.

    2009-04-01

    In many cases land-use activities go hand in hand with substantial modifications of the physical and biological cover of the Earth's surface, resulting in direct effects on energy and matter fluxes between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere. For instance, the conversion of forest to cropland is changing climate relevant surface parameters (e.g. albedo) as well as evapotranspiration processes and carbon flows. In turn, human land-use decisions are also influenced by environmental processes. Changing temperature and precipitation patterns for example are important determinants for location and intensity of agriculture. Due to these close linkages, processes of land-use and related land-cover change should be considered as important components in the construction of Earth System models. A major challenge in modelling land-use change on the global scale is the integration of socio-economic aspects and human decision making with environmental processes. One of the few global approaches that integrates functional components to represent both anthropogenic and environmental aspects of land-use change, is the LandSHIFT model. It simulates the spatial and temporal dynamics of the human land-use activities settlement, cultivation of food crops and grazing management, which compete for the available land resources. The rational of the model is to regionalize the demands for area intensive commodities (e.g. crop production) and services (e.g. space for housing) from the country-level to a global grid with the spatial resolution of 5 arc-minutes. The modelled land-use decisions within the agricultural sector are influenced by changing climate and the resulting effects on biomass productivity. Currently, this causal chain is modelled by integrating results from the process-based vegetation model LPJmL model for changing crop yields and net primary productivity of grazing land. Model output of LandSHIFT is a time series of grid maps with land-use/land-cover information

  10. Modelling land change: the issue of use and cover in wide-scale applications

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bakker, M.M.; Veldkamp, A.

    2008-01-01

    In this article, the underlying causes for the apparent mismatch between land cover and land use in the context of wide-scale land change modelling are explored. A land use-land cover (LU/LC) ratio is proposed as a relevant landscape characteristic. The one-to-one ratio between land use and land

  11. Gross and net land cover changes in the main plant functional types derived from the annual ESA CCI land cover maps (1992-2015)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Wei; MacBean, Natasha; Ciais, Philippe; Defourny, Pierre; Lamarche, Céline; Bontemps, Sophie; Houghton, Richard A.; Peng, Shushi

    2018-01-01

    Land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) impacts local energy and water balance and contributes on global scale to a net carbon emission to the atmosphere. The newly released annual ESA CCI (climate change initiative) land cover maps provide continuous land cover changes at 300 m resolution from 1992 to 2015, and can be used in land surface models (LSMs) to simulate LULCC effects on carbon stocks and on surface energy budgets. Here we investigate the absolute areas and gross and net changes in different plant functional types (PFTs) derived from ESA CCI products. The results are compared with other datasets. Global areas of forest, cropland and grassland PFTs from ESA are 30.4, 19.3 and 35.7 million km2 in the year 2000. The global forest area is lower than that from LUH2v2h (Hurtt et al., 2011), Hansen et al. (2013) or Houghton and Nassikas (2017) while cropland area is higher than LUH2v2h (Hurtt et al., 2011), in which cropland area is from HYDE 3.2 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2016). Gross forest loss and gain during 1992-2015 are 1.5 and 0.9 million km2 respectively, resulting in a net forest loss of 0.6 million km2, mainly occurring in South and Central America. The magnitudes of gross changes in forest, cropland and grassland PFTs in the ESA CCI are smaller than those in other datasets. The magnitude of global net cropland gain for the whole period is consistent with HYDE 3.2 (Klein Goldewijk et al., 2016), but most of the increases happened before 2004 in ESA and after 2007 in HYDE 3.2. Brazil, Bolivia and Indonesia are the countries with the largest net forest loss from 1992 to 2015, and the decreased areas are generally consistent with those from Hansen et al. (2013) based on Landsat 30 m resolution images. Despite discrepancies compared to other datasets, and uncertainties in converting into PFTs, the new ESA CCI products provide the first detailed long-term time series of land-cover change and can be implemented in LSMs to characterize recent carbon dynamics

  12. Landspotting: collecting essential land cover information via an attractive internet game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fritz, Steffen; McCallum, Ian; Perger, Christoph; Christian, Schill; Florian, Kraxner; Erik, Lindquist; Michael, Obersteiner

    2010-05-01

    Based on the geo-wiki.org concept of collecting land cover information via crowdsourcing, we present a novel approach on how to get the crowd involved. Internet games as well as social networks are becoming increasingly popular and the full potential is yet to be exploited. However, thus far, few if any games provide anything other than entertainment. Can an attractive philanthropic game be created which uses the crowd to collect essential information needed to help to acquire better data to improve the understanding of the earth system? Since accurate and up to date information on global land cover plays a very important role in a number of different research fields such as climate change, monitoring of tropical deforestation, land use monitoring and land-use modelling, but still shows high levels of disagreement, the game will focus on how this essential land cover calibration and validation data can be collected in areas where uncertainty is currently highest. In the current version of the land spotting game, we combine uncertainty hotspot information from three global land cover datasets (GLC, MODIS and GlobCover). With an ever increasing amount of high resolution images available on Google Earth, it is becoming increasingly possible to distinguish land cover features with a high degree of accuracy. We first direct the landspotting game community to certain hotspots of land cover uncertainty and then ask them to enter/record the type of land cover they see (for this they will be able to acquire a certain number of points), possibly uploading pictures at that location (additional points will be received). Even though the development of the game "landspotting.org" is still underway, we illustrate what the functionality will be and what features are envisaged for the near future. Landspotting.org will be designed in such a way as to challenge users to help map out the remaining areas of confusion over the globe - possibly in the form of an adventure game. Users

  13. C-CAP Santa Cruz 2001 era High Resolution Land Cover Metadata

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This dataset represents land cover for the San Lorenzo River basin in Santa Cruz County, California derived from high resolution imagery. The land cover features in...

  14. A Continental United States High Resolution NLCD Land Cover – MODIS Albedo Database to Examine Albedo and Land Cover Change Relationships

    Science.gov (United States)

    Surface albedo influences climate by affecting the amount of solar radiation that is reflected at the Earth’s surface, and surface albedo is, in turn, affected by land cover. General Circulation Models typically use modeled or prescribed albedo to assess the influence of land co...

  15. National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Percent Developed Imperviousness Collection

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Percent Developed Imperviousness Collection is produced through a cooperative project conducted by the Multi-Resolution Land...

  16. Analyzing Land Use/Land Cover Changes Using Remote Sensing and GIS in Rize, North-East Turkey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reis, Selçuk

    2008-10-01

    Mapping land use/land cover (LULC) changes at regional scales is essential for a wide range of applications, including landslide, erosion, land planning, global warming etc. LULC alterations (based especially on human activities), negatively effect the patterns of climate, the patterns of natural hazard and socio-economic dynamics in global and local scale. In this study, LULC changes are investigated by using of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Rize, North-East Turkey. For this purpose, firstly supervised classification technique is applied to Landsat images acquired in 1976 and 2000. Image Classification of six reflective bands of two Landsat images is carried out by using maximum likelihood method with the aid of ground truth data obtained from aerial images dated 1973 and 2002. The second part focused on land use land cover changes by using change detection comparison (pixel by pixel). In third part of the study, the land cover changes are analyzed according to the topographic structure (slope and altitude) by using GIS functions. The results indicate that severe land cover changes have occurred in agricultural (36.2%) (especially in tea gardens), urban (117%), pasture (-72.8%) and forestry (-12.8%) areas has been experienced in the region between 1976 and 2000. It was seen that the LULC changes were mostly occurred in coastal areas and in areas having low slope values.

  17. Analyzing Land Use/Land Cover Changes Using Remote Sensing and GIS in Rize, North-East Turkey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Selçuk Reis

    2008-10-01

    Full Text Available Mapping land use/land cover (LULC changes at regional scales is essential for a wide range of applications, including landslide, erosion, land planning, global warming etc. LULC alterations (based especially on human activities, negatively effect the patterns of climate, the patterns of natural hazard and socio-economic dynamics in global and local scale. In this study, LULC changes are investigated by using of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS in Rize, North-East Turkey. For this purpose, firstly supervised classification technique is applied to Landsat images acquired in 1976 and 2000. Image Classification of six reflective bands of two Landsat images is carried out by using maximum likelihood method with the aid of ground truth data obtained from aerial images dated 1973 and 2002. The second part focused on land use land cover changes by using change detection comparison (pixel by pixel. In third part of the study, the land cover changes are analyzed according to the topographic structure (slope and altitude by using GIS functions. The results indicate that severe land cover changes have occurred in agricultural (36.2% (especially in tea gardens, urban (117%, pasture (-72.8% and forestry (-12.8% areas has been experienced in the region between 1976 and 2000. It was seen that the LULC changes were mostly occurred in coastal areas and in areas having low slope values.

  18. A high accuracy land use/cover retrieval system

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alaa Hefnawy

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available The effects of spatial resolution on the accuracy of mapping land use/cover types have received increasing attention as a large number of multi-scale earth observation data become available. Although many methods of semi automated image classification of remotely sensed data have been established for improving the accuracy of land use/cover classification during the past 40 years, most of them were employed in single-resolution image classification, which led to unsatisfactory results. In this paper, we propose a multi-resolution fast adaptive content-based retrieval system of satellite images. Through our proposed system, we apply a Super Resolution technique for the Landsat-TM images to have a high resolution dataset. The human–computer interactive system is based on modified radial basis function for retrieval of satellite database images. We apply the backpropagation supervised artificial neural network classifier for both the multi and single resolution datasets. The results show significant improved land use/cover classification accuracy for the multi-resolution approach compared with those from single-resolution approach.

  19. Using the FORE-SCE model to project land-cover change in the southeastern United States

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sohl, Terry; Sayler, Kristi L.

    2008-01-01

    A wide variety of ecological applications require spatially explicit current and projected land-use and land-cover data. The southeastern United States has experienced massive land-use change since European settlement and continues to experience extremely high rates of forest cutting, significant urban development, and changes in agricultural land use. Forest-cover patterns and structure are projected to change dramatically in the southeastern United States in the next 50 years due to population growth and demand for wood products [Wear, D.N., Greis, J.G. (Eds.), 2002. Southern Forest Resource Assessment. General Technical Report SRS-53. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Asheville, NC, 635 pp]. Along with our climate partners, we are examining the potential effects of southeastern U.S. land-cover change on regional climate. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Land Cover Trends project is analyzing contemporary (1973-2000) land-cover change in the conterminous United States, providing ecoregion-by-ecoregion estimates of the rates of change, descriptive transition matrices, and changes in landscape metrics. The FORecasting SCEnarios of future land-cover (FORE-SCE) model used Land Cover Trends data and theoretical, statistical, and deterministic modeling techniques to project future land-cover change through 2050 for the southeastern United States. Prescriptions for future proportions of land cover for this application were provided by ecoregion-based extrapolations of historical change. Logistic regression was used to develop relationships between suspected drivers of land-cover change and land cover, resulting in the development of probability-of-occurrence surfaces for each unique land-cover type. Forest stand age was initially established with Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data and tracked through model iterations. The spatial allocation procedure placed patches of new land cover on the landscape until the scenario

  20. Research on Land Surface Thermal-Hydrologic Exchange in Southern China under Future Climate and Land Cover Scenarios

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jianwu Yan

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Climate change inevitably leads to changes in hydrothermal circulation. However, thermal-hydrologic exchanging caused by land cover change has also undergone ineligible changes. Therefore, studying the comprehensive effects of climate and land cover changes on land surface water and heat exchanges enables us to well understand the formation mechanism of regional climate and predict climate change with fewer uncertainties. This study investigated the land surface thermal-hydrologic exchange across southern China for the next 40 years using a land surface model (ecosystem-atmosphere simulation scheme (EASS. Our findings are summarized as follows. (i Spatiotemporal variation patterns of sensible heat flux (H and evapotranspiration (ET under the land cover scenarios (A2a or B2a and climate change scenario (A1B are unanimous. (ii Both H and ET take on a single peak pattern, and the peak occurs in June or July. (iii Based on the regional interannual variability analysis, H displays a downward trend (10% and ET presents an increasing trend (15%. (iv The annual average H and ET would, respectively, increase and decrease by about 10% when woodland converts to the cultivated land. Through this study, we recognize that land surface water and heat exchanges are affected greatly by the future climate change as well as land cover change.

  1. the implications of land use/cover dynamics on resources

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2017-12-04

    Dec 4, 2017 ... Land use maps were produced using the GIS software packages of ... Keywords: Land use/cover, Dynamics, Remote Sensing Techniques, Geographic Information System, .... sporadic floods and landslides in Bambui which.

  2. LAND USE/LAND COVER CHANGES IN SEMI-ARID MOUNTAIN LANDSCAPE IN SOUTHERN INDIA: A GEOINFORMATICS BASED MARKOV CHAIN APPROACH

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. A. Rahaman

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Nowadays land use/ land cover in mountain landscape is in critical condition; it leads to high risky and uncertain environments. These areas are facing multiple stresses including degradation of land resources; vagaries of climate and depletion of water resources continuously affect land use practices and livelihoods. To understand the Land use/Land cover (Lu/Lc changes in a semi-arid mountain landscape, Kallar watershed of Bhavani basin, in southern India has been chosen. Most of the hilly part in the study area covers with forest, plantation, orchards and vegetables and which are highly affected by severe soil erosion, landslide, frequent rainfall failures and associated drought. The foothill regions are mainly utilized for agriculture practices; due to water scarcity and meagre income, the productive agriculture lands are converted into settlement plots and wasteland. Hence, land use/land cover change deduction; a stochastic processed based method is indispensable for future prediction. For identification of land use/land cover, and vegetation changes, Landsat TM, ETM (1995, 2005 and IRS P6- LISS IV (2015 images were used. Through CAMarkov chain analysis, Lu/Lc changes in past three decades (1995, 2005, and 2015 were identified and projected for (2020 and 2025; Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI were used to find the vegetation changes. The result shows that, maximum changes occur in the plantation and slight changes found in forest cover in the hilly terrain. In foothill areas, agriculture lands were decreased while wastelands and settlement plots were increased. The outcome of the results helps to farmer and policy makers to draw optimal lands use planning and better management strategies for sustainable development of natural resources.

  3. Land Use/land Cover Changes in Semi-Arid Mountain Landscape in Southern India: a Geoinformatics Based Markov Chain Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rahaman, S. A.; Aruchamy, S.; Balasubramani, K.; Jegankumar, R.

    2017-05-01

    Nowadays land use/ land cover in mountain landscape is in critical condition; it leads to high risky and uncertain environments. These areas are facing multiple stresses including degradation of land resources; vagaries of climate and depletion of water resources continuously affect land use practices and livelihoods. To understand the Land use/Land cover (Lu/Lc) changes in a semi-arid mountain landscape, Kallar watershed of Bhavani basin, in southern India has been chosen. Most of the hilly part in the study area covers with forest, plantation, orchards and vegetables and which are highly affected by severe soil erosion, landslide, frequent rainfall failures and associated drought. The foothill regions are mainly utilized for agriculture practices; due to water scarcity and meagre income, the productive agriculture lands are converted into settlement plots and wasteland. Hence, land use/land cover change deduction; a stochastic processed based method is indispensable for future prediction. For identification of land use/land cover, and vegetation changes, Landsat TM, ETM (1995, 2005) and IRS P6- LISS IV (2015) images were used. Through CAMarkov chain analysis, Lu/Lc changes in past three decades (1995, 2005, and 2015) were identified and projected for (2020 and 2025); Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were used to find the vegetation changes. The result shows that, maximum changes occur in the plantation and slight changes found in forest cover in the hilly terrain. In foothill areas, agriculture lands were decreased while wastelands and settlement plots were increased. The outcome of the results helps to farmer and policy makers to draw optimal lands use planning and better management strategies for sustainable development of natural resources.

  4. A simple semi-automatic approach for land cover classification from multispectral remote sensing imagery.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dong Jiang

    Full Text Available Land cover data represent a fundamental data source for various types of scientific research. The classification of land cover based on satellite data is a challenging task, and an efficient classification method is needed. In this study, an automatic scheme is proposed for the classification of land use using multispectral remote sensing images based on change detection and a semi-supervised classifier. The satellite image can be automatically classified using only the prior land cover map and existing images; therefore human involvement is reduced to a minimum, ensuring the operability of the method. The method was tested in the Qingpu District of Shanghai, China. Using Environment Satellite 1(HJ-1 images of 2009 with 30 m spatial resolution, the areas were classified into five main types of land cover based on previous land cover data and spectral features. The results agreed on validation of land cover maps well with a Kappa value of 0.79 and statistical area biases in proportion less than 6%. This study proposed a simple semi-automatic approach for land cover classification by using prior maps with satisfied accuracy, which integrated the accuracy of visual interpretation and performance of automatic classification methods. The method can be used for land cover mapping in areas lacking ground reference information or identifying rapid variation of land cover regions (such as rapid urbanization with convenience.

  5. Effect of land-use/land-cover change on the future of rainfed agriculture in the Jenin Governorate, Palestine

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Thawaba, Salem; Abu-Madi, Maher; Özerol, Gül

    2017-01-01

    Land cover has been changed by humans throughout history. At the global level, population growth and socio-economic development have a significant impact on land resources. Recently, scholars added climate change as one of the major factors affecting land-cover transformation. In the West Bank of

  6. Assessment of Land-Use/Land-Cover Change and Forest Fragmentation in the Garhwal Himalayan Region of India

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amit Kumar Batar

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available The Garhwal Himalaya has experienced extensive deforestation and forest fragmentation, but data and documentation detailing this transformation of the Himalaya are limited. The aim of this study is to analyse the observed changes in land cover and forest fragmentation that occurred between 1976 and 2014 in the Garhwal Himalayan region in India. Three images from Landsat 2 Multispectral Scanner System (MSS, Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM, and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI were used to extract the land cover maps. A cross-tabulation detection method in the geographic information system (GIS module was used to detect land cover changes during the 1st period (1976–1998 and 2nd period (1998–2014. The landscape fragmentation tool LFT v2.0 was used to construct a forest fragmentation map and analyse the forest fragmentation pattern and change during the 1st period (1976–1998 and 2nd period (1998–2014. The overall annual rate of change in the forest cover was observed to be 0.22% and 0.27% in the 1st period (1976–1998 and 2nd period (1998–2014, respectively. The forest fragmentation analysis shows that a large core forest has decreased throughout the study period. The total area of forest patches also increased from 1976 to 2014, which are completely degraded forests. The results indicate that anthropogenic activities are the main causes of the loss of forest cover and forest fragmentation, but that natural factors also contributed. An increase in the area of scrub and barren land also contributed to the accumulation of wasteland or non-forest land in this region. Determining the trend and the rate of land cover conversion is necessary for development planners to establish a rational land use policy.

  7. Effect of landslides on the structural characteristics of land-cover based on complex networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Jing; Tang, Chuan; Liu, Gang; Li, Weile

    2017-09-01

    Landslides have been widely studied by geologists. However, previous studies mainly focused on the formation of landslides and never considered the effect of landslides on the structural characteristics of land-cover. Here we define the modeling of the graph topology for the land-cover, using the satellite images of the earth’s surface before and after the earthquake. We find that the land-cover network satisfies the power-law distribution, whether the land-cover contains landslides or not. However, landslides may change some parameters or measures of the structural characteristics of land-cover. The results show that the linear coefficient, modularity and area distribution are all changed after the occurence of landslides, which means the structural characteristics of the land-cover are changed.

  8. Land cover change in coastal watersheds 1996 to 2010

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nate Herold

    2016-01-01

    Land use and land cover play a significant role as drivers of environmental change. Information on what is changing and where those changes are occurring is essential if we are to improve our understanding of...

  9. Detecting and quantifying land use/land cover dynamics in Wadla ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    A study was conducted in Wadla Delanta Massif to investigate land use/cover dynamics over the last four decades (1973-2014) using satellite images (1973 MSS, 1995 TM and 2014 ETM+). Global positioning system ... in the study area. Keywords: GIS, Image classification, Remote sensing, Supervised classification ...

  10. The Significance of Land Cover Delineation on Soil Erosion Assessment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Efthimiou, Nikolaos; Psomiadis, Emmanouil

    2018-04-25

    The study aims to evaluate the significance of land cover delineation on soil erosion assessment. To that end, RUSLE (Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation) was implemented at the Upper Acheloos River catchment, Western Central Greece, annually and multi-annually for the period 1965-92. The model estimates soil erosion as the linear product of six factors (R, K, LS, C, and P) considering the catchment's climatic, pedological, topographic, land cover, and anthropogenic characteristics, respectively. The C factor was estimated using six alternative land use delineations of different resolution, namely the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) project (2000, 2012 versions) (1:100,000), a land use map conducted by the Greek National Agricultural Research Foundation (NAGREF) (1:20,000), a land use map conducted by the Greek Payment and Control Agency for Guidance and Guarantee Community Aid (PCAGGCA) (1:5,000), and the Landsat 8 16-day Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) dataset (30 m/pixel) (two approximations) based on remote sensing data (satellite image acquired on 07/09/2016) (1:40,000). Since all other factors remain unchanged per each RUSLE application, the differences among the yielded results are attributed to the C factor (thus the land cover pattern) variations. Validation was made considering the convergence between simulated (modeled) and observed sediment yield. The latter was estimated based on field measurements conducted by the Greek PPC (Public Power Corporation). The model performed best at both time scales using the Landsat 8 (Eq. 13) dataset, characterized by a detailed resolution and a satisfactory categorization, allowing the identification of the most susceptible to erosion areas.

  11. Influence of urbanization-driven land use/cover change on climate: The case of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arsiso, Bisrat Kifle; Mengistu Tsidu, Gizaw; Stoffberg, Gerrit Hendrik; Tadesse, Tsegaye

    2018-06-01

    Land use change is the second most important anthropogenic influence on climate beside the emission of greenhouse gases. Urbanization is leading to significant land use changes in Africa since the continent is undergoing rapid urbanization and population growth in recent decades. Addis Ababa is one of these fast growing cities in the continent. Therefore, detection of land use change is very important to identify its impact on climate and sustainable land use management of the city. The study used Landsat images to generate land use/land cover change map for the city. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is used to detect the major changes of vegetation cover occurred between 1986 and 2011 as a result of land use and land cover change. Downscaled HadCM3 simulations under A2 and B2 emission scenarios is used to investigate future urban heat island (UHI) over the city of Addis Ababa. In the city, the analysis of Landsat images has shown that the built-up areas have increased by 121.88 km2 within the last 25 years. This finding is consistent with NDVI images taken over the same period that reveal a decline in vegetation cover. The impact of the urbanization-driven land use/cover change has resulted in notable nocturnal urban heat island (UHI) as revealed from an average increase in minimum temperature of 1.5 °C at the centre of the city relative to rural site over the 1960-2001 period. The mean of the 2006-2010 spatial minimum temperature anomaly with respect to the base period mean of 1981-2005 is consistent with the observed UHI. The temperature in the central areas (both commercial and residential sectors) of Addis Ababa is warmer than the surrounding areas. The thermal gradient increase from about 1.44 °C at the centre (Arada, Addis Ketema, Lideta and Kirkos) to 0.21 °C at the peripheral parts of the city (Gulele, Bole, Nefasilk-Lafto, Kolfe Keranio and east of Yeka sub-cities) transecting across the hot (high-density urban) to moderately warm to

  12. Land Use-Land Cover dynamics of Huluka watershed, Central Rift Valley, Ethiopia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hagos Gebreslassie

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Land Use-Land Cover (LULC dynamic has of human kind age and is one of the phenomenons which interweave the socio economic and environmental issues in Ethiopia. Huluka watershed is one of the watersheds in Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia which drains to Lake Langano. Few decades ago the stated watershed was covered with dense acacia forest. But, nowadays like other part of Ethiopia, it is experiencing complex dynamics of LULC. The aim of this research was thus to evaluate the LULC dynamics seen in between 1973–2009. This was achieved through collecting qualitative and quantitative data using Geographic Information System (GIS and Remote Sensing (RS technique. Field observations, discussion with elders were also employed to validate results from remotely sensed data. Based on the result, eight major dynamic LULC classes were identified from the watershed. Of these LULC classes, only cultivated and open lands had shown continuous and progressive expansion mainly at the expense of grass, shrub and forest lands. The 25% and 0% of cultivated and open land of the watershed in 1973 expanded to 84% and 4% in 2009 respectively while the 29%, 18% and 22% of grass, shrub and forest land of the watershed in 1973 degraded to 3.5%, 4% and 1.5% in 2009 respectively. As a result, land units which had been used for pastoralist before 1973 were identified under mixed agricultural system after 2000. In the end, this study came with a recommendation of an intervention of concerned body to stop the rapid degradation of vegetation on the watershed.

  13. Multisource Data Fusion Framework for Land Use/Land Cover Classification Using Machine Vision

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Salman Qadri

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Data fusion is a powerful tool for the merging of multiple sources of information to produce a better output as compared to individual source. This study describes the data fusion of five land use/cover types, that is, bare land, fertile cultivated land, desert rangeland, green pasture, and Sutlej basin river land derived from remote sensing. A novel framework for multispectral and texture feature based data fusion is designed to identify the land use/land cover data types correctly. Multispectral data is obtained using a multispectral radiometer, while digital camera is used for image dataset. It has been observed that each image contained 229 texture features, while 30 optimized texture features data for each image has been obtained by joining together three features selection techniques, that is, Fisher, Probability of Error plus Average Correlation, and Mutual Information. This 30-optimized-texture-feature dataset is merged with five-spectral-feature dataset to build the fused dataset. A comparison is performed among texture, multispectral, and fused dataset using machine vision classifiers. It has been observed that fused dataset outperformed individually both datasets. The overall accuracy acquired using multilayer perceptron for texture data, multispectral data, and fused data was 96.67%, 97.60%, and 99.60%, respectively.

  14. Surface energy balance of seasonal snow cover for snow-melt ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    This study describes time series analysis of snow-melt, radiation data and energy balance for a seasonal snow cover at Dhundi field station of SASE, which lies in Pir Panjal range of the. N–W Himalaya, for a winter season from 13 January to 12 April 2005. The analysis shows that mean snow surface temperature remains ...

  15. IRSeL-An approach to enhance continuity and accuracy of remotely sensed land cover data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rathjens, H.; Dörnhöfer, K.; Oppelt, N.

    2014-09-01

    Land cover data gives the opportunity to study interactions between land cover status and environmental issues such as hydrologic processes, soil properties, or biodiversity. Land cover data often are based on classification of remote sensing data that seldom provides the requisite accuracy, spatial availability and temporal observational frequency for environmental studies. Thus, there is a high demand for accurate and spatio-temporal complete time series of land cover. In the past considerable research was undertaken to increase land cover classification accuracy, while less effort was spent on interpolation techniques. The purpose of this article is to present a space-time interpolation and revision approach for remotely sensed land cover data. The approach leverages special properties known for agricultural areas such as crop rotations or temporally static land cover classes. The newly developed IRSeL-tool (Interpolation and improvement of Remotely Sensed Land cover) corrects classification errors and interpolates missing land cover pixels. The easy-to-use tool solely requires an initial land cover data set. The IRSeL specific interpolation and revision technique, the data input requirements and data output structure are described in detail. A case study in an area around the city of Neumünster in Northern Germany from 2006 to 2012 was performed for IRSeL validation with initial land cover data sets (Landsat TM image classifications) for the years 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011. The results of the case study showed that IRSeL performs well; including years with no classification data overall accuracy values for IRSeL interpolated pixels range from 0.63 to 0.81. IRSeL application significantly increases the accuracy of the land cover data; overall accuracy values rise 0.08 in average resulting in overall accuracy values of at least 0.86. Considering estimated reliabilities, the IRSeL tool provides a temporally and spatially completed and revised land cover

  16. Assessing the Impact of Land Use and Land Cover Change on Global Water Resources

    Science.gov (United States)

    Batra, N.; Yang, Y. E.; Choi, H. I.; Islam, A.; Charlotte, D. F.; Cai, X.; Kumar, P.

    2007-12-01

    Land use and land cover changes (LULCC) significantly modify the hydrological regime of the watersheds, affecting water resources and environment from regional to global scale. This study seeks to advance and integrate water and energy cycle observation, scientific understanding, and human impacts to assess future water availability. To achieve the research objective, we integrate and interpret past and current space based and in situ observations into a global hydrologic model (GHM). GHM is developed with enhanced spatial and temporal resolution, physical complexity, hydrologic theory and processes to quantify the impact of LULCC on physical variables: surface runoff, subsurface flow, groundwater, infiltration, ET, soil moisture, etc. Coupled with the common land model (CLM), a 3-dimensional volume averaged soil-moisture transport (VAST) model is expanded to incorporate the lateral flow and subgrid heterogeneity. The model consists of 11 soil-hydrology layers to predict lateral as well as vertical moisture flux transport based on Richard's equations. The primary surface boundary conditions (SBCs) include surface elevation and its derivatives, land cover category, sand and clay fraction profiles, bedrock depth and fractional vegetation cover. A consistent global GIS-based dataset is constructed for the SBCs of the model from existing observational datasets comprising of various resolutions, map projections and data formats. Global ECMWF data at 6-hour time steps for the period 1971 through 2000 is processed to get the forcing data which includes incoming longwave and shortwave radiation, precipitation, air temperature, pressure, wind components, boundary layer height and specific humidity. Land use land cover data, generated using IPCC scenarios for every 10 years from 2000 to 2100 is used for future assessment on water resources. Alterations due to LULCC on surface water balance components: ET, groundwater recharge and runoff are then addressed in the study. Land

  17. Measuring land-use and land-cover change using the U.S. department of agriculture's cropland data layer: Cautions and recommendations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lark, Tyler J.; Mueller, Richard M.; Johnson, David M.; Gibbs, Holly K.

    2017-10-01

    Monitoring agricultural land is important for understanding and managing food production, environmental conservation efforts, and climate change. The United States Department of Agriculture's Cropland Data Layer (CDL), an annual satellite imagery-derived land cover map, has been increasingly used for this application since complete coverage of the conterminous United States became available in 2008. However, the CDL is designed and produced with the intent of mapping annual land cover rather than tracking changes over time, and as a result certain precautions are needed in multi-year change analyses to minimize error and misapplication. We highlight scenarios that require special considerations, suggest solutions to key challenges, and propose a set of recommended good practices and general guidelines for CDL-based land change estimation. We also characterize a problematic issue of crop area underestimation bias within the CDL that needs to be accounted for and corrected when calculating changes to crop and cropland areas. When used appropriately and in conjunction with related information, the CDL is a valuable and effective tool for detecting diverse trends in agriculture. By explicitly discussing the methods and techniques for post-classification measurement of land-cover and land-use change using the CDL, we aim to further stimulate the discourse and continued development of suitable methodologies. Recommendations generated here are intended specifically for the CDL but may be broadly applicable to additional remotely-sensed land cover datasets including the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-based land cover products, and other regional, national, and global land cover classification maps.

  18. Constraining the Deforestation History of Europe: Evaluation of Historical Land Use Scenarios with Pollen-Based Land Cover Reconstructions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jed O. Kaplan

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Anthropogenic land cover change (ALCC is the most important transformation of the Earth system that occurred in the preindustrial Holocene, with implications for carbon, water and sediment cycles, biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services and regional and global climate. For example, anthropogenic deforestation in preindustrial Eurasia may have led to feedbacks to the climate system: both biogeophysical, regionally amplifying winter cold and summer warm temperatures, and biogeochemical, stabilizing atmospheric CO 2 concentrations and thus influencing global climate. Quantification of these effects is difficult, however, because scenarios of anthropogenic land cover change over the Holocene vary widely, with increasing disagreement back in time. Because land cover change had such widespread ramifications for the Earth system, it is essential to assess current ALCC scenarios in light of observations and provide guidance on which models are most realistic. Here, we perform a systematic evaluation of two widely-used ALCC scenarios (KK10 and HYDE3.1 in northern and part of central Europe using an independent, pollen-based reconstruction of Holocene land cover (REVEALS. Considering that ALCC in Europe primarily resulted in deforestation, we compare modeled land use with the cover of non-forest vegetation inferred from the pollen data. Though neither land cover change scenario matches the pollen-based reconstructions precisely, KK10 correlates well with REVEALS at the country scale, while HYDE systematically underestimates land use with increasing magnitude with time in the past. Discrepancies between modeled and reconstructed land use are caused by a number of factors, including assumptions of per-capita land use and socio-cultural factors that cannot be predicted on the basis of the characteristics of the physical environment, including dietary preferences, long-distance trade, the location of urban areas and social organization.

  19. El Paso, TX NM 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 1986

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This dataset contains boundaries for land use and land cover polygons in New Mexico at a scale of 1:250,000. It is in a vector digital data structure. The source...

  20. Las Cruces, NM TX 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 1986

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This dataset contains boundaries for land use and land cover polygons in New Mexico at a scale of 1:250,000. It is in a vector digital data structure. The source...

  1. Saint Johns, AZ NM 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 1986

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This dataset contains boundaries for land use and land cover polygons in New Mexico at a scale of 1:250,000. It is in a vector digital data structure. The source...

  2. Silver City, NM AZ 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 1986

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This dataset contains boundaries for land use and land cover polygons in New Mexico at a scale of 1:250,000. It is in a vector digital data structure. The source...

  3. Land-Use and Land-Cover Mapping Using a Gradable Classification Method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Keigo Kitada

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Conventional spectral-based classification methods have significant limitations in the digital classification of urban land-use and land-cover classes from high-resolution remotely sensed data because of the lack of consideration given to the spatial properties of images. To recognize the complex distribution of urban features in high-resolution image data, texture information consisting of a group of pixels should be considered. Lacunarity is an index used to characterize different texture appearances. It is often reported that the land-use and land-cover in urban areas can be effectively classified using the lacunarity index with high-resolution images. However, the applicability of the maximum-likelihood approach for hybrid analysis has not been reported. A more effective approach that employs the original spectral data and lacunarity index can be expected to improve the accuracy of the classification. A new classification procedure referred to as “gradable classification method” is proposed in this study. This method improves the classification accuracy in incremental steps. The proposed classification approach integrates several classification maps created from original images and lacunarity maps, which consist of lacnarity values, to create a new classification map. The results of this study confirm the suitability of the gradable classification approach, which produced a higher overall accuracy (68% and kappa coefficient (0.64 than those (65% and 0.60, respectively obtained with the maximum-likelihood approach.

  4. Relationship between Organic Carbon Runoff to River and Land Cover

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, G. S.; Lee, S. G.; Lim, C. H.; Lee, W.; Yoo, S.; Kim, S. J.; Heo, S.; Lee, W. K.

    2017-12-01

    Carbon is an important unit in understanding the ecosystem and energy circulation. Each ecosystem, land, water, and atmosphere, is interconnected through the exchange of energy and organic carbon. In the rivers, primary producers utilize the organic carbon from the land. Understanding the organic carbon uptake into the river is important for understanding the mechanism of river ecosystems. The main organic carbon source of the river is land. However, it is difficult to observe the amount of organic carbon runoff to the river. Therefore, an indirect method should be used to estimate the amount of organic carbon runoff to the river. The organic carbon inflow is caused by the runoff of organic carbon dissolved in water or the inflow of organic carbon particles by soil loss. Therefore, the hydrological model was used to estimate organic carbon runoff through the flow of water. The land cover correlates with soil respiration, soil loss, and so on, and the organic carbon runoff coefficient will be estimated to the river by land cover. Using the organic carbon concentration from water quality data observed at each point in the river, we estimate the amount of organic carbon released from the land. The reason is that the runoff from the watershed converges into the rivers in the watershed, the watershed simulation is conducted based on the water quality data observation point. This defines a watershed that affects organic carbon observation sites. The flow rate of each watershed is calculated by the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool), and the total organic carbon runoff is calculated by using flow rate and organic carbon concentration. This is compared with the factors related to the amount of organic carbon such as land cover, soil loss, and soil organic carbon, and spatial analysis is carried out to estimate the organic carbon runoff coefficient per land cover.

  5. Spatial and temporal analysis of land cover changes and water quality in the Lake Issaqueena watershed, South Carolina.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pilgrim, C M; Mikhailova, E A; Post, C J; Hains, J J

    2014-11-01

    Monitoring changes in land cover and the subsequent environmental responses are essential for water quality assessment, natural resource planning, management, and policies. Over the last 75 years, the Lake Issaqueena watershed has experienced a drastic shift in land use. This study was conducted to examine the changes in land cover and the implied changes in land use that have occurred and their environmental, water quality impacts. Aerial photography of the watershed (1951, 1956, 1968, 1977, 1989, 1999, 2005, 2006, and 2009) was analyzed and classified using the geographic information system (GIS) software. Seven land cover classes were defined: evergreen, deciduous, bare ground, pasture/grassland, cultivated, and residential/other development. Water quality data, including sampling depth, water temperature, dissolved oxygen content, fecal coliform levels, inorganic nitrogen concentrations, and turbidity, were obtained from the South Carolina (SC) Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) for two stations and analyzed for trends as they relate to land cover change. From 1951 to 2009, the watershed experienced an increase of tree cover and bare ground (+17.4 % evergreen, +62.3 % deciduous, +9.8 % bare ground) and a decrease of pasture/grassland and cultivated land (-42.6 % pasture/grassland and -57.1 % cultivated). From 2005 to 2009, there was an increase of 21.5 % in residential/other development. Sampling depth ranged from 0.1 to 0.3 m. Water temperature fluctuated corresponding to changing air temperatures, and dissolved oxygen content fluctuated as a factor of water temperature. Inorganic nitrogen content was higher from December to April possibly due to application of fertilizers prior to the growing season. Turbidity and fecal coliform bacteria levels remained relatively the same from 1962 to 2005, but a slight decline in pH can be observed at both stations. Prior to 1938, the area consisted of single-crop cotton farms; after 1938, the

  6. Quantifying the Effects of Historical Land Cover Conversion Uncertainty on Global Carbon and Climate Estimates

    Science.gov (United States)

    Di Vittorio, A. V.; Mao, J.; Shi, X.; Chini, L.; Hurtt, G.; Collins, W. D.

    2018-01-01

    Previous studies have examined land use change as a driver of global change, but the translation of land use change into land cover conversion has been largely unconstrained. Here we quantify the effects of land cover conversion uncertainty on the global carbon and climate system using the integrated Earth System Model. Our experiments use identical land use change data and vary land cover conversions to quantify associated uncertainty in carbon and climate estimates. Land cover conversion uncertainty is large, constitutes a 5 ppmv range in estimated atmospheric CO2 in 2004, and generates carbon uncertainty that is equivalent to 80% of the net effects of CO2 and climate and 124% of the effects of nitrogen deposition during 1850-2004. Additionally, land cover uncertainty generates differences in local surface temperature of over 1°C. We conclude that future studies addressing land use, carbon, and climate need to constrain and reduce land cover conversion uncertainties.

  7. Watershed Analysis of Nitrate Transport as a Result of Agricultural Inputs for Varying Land Use/Land Cover and Soil Type

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scott, M. E.; Sykes, J. F.

    2006-12-01

    The Grand River Watershed is one of the largest watersheds in southwestern Ontario with an area of approximately 7000 square kilometers. Ninety percent of the watershed is classified as rural, and 80 percent of the watershed population relies on groundwater as their source of drinking water. Management of the watershed requires the determination of the effect of agricultural practices on long-term groundwater quality and to identify locations within the watershed that are at a higher risk of contamination. The study focuses on the transport of nitrate through the root zone as a result of agricultural inputs with attenuation due to biodegradation. The driving force for transport is spatially and temporally varying groundwater recharge that is a function of land use/land cover, soil and meteorological inputs that yields 47,229 unique soil columns within the watershed. Fertilizer sources are determined from Statistics Canada's Agricultural Census and include livestock manure and a popular commercial fertilizer, urea. Accounting for different application rates yields 60,066 unique land parcels of which 22,809 are classified as croplands where manure and inorganic fertilizes are directly applied. The transport for the croplands is simulated over a 14-year period to investigate the impact of seasonal applications of nitrate fertilizers on the concentration leaching from the root zone to the water table. Based on land use/land cover maps, ArcView GIS is used to define the location of fertilizer applications within the watershed and to spatially visualize data and analyze results. The large quantity of input data is stored and managed using MS-Access and a relational database management system. Nitrogen transformations and ammonium and nitrate uptake by plants and transport through the soil column are simulated on a daily basis using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) within MS-Access modules. Nitrogen transformations within the soil column were simplified using

  8. Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) Change Detection in Islamabad and its Comparison with Capital Development Authority (CDA) 2006 Master Plan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hasaan, Zahra

    2016-07-01

    Remote sensing is very useful for the production of land use and land cover statistics which can be beneficial to determine the distribution of land uses. Using remote sensing techniques to develop land use classification mapping is a convenient and detailed way to improve the selection of areas designed to agricultural, urban and/or industrial areas of a region. In Islamabad city and surrounding the land use has been changing, every day new developments (urban, industrial, commercial and agricultural) are emerging leading to decrease in vegetation cover. The purpose of this work was to develop the land use of Islamabad and its surrounding area that is an important natural resource. For this work the eCognition Developer 64 computer software was used to develop a land use classification using SPOT 5 image of year 2012. For image processing object-based classification technique was used and important land use features i.e. Vegetation cover, barren land, impervious surface, built up area and water bodies were extracted on the basis of object variation and compared the results with the CDA Master Plan. The great increase was found in built-up area and impervious surface area. On the other hand vegetation cover and barren area followed a declining trend. Accuracy assessment of classification yielded 92% accuracies of the final land cover land use maps. In addition these improved land cover/land use maps which are produced by remote sensing technique of class definition, meet the growing need of legend standardization.

  9. A procedure to obtain a refined European land use/cover map

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Batista e Silva, F.; Lavalle, C.; Koomen, E.

    2013-01-01

    Available land use/cover maps differ in their spatial extent and in their thematic, spatial, and temporal resolutions. Due to the costs of producing such maps, there is usually a trade-off between spatial extent and resolution. The only European-wide, consistent, and multi-temporal land use/cover

  10. Local topographic wetness indices predict household malaria risk better than land-use and land-cover in the western Kenya highlands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cohen, Justin M; Ernst, Kacey C; Lindblade, Kim A; Vulule, John M; John, Chandy C; Wilson, Mark L

    2010-11-16

    Identification of high-risk malaria foci can help enhance surveillance or control activities in regions where they are most needed. Associations between malaria risk and land-use/land-cover are well-recognized, but these environmental characteristics are closely interrelated with the land's topography (e.g., hills, valleys, elevation), which also influences malaria risk strongly. Parsing the individual contributions of land-cover/land-use variables to malaria risk requires examining these associations in the context of their topographic landscape. This study examined whether environmental factors like land-cover, land-use, and urban density improved malaria risk prediction based solely on the topographically-determined context, as measured by the topographic wetness index. The topographic wetness index, an estimate of predicted water accumulation in a defined area, was generated from a digital terrain model of the landscape surrounding households in two neighbouring western Kenyan highland communities. Variables determined to best encompass the variance in this topographic wetness surface were calculated at a household level. Land-cover/land-use information was extracted from a high-resolution satellite image using an object-based classification method. Topographic and land-cover variables were used individually and in combination to predict household-level malaria in the communities through an iterative split-sample model fitting and testing procedure. Models with only topographic variables were compared to those with additional predictive factors related to land-cover/land-use to investigate whether these environmental factors improved prediction of malaria based on the shape of the land alone. Variables related to topographic wetness proved most useful in predicting the households of individuals contracting malaria in this region of rugged terrain. Other variables related to human modification of the environment also demonstrated clear associations with

  11. Local topographic wetness indices predict household malaria risk better than land-use and land-cover in the western Kenya highlands

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vulule John M

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Identification of high-risk malaria foci can help enhance surveillance or control activities in regions where they are most needed. Associations between malaria risk and land-use/land-cover are well-recognized, but these environmental characteristics are closely interrelated with the land's topography (e.g., hills, valleys, elevation, which also influences malaria risk strongly. Parsing the individual contributions of land-cover/land-use variables to malaria risk requires examining these associations in the context of their topographic landscape. This study examined whether environmental factors like land-cover, land-use, and urban density improved malaria risk prediction based solely on the topographically-determined context, as measured by the topographic wetness index. Methods The topographic wetness index, an estimate of predicted water accumulation in a defined area, was generated from a digital terrain model of the landscape surrounding households in two neighbouring western Kenyan highland communities. Variables determined to best encompass the variance in this topographic wetness surface were calculated at a household level. Land-cover/land-use information was extracted from a high-resolution satellite image using an object-based classification method. Topographic and land-cover variables were used individually and in combination to predict household-level malaria in the communities through an iterative split-sample model fitting and testing procedure. Models with only topographic variables were compared to those with additional predictive factors related to land-cover/land-use to investigate whether these environmental factors improved prediction of malaria based on the shape of the land alone. Results Variables related to topographic wetness proved most useful in predicting the households of individuals contracting malaria in this region of rugged terrain. Other variables related to human modification of the

  12. Land use and land cover dynamics on the campus of Federal University of Lavras from 1964 to 2009

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elizabeth Ferreira

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available This study identified, quantified and analyzed changes in land use and cover on the campus of Federal University of Lavras campus, located in Lavras city (Minas Gerais State. The 2009 QuickBird satellite imagery and 1985, 1979, 1971, 1964 vertical aerial photographs were used to produce a set of land use and land cover maps. The work started with the orthorectification of the QuickBird satellite imagery and vertical aerial photographs. The identification and definition of land cover and land use classes were obtained from field surveys in 2009. First, the land cover and land use maps were made from that information. Finally, the quantification and analysis of changes were performed at the imagery time range. The results showed that in 2009 the "urbanized area class" of the campus reached 65.79 ha and that the most significant increase of this class occurred between the years 1964 (6.24 ha and 1971 (24.4 ha. The smallest area of "forest land class" found on the campus was 38.38 ha in 1971, and from 1979 on this situation has been improved reaching 113.18 ha of "forest land class" in 2009. For the "water class" there was not any dam constructed yet in the campus before 1971. Most of the campus area, previously used for "agricultural land class" had a significant reduction within this category, from 384.19 ha in 1964 to 271.16 ha in 2009.

  13. Land use, land cover, and drainage on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula, Eastern North Carolina, 1974

    Science.gov (United States)

    Daniel, C.C.

    1978-01-01

    A land use, land cover, and drainage map of the 2,000-square-mile Albermarle-Pamlico peninsula of eastern North Carolina has been prepared, at a scale of 1:125,000, as part of a larger study of the effects of large-scale land clearing on regional hydrology. The peninsula includes the most extensive area of wetland in North Carolina and one of the largest in the country. In recent years the pace of land clearing on the peninsula has accelerated as land is being converted from forest, swamp, and brushland to agricultural use. Conversion of swamps to intensive farming operations requires profound changes in the landscape. Vegetation is uprooted and burned and ditches and canals are dug to remove excess water. What is the impact of these changes on ground-water supplies and on the streams and surrounding coastal waters which receive the runoff This map will aid in answering these and similar questions that have arisen about the patterns of land use and the artificial drainage system that removes excess water from the land. By showing both land use and drainage, this map can be used to identify those areas where water-related problems may occur and help assess the nature and causes of these problems. The map covers the entire area east of the Suffolk Scarp, an area of about 2,000 square miles, for the year 1974 using data from 1974-76. Land use and land cover were compiled and modified from the U.S. Geological Survey 's Rocky Mount and Manteo LUDA maps. Additional information came from U.S. Geological Survey orthophotoquads, Landsat imagery, and field checking. Drainage was mapped from orthophotoquads, some field inspection, and 7-1/2 minute topographic quadrangle maps.

  14. Soil chemical and physical properties that differentiate urban land-use and cover types

    Science.gov (United States)

    R.V. Pouyat; I.D. Yesilonis; J. Russell-Anelli; N.K. Neerchal

    2007-01-01

    We investigated the effects of land use and cover and surface geology on soil properties in Baltimore, MD, with the objectives to: (i) measure the physical and chemical properties of surface soils (0?10 cm) by land use and cover; and (ii) ascertain whether land use and cover explain differences in these properties relative to surface geology. Mean and median values of...

  15. EnviroAtlas - Paterson, NJ - Meter-Scale Urban Land Cover (MULC) Data (2010)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — The Paterson, New Jersey EnviroAtlas Meter-Scale Urban Land Cover (MULC) data comprises approximately 66 km2 around the city of Paterson. The land cover data were...

  16. The Effect Of Land Cover/Land Use On Groundwater Resources In Southern Egypt (Luxor Area): Remote Sensing And Field Studies

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Faid, A.M.; Hinz, E.A.; Montgomery, H.

    2003-01-01

    The impact of land cover/land use on groundwater can be critical. Land cover / land use maps give an early warning for planners and developers to protect groundwater resources from depletion and preserve its sustain ability. These land cover / land use maps can be used for the planning of groundwater development to prevent the deterioration of the aquifer. The Research Institute for Groundwater of Egypt (RIGW) has carried out hydrogeological studies in 1990 to evaluate the potentiality of groundwater in Luxor area in southern Egypt close to the Nile valley. The region is characterized by a rapid and continuous increase in land reclamation and development on the fringes which surround the already heavily cultivated land within the Nile valley. This presented a need for continuous monitoring and information updating over a vast region in a short time and at a reasonable cost. This study illustrates how remote sensing techniques can be effectively used for monitoring changes in land cover / land use in an effort to aid groundwater management. Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data collected in 1984 and 2000 were processed and analyzed over the study area to produce land cover/land use maps. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) technique is used for Landsat TM images of to quantify areas which are covered by vegetation. Results indicated significant increase in cultivated areas. Remote sensing results are compared with iso-piezo metric maps and iso-salinity maps that were produced in 1984 and 2000. Comparison of these maps indicates groundwater depletion and salinity increase from 1984 to 2000. We relate this to the increase of the area being cultivated

  17. Land Use and Land Cover - LAND_COVER_PRESETTLEMENT_IDNR_IN: Generalized Presettlement Vegetation Types of Indiana, Circa 1820 (Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Polygon Shapefile)

    Data.gov (United States)

    NSGIC State | GIS Inventory — LAND_COVER_PRESETTLEMENT_IDNR_IN.SHP is a polygon shapefile showing generalized presettlement vegetation types of Indiana, circa 1820. The work was based on original...

  18. Conversion of land use and cover in northwest Amazon (Brazil

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos Antonio da Silva Junior

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available The increasing use of natural resources in a disorderly way has been demanding constant monitoring and ecological-economic zoning. The knowledge on land use and cover allows that measures that guarantee the preservation, maintenance of the environment and space management be appropriate to the reality, since through these factors it is possible to follow the probable environmental impacts and the socioeconomic development of a place in several contexts. The Geographical Information System (GIS and remote sensing techniques have been applied to land use and land cover mapping. This study aimed to analyze the conversion of land use from different perspectives, concerning geoprocessing techniques, in the southeastern of Roraima State, Brazil, in two distinct periods. In order to verify the land use and cover, two analyses were conducted, using the Spring and TerraView softwares. Great part of the cultivated areas was converted into capoeira, what probably denotes an ending of profitable agriculture, as well as its abandonment caused by the nutritional deficiency of the soil, that became inappropriate for cultivation in the subsequent years. A fuzzy logic would possibly fit well to the types of data analyzed, because the attribute query is overly complex.

  19. Geospatial Analysis of Land Use and Land Cover Changes for Discharge at Way Kualagaruntang Watershed in Bandar Lampung

    OpenAIRE

    Yuniarti, Fieni; K, Dyah Indriana; Winarno, Dwi Joko

    2013-01-01

    Land use and land cover change in a watershed might drive some impacts, such as high amounts of discharge fluctuations. Way Kuala Garuntang Watersheed is one of watershed in Bandar Lampung that has changed significantly. This study analyzed land use and land cover change to determine how much its influence on discharce fluctuations based on Geographics Information System. The method used in this study comprised of hidrology, spatial and sensitivity analysis. Hidrology analysis based on daily ...

  20. A stochastic Forest Fire Model for future land cover scenarios assessment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. D'Andrea

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available Land cover is affected by many factors including economic development, climate and natural disturbances such as wildfires. The ability to evaluate how fire regimes may alter future vegetation, and how future vegetation may alter fire regimes, would assist forest managers in planning management actions to be carried out in the face of anticipated socio-economic and climatic change. In this paper, we present a method for calibrating a cellular automata wildfire regime simulation model with actual data on land cover and wildfire size-frequency. The method is based on the observation that many forest fire regimes, in different forest types and regions, exhibit power law frequency-area distributions. The standard Drossel-Schwabl cellular automata Forest Fire Model (DS-FFM produces simulations which reproduce this observed pattern. However, the standard model is simplistic in that it considers land cover to be binary – each cell either contains a tree or it is empty – and the model overestimates the frequency of large fires relative to actual landscapes. Our new model, the Modified Forest Fire Model (MFFM, addresses this limitation by incorporating information on actual land use and differentiating among various types of flammable vegetation. The MFFM simulation model was tested on forest types with Mediterranean and sub-tropical fire regimes. The results showed that the MFFM was able to reproduce structural fire regime parameters for these two regions. Further, the model was used to forecast future land cover. Future research will extend this model to refine the forecasts of future land cover and fire regime scenarios under climate, land use and socio-economic change.

  1. LBA-ECO LC-01 Landsat TM Land Use/Land Cover, Northern Ecuadorian Amazon: 1986-1999

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — ABSTRACT: This data set contains Landsat TM imagery for the years 1986, 1989, 1996, and 1999, that have been classified into four land use/land cover (LULC) classes:...

  2. LBA-ECO LC-01 Landsat TM Land Use/Land Cover, Northern Ecuadorian Amazon: 1986-1999

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This data set contains Landsat TM imagery for the years 1986, 1989, 1996, and 1999, that have been classified into four land use/land cover (LULC) classes: Forest,...

  3. Land Cover as a Framework For Assessing the Risk of Water Pollution

    Science.gov (United States)

    James D. Wickham; Kurt H. Riitters; Robert V. O' Neill; Kenneth H. Reckhow; Timothy G. Wade; K. Bruce Jones

    2000-01-01

    A survey of numerous field studies shows that nitrogen and phosphorous export coefficients are significantly different across forest, agriculture, and urban land-cover types. We used simulations to estimate the land-cover composition at which there was a significant risk of nutrient loads representative of watersheds without forest cover. The results suggest that at...

  4. Usability Study to Assess the IGBP Land Cover Classification for Singapore

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nanki Sidhu

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Our research focuses on assessing the usability of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP classification scheme provided in the MODIS MCD12Q1-1 dataset for assessing the land cover of the city-state, Singapore. We conducted a user study with responses from 33 users by providing them with Google Earth images from different parts of Singapore, asking survey-takers to classify these images according to their understanding by the IGBP definitions provided. We also conducted interviews with experts from major governmental agencies working with satellite imagery, which highlighted the need for a detailed land classification for Singapore. In addition to the qualitative analysis of the IGBP land classification scheme, we carried out a validation of the MCD12Q1-1 remote sensing product against SPOT-5 imagery for our study area. The user study revealed that survey-takers were able to correctly classify urban areas, as well as densely forested areas. Misclassifications between Cropland and Mixed Forest classes were highest and were attributed by users to the broad terminology of the IGBP of the two land cover class definitions. For the accuracy assessment, we obtained validation points using weighted and unweighted stratified sampling. The overall classification accuracy for all 17 IGBP land classes is 62%. Upon selecting only the four most occurring IGBP land classes in Singapore, the classification accuracy improved to 71%. Validation of the MCD12Q1-1 against ground truth for Singapore revealed less-common land classes that may be of importance in a global context but are sources of error when the same product is applied at a smaller scale. Combining the user study with the accuracy assessment gives a comprehensive overview of the challenges associated with using global-level land cover data to derive localized land cover information specifically for smaller land masses like Singapore.

  5. A land-cover map for South and Southeast Asia derived from SPOT-VEGETATION data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stibig, H.-J.; Belward, A.S.; Roy, P.S.; Rosalina-Wasrin, U.; Agrawal, S.; Joshi, P.K.; ,; Beuchle, R.; Fritz, S.; Mubareka, S.; Giri, C.

    2007-01-01

    Aim  Our aim was to produce a uniform ‘regional’ land-cover map of South and Southeast Asia based on ‘sub-regional’ mapping results generated in the context of the Global Land Cover 2000 project.Location  The ‘region’ of tropical and sub-tropical South and Southeast Asia stretches from the Himalayas and the southern border of China in the north, to Sri Lanka and Indonesia in the south, and from Pakistan in the west to the islands of New Guinea in the far east.Methods  The regional land-cover map is based on sub-regional digital mapping results derived from SPOT-VEGETATION satellite data for the years 1998–2000. Image processing, digital classification and thematic mapping were performed separately for the three sub-regions of South Asia, continental Southeast Asia, and insular Southeast Asia. Landsat TM images, field data and existing national maps served as references. We used the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) for coding the sub-regional land-cover classes and for aggregating the latter to a uniform regional legend. A validation was performed based on a systematic grid of sample points, referring to visual interpretation from high-resolution Landsat imagery. Regional land-cover area estimates were obtained and compared with FAO statistics for the categories ‘forest’ and ‘cropland’.Results  The regional map displays 26 land-cover classes. The LCCS coding provided a standardized class description, independent from local class names; it also allowed us to maintain the link to the detailed sub-regional land-cover classes. The validation of the map displayed a mapping accuracy of 72% for the dominant classes of ‘forest’ and ‘cropland’; regional area estimates for these classes correspond reasonably well to existing regional statistics.Main conclusions  The land-cover map of South and Southeast Asia provides a synoptic view of the distribution of land cover of tropical and sub

  6. LAND COVER CHANGE MONITORING OF TYPICAL FUNCTIONAL COMMUNITIES OF SICHUAN PROVINCE BASED ON ZY-3 DATA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    G. M. Li

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available According to the function, land space types are divided into key development areas, restricted development areas and forbidden development areas in Sichuan Province. This paper monitors and analyses the changes of land cover in different typical functional areas from 2010 to 2017, which based on ZY-3 high-score images data and combined with statistical yearbook and thematic data of Sichuan Province. The results show that: The land cover types of typical key development zones are mainly composed of cultivated land, forest land, garden land, and housing construction land, which accounts for the total area of land cover 87 %. The land cover types of typical restricted development zone mainly consists of forest land and grassland, which occupy 97.71 % of the total area of the surface coverage. The land cover types of the typical prohibition development zone mainly consist of forest land, grassland, desert and bared earth, which accounts for the total area of land cover 99.31 %.

  7. Land Cover Change Monitoring of Typical Functional Communities of Sichuan Province Based on ZY-3 Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, G. M.; Li, S.; Ying, G. W.; Wu, X. P.

    2018-04-01

    According to the function, land space types are divided into key development areas, restricted development areas and forbidden development areas in Sichuan Province. This paper monitors and analyses the changes of land cover in different typical functional areas from 2010 to 2017, which based on ZY-3 high-score images data and combined with statistical yearbook and thematic data of Sichuan Province. The results show that: The land cover types of typical key development zones are mainly composed of cultivated land, forest land, garden land, and housing construction land, which accounts for the total area of land cover 87 %. The land cover types of typical restricted development zone mainly consists of forest land and grassland, which occupy 97.71 % of the total area of the surface coverage. The land cover types of the typical prohibition development zone mainly consist of forest land, grassland, desert and bared earth, which accounts for the total area of land cover 99.31 %.

  8. Assessing the sensitivity of avian species abundance to land cover and climate

    Science.gov (United States)

    LeBrun, Jaymi J.; Thogmartin, Wayne E.; Thompson, Frank R.; Dijak, William D.; Millspaugh, Joshua J.

    2016-01-01

    Climate projections for the Midwestern United States predict southerly climates to shift northward. These shifts in climate could alter distributions of species across North America through changes in climate (i.e., temperature and precipitation), or through climate-induced changes on land cover. Our objective was to determine the relative impacts of land cover and climate on the abundance of five bird species in the Central United States that have habitat requirements ranging from grassland and shrubland to forest. We substituted space for time to examine potential impacts of a changing climate by assessing climate and land cover relationships over a broad latitudinal gradient. We found positive and negative relationships of climate and land cover factors with avian abundances. Habitat variables drove patterns of abundance in migratory and resident species, although climate was also influential in predicting abundance for some species occupying more open habitat (i.e., prairie warbler, blue-winged warbler, and northern bobwhite). Abundance of northern bobwhite increased with winter temperature and was the species exhibiting the most significant effect of climate. Models for birds primarily occupying early successional habitats performed better with a combination of habitat and climate variables whereas models of species found in contiguous forest performed best with land cover alone. These varied species-specific responses present unique challenges to land managers trying to balance species conservation over a variety of land covers. Management activities focused on increasing forest cover may play a role in mitigating effects of future climate by providing habitat refugia to species vulnerable to projected changes. Conservation efforts would be best served focusing on areas with high species abundances and an array of habitats. Future work managing forests for resilience and resistance to climate change could benefit species already susceptible to climate impacts.

  9. Land User and Land Cover Maps of Europe: a Webgis Platform

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brovelli, M. A.; Fahl, F. C.; Minghini, M.; Molinari, M. E.

    2016-06-01

    This paper presents the methods and implementation processes of a WebGIS platform designed to publish the available land use and land cover maps of Europe at continental scale. The system is built completely on open source infrastructure and open standards. The proposed architecture is based on a server-client model having GeoServer as the map server, Leaflet as the client-side mapping library and the Bootstrap framework at the core of the front-end user interface. The web user interface is designed to have typical features of a desktop GIS (e.g. activate/deactivate layers and order layers by drag and drop actions) and to show specific information on the activated layers (e.g. legend and simplified metadata). Users have the possibility to change the base map from a given list of map providers (e.g. OpenStreetMap and Microsoft Bing) and to control the opacity of each layer to facilitate the comparison with both other land cover layers and the underlying base map. In addition, users can add to the platform any custom layer available through a Web Map Service (WMS) and activate the visualization of photos from popular photo sharing services. This last functionality is provided in order to have a visual assessment of the available land coverages based on other user-generated contents available on the Internet. It is supposed to be a first step towards a calibration/validation service that will be made available in the future.

  10. Forward-looking Assimilation of MODIS-derived Snow Covered Area into a Land Surface Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zaitchik, Benjamin F.; Rodell, Matthew

    2008-01-01

    Snow cover over land has a significant impact on the surface radiation budget, turbulent energy fluxes to the atmosphere, and local hydrological fluxes. For this reason, inaccuracies in the representation of snow covered area (SCA) within a land surface model (LSM) can lead to substantial errors in both offline and coupled simulations. Data assimilation algorithms have the potential to address this problem. However, the assimilation of SCA observations is complicated by an information deficit in the observation SCA indicates only the presence or absence of snow, and not snow volume and by the fact that assimilated SCA observations can introduce inconsistencies with atmospheric forcing data, leading to non-physical artifacts in the local water balance. In this paper we present a novel assimilation algorithm that introduces MODIS SCA observations to the Noah LSM in global, uncoupled simulations. The algorithm utilizes observations from up to 72 hours ahead of the model simulation in order to correct against emerging errors in the simulation of snow cover while preserving the local hydrologic balance. This is accomplished by using future snow observations to adjust air temperature and, when necessary, precipitation within the LSM. In global, offline integrations, this new assimilation algorithm provided improved simulation of SCA and snow water equivalent relative to open loop integrations and integrations that used an earlier SCA assimilation algorithm. These improvements, in turn, influenced the simulation of surface water and energy fluxes both during the snow season and, in some regions, on into the following spring.

  11. Climate Impacts of Cover Crops

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lombardozzi, D.; Wieder, W. R.; Bonan, G. B.; Morris, C. K.; Grandy, S.

    2016-12-01

    Cover crops are planted in agricultural rotation with the intention of protecting soil rather than harvest. Cover crops have numerous environmental benefits that include preventing soil erosion, increasing soil fertility, and providing weed and pest control- among others. In addition to localized environmental benefits, cover crops can have important regional or global biogeochemical impacts by increasing soil organic carbon, changing emissions of greenhouse trace gases like nitrous oxide and methane, and reducing hydrologic nitrogen losses. Cover crops may additionally affect climate by changing biogeophysical processes, like albedo and latent heat flux, though these potential changes have not yet been evaluated. Here we use the coupled Community Atmosphere Model (CAM5) - Community Land Model (CLM4.5) to test how planting cover crops in the United States may change biogeophysical fluxes and climate. We present seasonal changes in albedo, heat fluxes, evaporative partitioning, radiation, and the resulting changes in temperature. Preliminary analyses show that during seasons when cover crops are planted, latent heat flux increases and albedo decreases, changing the evaporative fraction and surface temperatures. Understanding both the biogeophysical changes caused by planting cover crops in this study and the biogeochemical changes found in other studies will give a clearer picture of the overall impacts of cover crops on climate and atmospheric chemistry, informing how this land use strategy will impact climate in the future.

  12. Monitoring and Modeling of Spatiotemporal Urban Expansion and Land-Use/Land-Cover Change Using Integrated Markov Chain Cellular Automata Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bhagawat Rimal

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Spatial–temporal analysis of land-use/land-cover (LULC change as well as the monitoring and modeling of urban expansion are essential for the planning and management of urban environments. Such environments reflect the economic conditions and quality of life of the individual country. Urbanization is generally influenced by national laws, plans and policies and by power, politics and poor governance in many less-developed countries. Remote sensing tools play a vital role in monitoring LULC change and measuring the rate of urbanization at both the local and global levels. The current study evaluated the LULC changes and urban expansion of Jhapa district of Nepal. The spatial–temporal dynamics of LULC were identified using six time-series atmospherically-corrected surface reflectance Landsat images from 1989 to 2016. A hybrid cellular automata Markov chain (CA–Markov model was used to simulate future urbanization by 2026 and 2036. The analysis shows that the urban area has increased markedly and is expected to continue to grow rapidly in the future, whereas the area for agriculture has decreased. Meanwhile, forest and shrub areas have remained almost constant. Seasonal rainfall and flooding routinely cause predictable transformation of sand, water bodies and cultivated land from one type to another. The results suggest that the use of Landsat time-series archive images and the CA–Markov model are the best options for long-term spatiotemporal analysis and achieving an acceptable level of prediction accuracy. Furthermore, understanding the relationship between the spatiotemporal dynamics of urbanization and LULC change and simulating future landscape change is essential, as they are closely interlinked. These scientific findings of past, present and future land-cover scenarios of the study area will assist planners/decision-makers to formulate sustainable urban development and environmental protection plans and will remain a scientific asset

  13. Monitoring Urbanization-Related Land Cover Change on the U.S. Great Plains and Impacts on Remotely Sensed Vegetation Dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krehbiel, C. P.; Jackson, T.; Henebry, G. M.

    2014-12-01

    Earth is currently in an era of rapid urban growth with >50% of global population living in urban areas. Urbanization occurs alongside urban population growth, as cities expand to meet the demands of increasing population. Consequently, there is a need for remote sensing research to detect, monitor, and measure urbanization and its impacts on the biosphere. Here we used MODIS and Landsat data products to (1) detect urbanization-related land cover changes, (2) investigate urbanization-related impacts on land surface phenology (LSP) across rural to urban gradients and (3) explore fractional vegetation and impervious surface area regionally across the US Great Plains and within 14 cities in this region. We used the NLCD Percent Impervious Surface Area (%ISA) and Land Cover Type (LCT) products from 2001, 2006, and 2011 for 30m classification of the peri-urban environment. We investigated the impacts of urbanization-related land cover change on urban LSP at 30m resolution using the NDVI product from Web Enabled Landsat Data (http://weld.cr.usgs.gov) with accumulated growing degree-days calculated from first-order weather stations. We fitted convex quadratic LSP models to a decade (2003-2012) of observations to yield these phenometrics: modeled peak NDVI, time (thermal and calendar) to modeled peak, duration of season (DOS), and model fit. We compared our results to NDVI from MODIS NBAR (500m) and we explored the utility of 4 μm radiance (MODIS band 23) at 1 km resolution to characterize fractional vegetation dynamics in and around urbanized areas. Across all 14 cities we found increases in urbanized area (>25 %ISA) exceeding 10% from 2001-2011. Using LSP phenometrics, we were able to detect changes from cropland to suburban LCTs. In general we found negative relationships between DOS and distance from city center. We found a distinct seasonal cycle of MIR radiance over cropland LCTs due to the spectral contrast between bare soils and green vegetation.

  14. Interrelationships between soil cover and plant cover depending on land use

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tiina Köster

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Interrelationships between soil cover and plant cover of normally developed (or postlithogenic mineral soils are analysed on the basis of four sampling soil groups. The four-link pedo-ecological sequence of analysed soils, rendzinas → brown soils → pseudopodzolic soils → gley-podzols, forms a representative cross section in relation to the normal mineral soils of Estonia. All groups differ substantially from each other in terms of soil properties (calcareousness, acidity, nutrition conditions, profile fabric and humus cover. The primary tasks of the research were (1 to elucidate the main pedo-ecological characteristics of the four soil groups and their suitability for plant cover, (2 to evaluate comparatively soils in terms of productivity, sustainability, biodiversity and environmental protection ability and (3 to analyse possibilities for ecologically sound matching of soil cover with suitable plant cover. On the basis of the same material, the influence of land-use change on humus cover (epipedon fabric, properties of the entire soil cover and soil–plant interrelationship were also analysed. An ecosystem approach enables us to observe particularities caused by specific properties of a soil type (species, variety in biological turnover and in the formation of biodiversity.

  15. Land Cover Classification from Multispectral Data Using Computational Intelligence Tools: A Comparative Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    André Mora

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available This article discusses how computational intelligence techniques are applied to fuse spectral images into a higher level image of land cover distribution for remote sensing, specifically for satellite image classification. We compare a fuzzy-inference method with two other computational intelligence methods, decision trees and neural networks, using a case study of land cover classification from satellite images. Further, an unsupervised approach based on k-means clustering has been also taken into consideration for comparison. The fuzzy-inference method includes training the classifier with a fuzzy-fusion technique and then performing land cover classification using reinforcement aggregation operators. To assess the robustness of the four methods, a comparative study including three years of land cover maps for the district of Mandimba, Niassa province, Mozambique, was undertaken. Our results show that the fuzzy-fusion method performs similarly to decision trees, achieving reliable classifications; neural networks suffer from overfitting; while k-means clustering constitutes a promising technique to identify land cover types from unknown areas.

  16. Highlighting continued uncertainty in global land cover maps for the user community

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fritz, Steffen; See, Linda; McCallum, Ian; Schill, Christian; Obersteiner, Michael; Van der Velde, Marijn; Boettcher, Hannes; Havlík, Petr; Achard, Frédéric

    2011-01-01

    In the last 10 years a number of new global datasets have been created and new, more sophisticated algorithms have been designed to classify land cover. GlobCover and MODIS v.5 are the most recent global land cover products available, where GlobCover (300 m) has the finest spatial resolution of other comparable products such as MODIS v.5 (500 m) and GLC-2000 (1 km). This letter shows that the thematic accuracy in the cropland domain has decreased when comparing these two latest products. This disagreement is also evident spatially when examining maps of cropland and forest disagreement between GLC-2000, MODIS and GlobCover. The analysis highlights the continued uncertainty surrounding these products, with a combined forest and cropland disagreement of 893 Mha (GlobCover versus MODIS v.5). This letter suggests that data sharing efforts and the provision of more in situ data for training, calibration and validation are very important conditions for improving future global land cover products.

  17. Land use/land cover change geo-informative Tupu of Nujiang River in Northwest Yunnan Province

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jin-liang; Yang, Yue-yuan; Huang, You-ju; Fu, Lei; Rao, Qing

    2008-10-01

    Land Use/Land Cover Change (LUCC) is the core components of global change researches. It is significant for understanding regional ecological environment and LUCC mechanism of large scale to develop the study of LUCC of regional level. Nujiang River is the upper reaches of a big river in the South Asia--Salween River. Nujiang River is a typical mountainous river which is 3200 kilometer long and its basin area is 32.5 × 105 square kilometer. It locates in the core of "Three Parallel Rivers" World Natural Heritage. It is one of international biodiversity conservation center of the world, the ecological fragile zone and key ecological construction area, as well as a remote undeveloped area with high diversity ethnic. With the rapidly development of society and economy, the land use and land cover changed in a great degree. The function of ecosystem has being degraded in some areas which will not only impact on the ecological construction of local area, but also on the ecological safety of lower reaches -- Salween River. Therefore it is necessary to carry out the research of LUCC of Nujiang River. Based on the theory and methods of geo-information Tupu, the "Spatial Pattern" and "Change Process" of land use of middle reach in Nujiang River from 1974 to 2004 had been studied in quantification and integration, so as to provide a case study in local area and mesoscale in time. Supported by the remote sensing and GIS technology, LUCC Tupu of 1974-2004 had been built and the characteristics of LUCC have been analyzed quantificationally. The results showed that the built-up land (Included in this category are cities, towns, villages, strip developments along highways, transportation, power, and communications facilities, and areas such as those occupied by mills, shopping centers, industrial and commercial complexes, and institutions that may, in some instances, be isolated from urban areas), agriculture land, shrubbery land, meadow & grassland, difficultly/unused land

  18. Impact of land cover and population density on land surface temperature: case study in Wuhan, China

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Lin; Tan, Yongbin; Ying, Shen; Yu, Zhonghai; Li, Zhen; Lan, Honghao

    2014-01-01

    With the rapid development of urbanization, the standard of living has improved, but changes to the city thermal environment have become more serious. Population urbanization is a driving force of residential expansion, which predominantly influences the land surface temperature (LST). We obtained the land covers and LST maps of Wuhan from Landsat-5 images in 2000, 2002, 2005, and 2009, and discussed the distribution of land use/cover change and LST variation, and we analyzed the correlation between population distribution and LST values in residential regions. The results indicated massive variation of land cover types, which was shown as a reduction in cultivatable land and the expansion of building regions. High-LST regions concentrated on the residential and industrial areas with low vegetation coverage. In the residential region, the population density (PD) had effects on the LST values. Although the area or variation of residential regions was close, lower PD was associated with lower mean LST or LST variation. Thus, decreasing the high-LST regions concentration by reducing the PD may alleviate the urban heat island effect on the residential area. Taken together, these results can provide supports for urban planning projects and studies on city ecological environments.

  19. Evaluation of historical land cover, land use, and land-use change emissions in the GCAM integrated assessment model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Calvin, K. V.; Wise, M.; Kyle, P.; Janetos, A. C.; Zhou, Y.

    2012-12-01

    Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) are often used as science-based decision-support tools for evaluating the consequences of climate and energy policies, and their use in this framework is likely to increase in the future. However, quantitative evaluation of these models has been somewhat limited for a variety of reasons, including data availability, data quality, and the inherent challenges in projections of societal values and decision-making. In this analysis, we identify and confront methodological challenges involved in evaluating the agriculture and land use component of the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM). GCAM is a global integrated assessment model, linking submodules of the regionally disaggregated global economy, energy system, agriculture and land-use, terrestrial carbon cycle, oceans and climate. GCAM simulates supply, demand, and prices for energy and agricultural goods from 2005 to 2100 in 5-year increments. In each time period, the model computes the allocation of land across a variety of land cover types in 151 different regions, assuming that farmers maximize profits and that food demand is relatively inelastic. GCAM then calculates both emissions from land-use practices, and long-term changes in carbon stocks in different land uses, thus providing simulation information that can be compared to observed historical data. In this work, we compare GCAM results, both in recent historic and future time periods, to historical data sets. We focus on land use, land cover, land-use change emissions, and albedo.

  20. Land Use Land Cover Change in the fringe of eThekwini ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Concerns on urban environmental quality, increasing knowledge on impacts of climate change and pursuit for sustainable development have increased the need for past, current and future knowledge on the transformation of remnant urban fringe green ecosystems. Using land-cover change modeler and a Markov chain ...

  1. Land Cover Classification in Complex and Fragmented Agricultural Landscapes of the Ethiopian Highlands

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael Eggen

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Ethiopia is a largely agrarian country with nearly 85% of its employment coming from agriculture. Nevertheless, it is not known how much land is under cultivation. Mapping land cover at finer resolution and global scales has been particularly difficult in Ethiopia. The study area falls in a region of high mapping complexity with environmental challenges which require higher quality maps. Here, remote sensing is used to classify a large area of the central and northwestern highlands into eight broad land cover classes that comprise agriculture, grassland, woodland/shrub, forest, bare ground, urban/impervious surfaces, water, and seasonal water/marsh areas. We use data from Landsat spectral bands from 2000 to 2011, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI and its temporal mean and variance, together with a digital elevation model, all at 30-m spatial resolution, as inputs to a supervised classifier. A Support Vector Machines algorithm (SVM was chosen to deal with the size, variability and non-parametric nature of these data stacks. In post-processing, an image segmentation algorithm with a minimum mapping unit of about 0.5 hectares was used to convert per pixel classification results into an object based final map. Although the reliability of the map is modest, its overall accuracy is 55%—encouraging results for the accuracy of agricultural uses at 85% suggest that these methods do offer great utility. Confusion among grassland, woodland and barren categories reflects the difficulty of classifying savannah landscapes, especially in east central Africa with monsoonal-driven rainfall patterns where the ground is obstructed by clouds for significant periods of time. Our analysis also points out the need for high quality reference data. Further, topographic analysis of the agriculture class suggests there is a significant amount of sloping land under cultivation. These results are important for future research and environmental monitoring in

  2. Characterizing Degradation Gradients through Land Cover Change Analysis in Rural Eastern Cape, South Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zahn Münch

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available Land cover change analysis was performed for three catchments in the rural Eastern Cape, South Africa, for two time steps (2000 and 2014, to characterize landscape conversion trajectories for sustained landscape health. Land cover maps were derived: (1 from existing data (2000; and (2 through object-based image analysis (2014 of Landsat 8 imagery. Land cover change analysis was facilitated using land cover labels developed to identify landscape change trajectories. Land cover labels assigned to each intersection of the land cover maps at the two time steps provide a thematic representation of the spatial distribution of change. While land use patterns are characterized by high persistence (77%, the expansion of urban areas and agriculture has occurred predominantly at the expense of grassland. The persistence and intensification of natural or invaded wooded areas were identified as a degradation gradient within the landscape, which amounted to almost 10% of the study area. The challenge remains to determine significant signals in the landscape that are not artefacts of error in the underlying input data or scale of analysis. Systematic change analysis and accurate uncertainty reporting can potentially address these issues to produce authentic output for further modelling.

  3. A Comparison of Advanced Regression Algorithms for Quantifying Urban Land Cover

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Akpona Okujeni

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Quantitative methods for mapping sub-pixel land cover fractions are gaining increasing attention, particularly with regard to upcoming hyperspectral satellite missions. We evaluated five advanced regression algorithms combined with synthetically mixed training data for quantifying urban land cover from HyMap data at 3.6 and 9 m spatial resolution. Methods included support vector regression (SVR, kernel ridge regression (KRR, artificial neural networks (NN, random forest regression (RFR and partial least squares regression (PLSR. Our experiments demonstrate that both kernel methods SVR and KRR yield high accuracies for mapping complex urban surface types, i.e., rooftops, pavements, grass- and tree-covered areas. SVR and KRR models proved to be stable with regard to the spatial and spectral differences between both images and effectively utilized the higher complexity of the synthetic training mixtures for improving estimates for coarser resolution data. Observed deficiencies mainly relate to known problems arising from spectral similarities or shadowing. The remaining regressors either revealed erratic (NN or limited (RFR and PLSR performances when comprehensively mapping urban land cover. Our findings suggest that the combination of kernel-based regression methods, such as SVR and KRR, with synthetically mixed training data is well suited for quantifying urban land cover from imaging spectrometer data at multiple scales.

  4. Shiprock, AZ NM CO UT 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 1986

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This dataset contains boundaries for land use and land cover polygons in New Mexico at a scale of 1:250,000. It is in a vector digital data structure. The source...

  5. A Synthesis of Studies on Land Use and Land Cover Dynamics during 1930–2015 in Bangladesh

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raju Rai

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Land use and land cover (LULC is dynamic and changes in it have important environmental and socio-economic consequences. The pathways and pace of change vary with space and time and are related to the interaction between human activities and biophysical conditions in an area. This study provides a systematic review of the changing status, patterns, and compositions of LULC in Bangladesh on national, regional, and local scales over the past 85 years. The primary LULC classes in Bangladesh are agricultural land, urban and built-up area, forest and vegetation, water bodies, and wetlands. Most of the country is covered with agricultural land, followed by urban areas; the latter has been expanding rapidly in the area surrounding the capital city, Dhaka, especially the southern capital area. Forest cover is mostly concentrated in southeast Bangladesh, the Chittagong district, and the mangrove forests are predominantly located in the southwest, with the Gangetic delta. High population growth, rapid urbanization, and infrastructure development have been directly associated with changing patterns of land use across the country. In recent decades, urban areas and water bodies have been increasing, to the detriment of both forests and agricultural land. Most of the studies reviewed here describe a general trend involving agricultural and forested land being transformed into urban areas.

  6. Land cover change impact on urban flood modeling (case study: Upper Citarum watershed)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Siregar, R. I.

    2018-03-01

    The upper Citarum River watershed utilizes remote sensing technology in Geographic Information System to provide information on land coverage by interpretation of objects in the image. Rivers that pass through urban areas will cause flooding problems causing disadvantages, and it disrupts community activities in the urban area. Increased development in a city is related to an increase in the number of population growth that added by increasing quality and quantity of life necessities. Improved urban lifestyle changes have an impact on land cover. The impact in over time will be difficult to control. This study aims to analyze the condition of flooding in urban areas caused by upper Citarum watershed land-use change in 2001 with the land cover change in 2010. This modeling analyzes with the help of HEC-RAS to describe flooded inundation urban areas. Land cover change in upper Citarum watershed is not very significant; it based on the results of data processing of land cover has the difference of area that changed is not enormous. Land cover changes for the floods increased dramatically to a flow coefficient for 2001 is 0.65 and in 2010 at 0.69. In 2001, the inundation area about 105,468 hectares and it were about 92,289 hectares in 2010.

  7. Brownfield, TX 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  8. Dalhart, TX 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  9. Hobbs, NM 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  10. Clovis, NM 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  11. Tucumcari, NM 1:250,000 Quad USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  12. Tsunami exposure estimation with land-cover data: Oregon and the Cascadia subduction zone

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wood, N.

    2009-01-01

    A Cascadia subduction-zone earthquake has the potential to generate tsunami waves which would impact more than 1000 km of coastline on the west coast of the United States and Canada. Although the predictable extent of tsunami inundation is similar for low-lying land throughout the region, human use of tsunami-prone land varies, creating variations in community exposure and potential impacts. To better understand such variations, land-cover information derived from midresolution remotely-sensed imagery (e.g., 30-m-resolution Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery) was coupled with tsunami-hazard information to describe tsunami-prone land along the Oregon coast. Land-cover data suggest that 95% of the tsunami-prone land in Oregon is undeveloped and is primarily wetlands and unconsolidated shores. Based on Spearman rank correlation coefficients (rs), correlative relationships are strong and statistically significant (p < 0.05) between city-level estimates of the amount of land-cover pixels classified as developed (impervious cover greater than 20%) and the amount of various societal assets, including residential and employee populations, homes, businesses, and tax-parcel values. Community exposure to tsunami hazards, described here by the amount and relative percentage of developed land in tsunami-prone areas, varies considerably among the 26 communities of the study area, and these variations relate to city size. Correlative relationships are strong and significant (p < 0.05) for community exposure rankings based on land-cover data and those based on aggregated socioeconomic data. In the absence of socioeconomic data or community-based knowledge, the integration of hazards information and land-cover information derived from midresolution remotely-sensed imagery to estimate community exposure may be a useful first step in understanding variations in community vulnerability to regional hazards.

  13. Hydrochemistry and land cover in the upper Naryn river basin, Kyrgyzstan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schneider, K.; Dernedde, Y.; Breuer, L.; Frede, H. G.

    2009-04-01

    Economic and social changes at the end of the 20th century affected land use decisions and land management in the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Amongst others, land tenure changed from mainly collectivized to private land, and in consequence, land management (e.g. soil treatment and fertilization practices) altered. Apart from agricultural pollutants and the impact of irrigation management, water resources are threatened by waste dumps remaining from mining activities. However, recent studies on the effect of land use changes on ecohydrology in Central Asia remain scarce. In a preliminary study, current land use and hydrochemistry in the upper Naryn Valley (Kyrgyzstan) was analyzed in 2008. Climate is semi-arid, and annual precipitation is approximately 300 mm. Precipitation peak occurs in early summer, while the rest of the year is rather dry. Crop and hay production prevail in the valley bottom. Environmental conditions in the mountains support pastoralism with a shift between summer and winter pastures. Agriculture depends on irrigation to a great deal as precipitation is seasonal and the vegetation period usually is the dry period. Today, production is mainly for subsistence purposes or local markets. The Naryn river is the headwater of the of the Syrdarya river which is one of the major sources of irrigation water in the Aral Sea basin. Hence, the ecohydrological condition of the contributing rivers is of major importance for the irrigation management downstream. Nevertheless, information on current ecohydrological conditions and land use which may affect the distribution and chemical composition of the rivers is lacking. In the presented study, basic hydrochemical measurements in the Naryn river and its tributaries were made. In situ measurements comprised electrical conductivity, ammonia and nitrate measurements, among others. While electrical conductivity varies greatly between the Naryn river and its tributaries, ammonia and nitrate

  14. Analysing land cover and land use change in the Matobo National Park and surroundings in Zimbabwe

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scharsich, Valeska; Mtata, Kupakwashe; Hauhs, Michael; Lange, Holger; Bogner, Christina

    2016-04-01

    Natural forests are threatened worldwide, therefore their protection in National Parks is essential. Here, we investigate how this protection status affects the land cover. To answer this question, we analyse the surface reflectance of three Landsat images of Matobo National Park and surrounding in Zimbabwe from 1989, 1998 and 2014 to detect changes in land cover in this region. To account for the rolling countryside and the resulting prominent shadows, a topographical correction of the surface reflectance was required. To infer land cover changes it is not only necessary to have some ground data for the current satellite images but also for the old ones. In particular for the older images no recent field study could help to reconstruct these data reliably. In our study we follow the idea that land cover classes of pixels in current images can be transferred to the equivalent pixels of older ones if no changes occurred meanwhile. Therefore we combine unsupervised clustering with supervised classification as follows. At first, we produce a land cover map for 2014. Secondly, we cluster the images with clara, which is similar to k-means, but suitable for large data sets. Whereby the best number of classes were determined to be 4. Thirdly, we locate unchanged pixels with change vector analysis in the images of 1989 and 1998. For these pixels we transfer the corresponding cluster label from 2014 to 1989 and 1998. Subsequently, the classified pixels serve as training data for supervised classification with random forest, which is carried out for each image separately. Finally, we derive land cover classes from the Landsat image in 2014, photographs and Google Earth and transfer them to the other two images. The resulting classes are shrub land; forest/shallow waters; bare soils/fields with some trees/shrubs; and bare light soils/rocks, fields and settlements. Subsequently the three different classifications are compared and land changes are mapped. The main changes are

  15. Simulated impacts of land cover change on summer climate in the Tibetan Plateau

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li Qian; Xue Yongkang

    2010-01-01

    The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is a key region of land-atmosphere interactions with severe eco-environment degradation. This study uses an atmospheric general circulation model, NCEP GCM/SSiB, to present the major TP summer climate features for six selected ENSO years and preliminarily assess the possible impact of land cover change on the summer circulation over the TP. Compared to Reanalysis II data, the GCM using satellite derived vegetation properties generally reproduces the main 6-year-mean TP summer circulation features despite some discrepancies in intensity and geographic locations of some climate features. Two existing vegetation maps with very different land cover conditions over the TP, one with bare ground and one with vegetation cover, derived from satellite derived data, are tested and produce clearer climate signals due to land cover change. It shows that land cover change from vegetated land to bare ground decreases the radiation absorbed by the surface and results in weaker surface thermal effects, which lead to lower atmospheric temperature, as well as weaker vertical ascending motion, low-layer cyclonic, upper level anticyclonic, and summer monsoon circulation. These changes in circulation cause a decrease in the precipitation in the southeastern TP.

  16. Seasonality and Management Affect Land Surface Temperature Differences Between Loblolly Pine and Switchgrass Ecosystems in Central Virginia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahlswede, B.; Thomas, R. Q.; O'Halloran, T. L.; Rady, J.; LeMoine, J.

    2017-12-01

    States and highlight the importance of seasonality when quantifying how land-use and land-cover change influence climate. These data, when combined with earth system models, will help inform our understanding of how land-use and land change decisions in the southeastern United States will influence local, regional, and global climate.

  17. Impacts of land cover transitions on surface temperature in China based on satellite observations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Yuzhen; Liang, Shunlin

    2018-02-01

    China has experienced intense land use and land cover changes during the past several decades, which have exerted significant influences on climate change. Previous studies exploring related climatic effects have focused mainly on one or two specific land use changes, or have considered all land use and land cover change types together without distinguishing their individual impacts, and few have examined the physical processes of the mechanism through which land use changes affect surface temperature. However, in this study, we considered satellite-derived data of multiple land cover changes and transitions in China. The objective was to obtain observational evidence of the climatic effects of land cover transitions in China by exploring how they affect surface temperature and to what degree they influence it through the modification of biophysical processes, with an emphasis on changes in surface albedo and evapotranspiration (ET). To achieve this goal, we quantified the changes in albedo, ET, and surface temperature in the transition areas, examined their correlations with temperature change, and calculated the contributions of different land use transitions to surface temperature change via changes in albedo and ET. Results suggested that land cover transitions from cropland to urban land increased land surface temperature (LST) during both daytime and nighttime by 0.18 and 0.01 K, respectively. Conversely, the transition of forest to cropland tended to decrease surface temperature by 0.53 K during the day and by 0.07 K at night, mainly through changes in surface albedo. Decreases in both daytime and nighttime LST were observed over regions of grassland to forest transition, corresponding to average values of 0.44 and 0.20 K, respectively, predominantly controlled by changes in ET. These results highlight the necessity to consider the individual climatic effects of different land cover transitions or conversions in climate research studies. This short

  18. LandSense: A Citizen Observatory and Innovation Marketplace for Land Use and Land Cover Monitoring

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moorthy, Inian; Fritz, Steffen; See, Linda; McCallum, Ian

    2017-04-01

    Currently within the EU's Earth Observation (EO) monitoring framework, there is a need for low-cost methods for acquiring high quality in-situ data to create accurate and well-validated environmental monitoring products. To help address this need, a new four year Horizon 2020 project entitled LandSense will link remote sensing data with modern participatory data collection methods that involve citizen scientists. This paper will describe the citizen science activities within the LandSense Observatory that aim to deliver concrete, measurable and quality-assured ground-based data that will complement existing satellite monitoring systems. LandSense will deploy advanced tools, services and resources to mobilize and engage citizens to collect in-situ observations (i.e. ground-based data and visual interpretations of EO imagery). Integrating these citizen-driven in-situ data collections with established authoritative and open access data sources will help reduce costs, extend GEOSS and Copernicus capacities, and support comprehensive environmental monitoring systems. Policy-relevant campaigns will be implemented in close collaboration with multiple stakeholders to ensure that citizen observations address user requirements and contribute to EU-wide environmental governance and decision-making. Campaigns for addressing local and regional Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) issues are planned for select areas in Austria, France, Germany, Spain, Slovenia and Serbia. Novel LandSense services (LandSense Campaigner, FarmLand Support, Change Detector and Quality Assurance & Control) will be deployed and tested in these areas to address critical LULC issues (i.e. urbanization, agricultural land use and forest/habitat monitoring). For example, local residents in the cities of Vienna, Tulln, and Heidelberg will help cooperatively detect and map changes in land cover and green space to address key issues of urban sprawl, land take and flooding. Such campaigns are facilitated through

  19. Land use/land cover and land capability data for evaluating land utilization and official land use planning in Indramayu Regency, West Java, Indonesia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ambarwulan, W.; Widiatmaka; Nahib, I.

    2018-05-01

    Land utilization in Indonesia is regulated in an official spatial land use planning (OSLUP), stipulated by government regulations. However in fact, land utilizations are often develops inconsistent with regulations. OSLUP itself is also not usually compatible with sustainable land utilizations. This study aims to evaluate current land utilizations and OSLUP in Indramayu Regency, West Java. The methodology used is the integrated analysis using land use and land cover (LU/LC) data, land capability data and spatial pattern in OSLUP. Actual LU/LC are interpreted using SPOT-6 imagery of 2014. The spatial data of land capabilities are derived from land capability classification using field data and laboratory analysis. The confrontation between these spatial data is interpreted in terms of future direction for sustainable land use planning. The results shows that Indramayu regency consists of 8 types of LU/LC. Land capability in research area range from class II to VIII. Only a small portion of the land in Indramayu has been used in accordance with land capability, but most of the land is used exceeding its land capability.

  20. Effect of land use and land cover changes on carbon sequestration in vegetation and soils between 1956 and 2007 (southern Spain)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muñoz-Rojas, M.; Jordán, A.; Zavala, L. M.; de la Rosa, D.; Abd-Elmabod, S. K.; Anaya-Romero, M.

    2012-04-01

    Land use has significantly changed during the last decades at global and local scale, while the importance of ecosystems as sources/sinks of C has been highlighted, emphasizing the global impact of land use changes. The aim of this research was to improve and test methodologies to assess land use and land cover change dynamics and temporal and spatial variability in C stored in soils and vegetation at a wide scale. A Mediterranean region (Andalusia, Southern Spain) was selected for this pilot study in the period 1956-2007. Land use changes were detected by comparison of data layers, and soil information was gathered from available spatial databases. Data from land use and land cover change were reclassified according to CORINE Land Cover legend, according to land cover flows reported in Europe. Carbon vegetation stocks for 1956 and 2007 were calculated by multiplying C density for each land cover class and area. Soil carbon stocks were determined for each combination of soil and land use type at different standard depths (0-25, 25-50 and 50-75 cm). Total current carbon stocks (2007) are 156.1 Tg in vegetation and 415 Tg in soils (in the first 75 cm). Southern Spain has supported intense land cover changes affecting more than one third of the study area, with significant consequences for C stocks. Vegetation carbon increased 17.24 Mt since 1956 after afforestation practices and intensification of agriculture. Soil C stock decreased mainly in Cambisols and Regosols (above 80%) after forest areas were transformed into agricultural areas. The methodologies and information generated in this project constitute a basis for modelling of C sequestration and analysis of potential scenarios, as a new component of MicroLEIS DSS. This study highlights the importance of land cover changes for C sequestration in Mediterranean areas, highlighting possible trends for management policies in Europe in order to mitigate climate change.

  1. Mapping of land cover in Northern California with simulated HyspIRI images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clark, M. L.; Kilham, N. E.

    2014-12-01

    Land-cover maps are important science products needed for natural resource and ecosystem service management, biodiversity conservation planning, and assessing human-induced and natural drivers of land change. Most land-cover maps at regional to global scales are produced with remote sensing techniques applied to multispectral satellite imagery with 30-500 m pixel sizes (e.g., Landsat, MODIS). Hyperspectral, or imaging spectrometer, imagery measuring the visible to shortwave infrared regions (i.e., full range) of the spectrum have shown improved capacity to map plant species and coarser land-cover associations, yet techniques have not been widely tested at regional and greater spatial scales. The Hyperspectral Infrared Imager (HyspIRI) mission is a full-range hyperspectral and thermal satellite being considered for development by NASA (hyspiri.jpl.nasa.gov). A hyperspectral satellite, such as HyspIRI, will provide detailed spectral and temporal information at global scales that could greatly improve our ability to map land cover with greater class detail and spatial and temporal accuracy than possible with conventional multispectral satellites. The broad goal of our research is to assess multi-temporal, HyspIRI-like satellite imagery for improved land cover mapping across a range of environmental and anthropogenic gradients in California. In this study, we mapped FAO Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) classes over 30,000 km2 in Northern California using multi-temporal HyspIRI imagery simulated from the AVIRIS airborne sensor. The Random Forests classification was applied to predictor variables derived from the multi-temporal hyperspectral data and accuracies were compared to that from Landsat 8 OLI. Results indicate increased mapping accuracy using HyspIRI multi-temporal imagery, particularly in discriminating different forest life-form types, such as mixed conifer and broadleaf forests and open- and closed-canopy forests.

  2. Evaluating Water and Energy Fluxes across Three Land Cover Types in a Desert Urban Environment through a Mobile Eddy Covariance Platform

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pierini, N.; Vivoni, E. R.; Schreiner-McGraw, A.; Lopez-Castrillo, I.

    2015-12-01

    The urbanization process transforms a natural landscape into a built environment with many engineered surfaces, leading to significant impacts on surface energy and water fluxes across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Nevertheless, the effects of different urban land covers on energy and water fluxes has been rarely quantified across the large varieties of construction materials, landscaping and vegetation types, and industrial, commercial and residential areas in cities. In this study, we deployed a mobile eddy covariance tower at three different locations in the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area to capture a variety of urban land covers. The three locations each represent a common urban class in Phoenix: 1) a dense, xeric landscape (gravel cover and native plants with drip-irrigation systems near tall buildings); 2) a high-density urban site (asphalt-paved parking lot near a high-traffic intersection); and 3) a suburban mesic landscape (sprinkler-irrigated turf grass in a suburban neighborhood). At each site, we measured meteorological variables, including air temperature and relative humidity at three heights, precipitation and pressure, surface temperature, and soil moisture and temperature (where applicable), to complement the eddy covariance measurements of radiation, energy, carbon dioxide and water vapor fluxes. We evaluated the tower footprint at each site to characterize the contributing surface area to the flux measurements, including engineered and landscaping elements, as a function of time for each deployment. The different sites allowed us to compare how turbulent fluxes of water vapor and carbon dioxide vary for these representative urban land covers, in particular with respect to the role of precipitation events and irrigation. While the deployments covered different seasons, from winter to summer in 2015, the variety of daily conditions allowed quantification of the differential response to precipitation events during the winter, pre

  3. Fragmentation and melting of the seasonal sea ice cover

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feltham, D. L.; Bateson, A.; Schroeder, D.; Ridley, J. K.; Aksenov, Y.

    2017-12-01

    Recent years have seen a rapid reduction in the summer extent of Arctic sea ice. This trend has implications for navigation, oil exploration, wildlife, and local communities. Furthermore the Arctic sea ice cover impacts the exchange of heat and momentum between the ocean and atmosphere with significant teleconnections across the climate system, particularly mid to low latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. The treatment of melting and break-up processes of the seasonal sea ice cover within climate models is currently limited. In particular floes are assumed to have a uniform size which does not evolve with time. Observations suggest however that floe sizes can be modelled as truncated power law distributions, with different exponents for smaller and larger floes. This study aims to examine factors controlling the floe size distribution in the seasonal and marginal ice zone. This includes lateral melting, wave induced break-up of floes, and the feedback between floe size and the mixed ocean layer. These results are then used to quantify the proximate mechanisms of seasonal sea ice reduction in a sea ice—ocean mixed layer model. Observations are used to assess and calibrate the model. The impacts of introducing these processes to the model will be discussed and the preliminary results of sensitivity and feedback studies will also be presented.

  4. Comparison of regional and global land cover products and the implications for biogenic emission modeling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Ling; McDonald-Buller, Elena; McGaughey, Gary; Kimura, Yosuke; Allen, David T

    2015-10-01

    Accurate estimates of biogenic emissions are required for air quality models that support the development of air quality management plans and attainment demonstrations. Land cover characterization is an essential driving input for most biogenic emissions models. This work contrasted the global Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land cover product against a regional land cover product developed for the Texas Commissions on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) over four climate regions in eastern Texas, where biogenic emissions comprise a large fraction of the total inventory of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and land cover is highly diverse. The Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN) was utilized to investigate the influences of land cover characterization on modeled isoprene and monoterpene emissions through changes in the standard emission potential and emission activity factor, both separately and simultaneously. In Central Texas, forest coverage was significantly lower in the MODIS land cover product relative to the TCEQ data, which resulted in substantially lower estimates of isoprene and monoterpene emissions by as much as 90%. Differences in predicted isoprene and monoterpene emissions associated with variability in land cover characterization were primarily caused by differences in the standard emission potential, which is dependent on plant functional type. Photochemical modeling was conducted to investigate the effects of differences in estimated biogenic emissions associated with land cover characterization on predicted ozone concentrations using the Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions (CAMx). Mean differences in maximum daily average 8-hour (MDA8) ozone concentrations were 2 to 6 ppb with maximum differences exceeding 20 ppb. Continued focus should be on reducing uncertainties in the representation of land cover through field validation. Uncertainties in the estimation of biogenic emissions associated with

  5. The Effect of Seasonal Variability of Atlantic Water on the Arctic Sea Ice Cover

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ivanov, V. V.; Repina, I. A.

    2018-01-01

    Under the influence of global warming, the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean (AO) is expected to reduce with a transition toward a seasonal ice cover by the end of this century. A comparison of climate-model predictions with measurements shows that the actual rate of ice cover decay in the AO is higher than the predicted one. This paper argues that the rapid shrinking of the Arctic summer ice cover is due to its increased seasonality, while seasonal oscillations of the Atlantic origin water temperature create favorable conditions for the formation of negative anomalies in the ice-cover area in winter. The basis for this hypothesis is the fundamental possibility of the activation of positive feedback provided by a specific feature of the seasonal cycle of the inflowing Atlantic origin water and the peaking of temperature in the Nansen Basin in midwinter. The recently accelerated reduction in the summer ice cover in the AO leads to an increased accumulation of heat in the upper ocean layer during the summer season. The extra heat content of the upper ocean layer favors prerequisite conditions for winter thermohaline convection and the transfer of heat from the Atlantic water (AW) layer to the ice cover. This, in turn, contributes to further ice thinning and a decrease in ice concentration, accelerated melting in summer, and a greater accumulation of heat in the ocean by the end of the following summer. An important role is played by the seasonal variability of the temperature of AW, which forms on the border between the North European and Arctic basins. The phase of seasonal oscillation changes while the AW is moving through the Nansen Basin. As a result, the timing of temperature peak shifts from summer to winter, additionally contributing to enhanced ice melting in winter. The formulated theoretical concept is substantiated by a simplified mathematical model and comparison with observations.

  6. Impact of land cover changes on the South African climate

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ngwana, T I; Demory, M-E; Vidale, P L; Plant, R S; Mbedzi, M P

    2010-01-01

    The Joint UK Land Environmental Simulator (JULES) was run offline to investigate the sensitivity of land surface type changes over South Africa. Sensitivity tests were made in idealised experiments where the actual land surface cover is replaced by a single homogeneous surface type. The vegetation surface types on which some of the experiments were made are static. Experimental tests were evaluated against the control. The model results show among others that the change of the surface cover results in changes of other variables such as soil moisture, albedo, net radiation and etc. These changes are also visible in the spin up process. The model shows different surfaces spinning up at different cycles. Because JULES is the land surface model of Unified Model, the results could be more physically meaningful if it is coupled to the Unified Model.

  7. Open land cover from OpenStreetMap and remote sensing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schultz, Michael; Voss, Janek; Auer, Michael; Carter, Sarah; Zipf, Alexander

    2017-12-01

    OpenStreetMap (OSM) tags were used to produce a global Open Land Cover (OLC) product with fractional data gaps available at osmlanduse.org. Data gaps in the global OLC map were filled for a case study in Heidelberg, Germany using free remote sensing data, which resulted in a land cover (LC) prototype with complete coverage in this area. Sixty tags in the OSM were used to allocate a Corine Land Cover (CLC) level 2 land use classification to 91.8% of the study area, and the remaining gaps were filled with remote sensing data. For this case study, complete are coverage OLC overall accuracy was estimated 87%, which performed better than the CLC product (81% overall accuracy) of 2012. Spatial thematic overlap for the two products was 84%. OLC was in large parts found to be more detailed than CLC, particularly when LC patterns were heterogeneous, and outperformed CLC in the classification of 12 of the 14 classes. Our OLC product represented data created in different periods; 53% of the area was 2011-2016, and 46% of the area was representative of 2016-2017.

  8. Forests as landscapes of social inequality: tropical forest cover and land distribution among shifting cultivators

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oliver T. Coomes

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Can social inequality be seen imprinted in a forest landscape? We studied the relationship between land holding, land use, and inequality in a peasant community in the Peruvian Amazon where farmers practice swidden-fallow cultivation. Longitudinal data on land holding, land use, and land cover were gathered through field-level surveys (n = 316 and household interviews (n = 51 in 1994/1995 and 2007. Forest cover change between 1965 and 2007 was documented through interpretation of air photos and satellite imagery. We introduce the concept of "land use inequality" to capture differences across households in the distribution of forest fallowing and orchard raising as key land uses that affect household welfare and the sustainability of swidden-fallow agriculture. We find that land holding, land use, and forest cover distribution are correlated and that the forest today reflects social inequality a decade prior. Although initially land-poor households may catch up in terms of land holdings, their use and land cover remain impoverished. Differential land use investment through time links social inequality and forest cover. Implications are discussed for the study of forests as landscapes of inequality, the relationship between social inequality and forest composition, and the forest-poverty nexus.

  9. EnviroAtlas - Des Moines, IA - Meter-Scale Urban Land Cover (MULC) Data (2010)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — The Des Moines, IA EnviroAtlas Meter-Scale Urban Land Cover (MULC) Data were generated from the High Resolution Land Cover (HRLC) product created by the Iowa...

  10. Land-Cover Change Detection Using Multi-Temporal MODIS NDVI Imagery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monitoring the locations and distributions of land-cover change is important for establishing linkages between policy decisions, regulatory actions and subsequent land-use activities. Past studies incorporating two-date change detection using Landsat data have tended to be perfor...

  11. MODELING OF FUTURE LAND COVER LAND USE CHANGE IN NORTH CAROLINA USING MARKOV CHAIN AND CELLULAR AUTOMATA MODEL

    OpenAIRE

    Mohammad Sayemuzzaman; Manoj K. Jha

    2014-01-01

    State wide variant topographic features in North Carolina attract the hydro-climatologist. There is none modeling study found that predict future Land Cover Land Use (LCLU) change for whole North Carolina. In this study, satellite-derived land cover maps of year 1992, 2001 and 2006 of North Carolina were integrated within the framework of the Markov-Cellular Automata (Markov-CA) model which combines the Markov chain and Cellular Automata (CA) techniques. A Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) was ...

  12. Land use/land cover in Swisher County and Deaf Smith County locations, Palo Duro Basin, Texas

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1984-12-01

    Agriculture is the major land use/land cover in the Swisher and Deaf Smith County locations. Most of the agricultural land is irrigated. Furrow, center pivot, and lateral-wheel irrigation systems are in common use. Rangeland is the second most abundant land use/land cover; it is typically associated with stream valleys and playas. The rangeland supports cattle, which are an important source of income. The main urban areas in or near the locations are Tulia and Happy, in Swisher County, and Hereford and Vega, in Deaf Smith County. Most of the land within the locations is privately owned - corporate and government ownership is extremely limited - and large portions are currently under lease for oil exploration. County and regional agencies have no authority to regulate land-use patterns in the locations, although the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission can provide guidance to local jurisdictions. Land use within the corporate limits and extraterritorial jurisdictions of Tulia and Hereford is controlled by zoning ordinances and subdivision regulations. According to projections for the locations, agriculture will remain the major land use in the foreseeable future. Dryland farming and rangeland will become more prevalent as irrigation costs increase and marginal areas are taken out of production

  13. 2005 C-CAP Land Cover of Oahu, Hawaii

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This data set consists of land cover derived from high resolution imagery according to the Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) protocol. This data set utilized...

  14. Land cover mapping and GIS processing for the Savannah River Site Database

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Christel, L.M.; Guber, A.L.

    1994-07-01

    The Savannah River Site (SRS) is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and operated by Westinghouse Savannah River Company. Located in Barnwell, Aiken, and Allendale counties in South Carolina, SRS covers an area of approximately 77,700 hectares. Land cover information for SRS was interpreted from color and color infrared aerial photography acquired between 1980 and 1989. The data were then used as the source of the land cover data layer for the SRS sitewide Geographic Information System database. This database provides SRS managers with recent land use information and has been successfully used to support cost-effective site characterization and reclamation

  15. Studying the Effects of Amazonian Land Cover Change on Glacier Mass Balance in the Tropical Andes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mark, B. G.; Fernandez, A.; Gabrielli, P.; Montenegro, A.; Postigo, J.; Hellstrom, R. A.

    2017-12-01

    Recent research has highlighted several ongoing environmental changes occurring across Tropical South America, including Andean glacier retreat, drought, as well as changes in land-use and land-cover. As the regional climate of the area is mostly characterized by land-ocean interactions, the atmospheric convection in the Amazon, and the effect of the Andes on circulation patterns, it follows that changes in one of those regions may affect the other. Most scholars who have studied the causes of tropical glaciers' fluctuations have not analyzed the linkages with changes in the Amazon with the same attention paid to the influence of Pacific sea surface temperature. Here we study the response of glacier surface mass balance in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru (10°S), to a scenario where the Amazonian rainforest is replaced by savannas. We ran climatic simulations at 2-km spatial resolution utilizing the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model considering two scenarios: (a) control (CRTL), with today's rainforest extent; and (b) land cover change (LCC), where all the rainforest was replaced by savanna. WRF output was in turn ingested into a glacier energy and mass balance (GEMB) model that we validate by reconstructing both the accumulated mass balance from available observations, and the altitudinal distribution of mass balance in the region. Seasonal comparison between CRTL and LCC scenarios indicates that forest replacement by savanna results in more positive glacier mass balance. This shift to more positive mass balance contrasts with a (WRF) modeled rise in the elevation of the freezing line (0°C) between 30 to 120 m for the LCC scenario. Our results are surprising because most previous studies have shown that reducing Amazon forest cover diminishes rainfall and increases temperature, suggesting that glaciers should lose mass. We hypothesize and discuss implications of possible land-atmospheric processes that might drive this tropical glacier response to

  16. Developing a New North American Land Cover Product at 30m Resolution: Methods, Results and Future Plans

    Science.gov (United States)

    Homer, C.; Colditz, R. R.; Latifovic, R.; Llamas, R. M.; Pouliot, D.; Danielson, P.; Meneses, C.; Victoria, A.; Ressl, R.; Richardson, K.; Vulpescu, M.

    2017-12-01

    Land cover and land cover change information at regional and continental scales has become fundamental for studying and understanding the terrestrial environment. With recent advances in computer science and freely available image archives, continental land cover mapping has been advancing to higher spatial resolution products. The North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS) remains the principal provider of seamless land cover maps of North America. Founded in 2006, this collaboration among the governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States has released two previous products based on 250m MODIS images, including a 2005 land cover and a 2005-2010 land cover change product. NALCMS has recently completed the next generation North America land cover product, based upon 30m Landsat images. This product now provides the first ever 30m land cover produced for the North American continent, providing 19 classes of seamless land cover. This presentation provides an overview of country-specific image classification processes, describes the continental map production process, provides results for the North American continent and discusses future plans. NALCMS is coordinated by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) and all products can be obtained at their website - www.cec.org.

  17. Effect of land use on the seasonal variation of streamwater quality in the Wei River basin, China

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, S.; Xu, Z.; Wu, W.; Zuo, D.

    2015-05-01

    The temporal effect of land use on streamwater quality needs to be addressed for a better understanding of the complex relationship between land use and streamwater quality. In this study, GIS and Pearson correlation analysis were used to determine whether there were correlations of land-use types with streamwater quality at the sub-basin scale in the Wei River basin, China, during dry and rainy seasons in 2012. Temporal variation of these relations was observed, indicating that relationships between water quality variables and proportions of different land uses were weaker in the rainy season than that in the dry season. Comparing with other land uses, agriculture and urban lands had a stronger relationship with water quality variables in both the rainy and dry seasons. These results suggest that the aspect of temporal effects should be taken into account for better land-use management.

  18. USGS Land Cover (NLCD) Overlay Map Service from The National Map - National Geospatial Data Asset (NGDA) National Land Cover Database (NLCD)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — NLCD 1992, NLCD 2001, NLCD 2006, and NLCD 2011 are National Land Cover Database classification schemes based primarily on Landsat data along with ancillary data...

  19. Assessment of land use/land cover dynamics of Tso Moriri Lake, a Ramsar site in India.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gupta, Sharad Kumar; Shukla, Dericks Praise

    2016-12-01

    Wetlands accounts for 6% area of the Earth's land cover and nearly 17% of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. They are of utmost importance to climate dynamics and are critical links between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Despite the need of high attention towards conserving and managing wetland resources, mapping them is a least practiced activity. This study shows the temporal change in land use and land cover pattern of Tso Moriri Lake, the highest altitude lake in India and designated as Ramsar site in year 2002, using multi-sensor and multi-date imagery. Due to change in hydro-meteorological conditions of the region, this lake area has been reduced. Since the lake recharge is dependent on snowmelt, hence change in climatic conditions (less snowfall in winters), to a certain extent, is also responsible for the decrease in water level and water spread of the lake. The result shows that the lake area has reduced approximately 2 km 2 in the last 15 years, and also, agriculture, grasslands, and vegetation cover have increased to a significant extent. Agricultural land and grasslands have doubled while the vegetation cover has increased more than six times, showing the coupled effect of climate change and anthropogenic activities. Trend of temperature and precipitation corroborates the effects of climate change in this region.

  20. Continuous fields of land cover for the conterminous United States using Landsat data: First results from the Web-Enabled Landsat Data (WELD) project

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hansen, M.C.; Egorov, Alexey; Roy, David P.; Potapov, P.; Ju, J.; Turubanova, S.; Kommareddy, I.; Loveland, Thomas R.

    2011-01-01

    Vegetation Continuous Field (VCF) layers of 30 m percent tree cover, bare ground, other vegetation and probability of water were derived for the conterminous United States (CONUS) using Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data sets from the Web-Enabled Landsat Data (WELD) project. Turnkey approaches to land cover characterization were enabled due to the systematic WELD Landsat processing, including conversion of digital numbers to calibrated top of atmosphere reflectance and brightness temperature, cloud masking, reprojection into a continental map projection and temporal compositing. Annual, seasonal and monthly WELD composites for 2008 were used as spectral inputs to a bagged regression and classification tree procedure using a large training data set derived from very high spatial resolution imagery and available ancillary data. The results illustrate the ability to perform Landsat land cover characterizations at continental scales that are internally consistent while retaining local spatial and thematic detail.

  1. Monthly and Seasonal Cloud Cover Patterns at the Manila Observatory (14.64°N, 121.08°E)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Antioquia, C. T.; Lagrosas, N.; Caballa, K.

    2014-12-01

    A ground based sky imaging system was developed at the Manila Observatory in 2012 to measure cloud occurrence and to analyse seasonal variation of cloud cover over Metro Manila. Ground-based cloud occurrence measurements provide more reliable results compared to satellite observations. Also, cloud occurrence data aid in the analysis of radiation budget in the atmosphere. In this study, a GoPro Hero 2 with almost 180o field of view is employed to take pictures of the atmosphere. These pictures are taken continuously, having a temporal resolution of 1min. Atmospheric images from April 2012 to June 2013 (excluding the months of September, October, and November 2012) were processed to determine cloud cover. Cloud cover in an image is measured as the ratio of the number of pixels with clouds present in them to the total number of pixels. The cloud cover values were then averaged over each month to know its monthly and seasonal variation. In Metro Manila, the dry season occurs in the months of November to May of the next year, while the wet season occurs in the months of June to October of the same year. Fig 1 shows the measured monthly variation of cloud cover. No data was collected during the months of September (wherein the camera was used for the 7SEAS field campaign), October, and November 2012 (due to maintenance and repairs). Results show that there is high cloud cover during the wet season months (80% on average) while there is low cloud cover during the dry season months (62% on average). The lowest average cloud cover for a wet season month occurred in June 2012 (73%) while the highest average cloud cover for a wet season month occurred in June 2013 (86%). The variations in cloud cover average in this season is relatively smaller compared to that of the dry season wherein the lowest average cloud cover in a month was during April 2012 (38%) while the highest average cloud cover in a month was during January 2013 (77%); minimum and maximum averages being 39

  2. Introducing land-cover and land-use changes in a climate scenario of the 21. century

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Voldoire, A.

    2005-03-01

    The main objective of this work has been to run a climate simulation of the 21. century that includes not only greenhouse gases and aerosols emitted by human activity but also land-use and land-cover changes. To achieve this goal, the integrated impact model IMAGE2.2 (developed at RIVM, The Netherlands) was used, which simulates the evolution of greenhouse gases concentrations as well as land-cover changes. This model has been coupled to the general circulation model ARPEGE/OPA provided by the CNRM. Before coupling the models, sensitivity experiments with each model have been performed to test their respective sensitivity to the forcing of the other. Ultimately, a simulation with the two models coupled together has shown that interactions between climate and vegetation are not of primary importance for century scale studies. (author)

  3. Vegetation Analysis and Land Use Land Cover Classification of Forest in Uttara Kannada District India Using Remote Sensign and GIS Techniques

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koppad, A. G.; Janagoudar, B. S.

    2017-10-01

    The study was conducted in Uttara Kannada districts during the year 2012-2014. The study area lies between 13.92° N to 15.52° N latitude and 74.08° E to 75.09° E longitude with an area of 10,215 km2. The Indian satellite IRS P6 LISS-III imageries were used to classify the land use land cover classes with ground truth data collected with GPS through supervised classification in ERDAS software. The land use and land cover classes identified were dense forest, horticulture plantation, sparse forest, forest plantation, open land and agriculture land. The dense forest covered an area of 63.32 % (6468.70 sq km) followed by agriculture 12.88 % (1315.31 sq. km), sparse forest 10.59 % (1081.37 sq. km), open land 6.09 % (622.37 sq. km), horticulture plantation and least was forest plantation (1.07 %). Settlement, stony land and water body together cover about 4.26 percent of the area. The study indicated that the aspect and altitude influenced the forest types and vegetation pattern. The NDVI map was prepared which indicated that healthy vegetation is represented by high NDVI values between 0.1 and 1. The non- vegetated features such as water bodies, settlement, and stony land indicated less than 0.1 values. The decrease in forest area in some places was due to anthropogenic activities. The thematic map of land use land cover classes was prepared using Arc GIS Software.

  4. Land Use and Land Cover Change, Urban Heat Island Phenomenon, and Health Implications: A Remote Sensing Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lo, C. P.; Quattrochi, Dale A.

    2003-01-01

    Land use and land cover maps of Atlanta Metropolitan Area in Georgia were produced from Landsat MSS and TM images for 1973,1979,1983,1987,1992, and 1997, spanning a period of 25 years. Dramatic changes in land use and land cover have occurred with loss of forest and cropland to urban use. In particular, low-density urban use, which includes largely residential use, has increased by over 119% between 1973 and 1997. These land use and land cover changes have drastically altered the land surface characteristics. An analysis of Landsat images revealed an increase in surface temperature and a decline in NDVI from 1973 to 1997. These changes have forced the development of a significant urban heat island effect and an increase in ground level ozone production to such an extent, that Atlanta has violated EPA's ozone level standard in recent years. The urban heat island initiated precipitation events that were identified between 1996 and 2000 tended to occur near high-density urban areas but outside the I-285 loop that traverses around the Central Business District, i.e. not in the inner city area, but some in close proximity to the highways. The health implications were investigated by comparing the spatial patterns of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions, the two ingredients that form ozone by reacting with sunlight, with those of rates of cardiovascular and chronic lower respiratory diseases. A clear core-periphery pattern was revealed for both VOC and NOx emissions, but the spatial pattern was more random in the cases of rates of cardiovascular and chronic lower respiratory diseases. Clearly, factors other than ozone pollution were involved in explaining the rates of these diseases. Further research is therefore needed to understand the health geography and its relationship to land use and land cover change as well as urban heat island effect. This paper illustrates the usefulness of a remote sensing approach for this purpose.

  5. Changing landscape in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area of Yangtze River from 1977 to 2005: Land use/land cover, vegetation cover changes estimated using multi-source satellite data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Jixian; Zhengjun, Liu; Xiaoxia, Sun

    2009-12-01

    The eco-environment in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) in China has received much attention due to the construction of the Three Gorges Hydropower Station. Land use/land cover changes (LUCC) are a major cause of ecological environmental changes. In this paper, the spatial landscape dynamics from 1978 to 2005 in this area are monitored and recent changes are analyzed, using the Landsat TM (MSS) images of 1978, 1988, 1995, 2000 and 2005. Vegetation cover fractions for a vegetation cover analysis are retrieved from MODIS/Terra imagery from 2000 to 2006, being the period before and after the rising water level of the reservoir. Several analytical indices have been used to analyze spatial and temporal changes. Results indicate that cropland, woodland, and grassland areas reduced continuously over the past 30 years, while river and built-up area increased by 2.79% and 4.45% from 2000 to 2005, respectively. The built-up area increased at the cost of decreased cropland, woodland and grassland. The vegetation cover fraction increased slightly. We conclude that significant changes in land use/land cover have occurred in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area. The main cause is a continuous economic and urban/rural development, followed by environmental management policies after construction of the Three Gorges Dam.

  6. The effects of changing land cover on streamflow simulation in Puerto Rico

    Science.gov (United States)

    A.E. Van Beusekom; L.E. Hay; R.J. Viger; W.A. Gould; J.A. Collazo; A. Henareh Khalyani

    2014-01-01

    This study quantitatively explores whether land cover changes have a substantive impact on simulated streamflow within the tropical island setting of Puerto Rico. The Precipitation Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) was used to compare streamflow simulations based on five static parameterizations of land cover with those based on dynamically varying parameters derived from...

  7. Land-use poverty traps identified in shifting cultivation systems shape long-term tropical forest cover

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coomes, Oliver T.; Takasaki, Yoshito; Rhemtulla, Jeanine M.

    2011-01-01

    In this article we illustrate how fine-grained longitudinal analyses of land holding and land use among forest peasant households in an Amazonian village can enrich our understanding of the poverty/land cover nexus. We examine the dynamic links in shifting cultivation systems among asset poverty, land use, and land cover in a community where poverty is persistent and primary forests have been replaced over time—with community enclosure—by secondary forests (i.e., fallows), orchards, and crop land. Land cover change is assessed using aerial photographs/satellite imagery from 1965 to 2007. Household and plot level data are used to track land holding, portfolios, and use as well as land cover over the past 30 y, with particular attention to forest status (type and age). Our analyses find evidence for two important types of “land-use” poverty traps—a “subsistence crop” trap and a “short fallow” trap—and indicate that the initial conditions of land holding by forest peasants have long-term effects on future forest cover and household welfare. These findings suggest a new mechanism driving poverty traps: insufficient initial land holdings induce land use patterns that trap households in low agricultural productivity. Path dependency in the evolution of household land portfolios and land use strategies strongly influences not only the wellbeing of forest people but also the dynamics of tropical deforestation and secondary forest regrowth. PMID:21873179

  8. Land cover classification using reformed fuzzy C-means

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    This paper uses segmentation based on unsupervised clustering techniques for classification of land cover. ∗ ... and unsupervised classification can be solved by FCM. ..... They also act as input to the development and monitoring of a range of ...

  9. Comparison and assessment of coarse resolution land cover maps for Northern Eurasia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dirk Pflugmacher; Olga N. Krankina; Warren B. Cohen; Mark A. Friedl; Damien Sulla-Menashe; Robert E. Kennedy; Peder Nelson; Tatiana V. Loboda; Tobias Kuemmerle; Egor Dyukarev; Vladimir Elsadov; Viacheslav I. Kharuk

    2011-01-01

    Information on land cover at global and continental scales is critical for addressing a range of ecological, socioeconomic and policy questions. Global land cover maps have evolved rapidly in the last decade, but efforts to evaluate map uncertainties have been limited, especially in remote areas like Northern Eurasia. Northern Eurasia comprises a particularly diverse...

  10. Rapid Land Cover Map Updates Using Change Detection and Robust Random Forest Classifiers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Konrad J. Wessels

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available The paper evaluated the Landsat Automated Land Cover Update Mapping (LALCUM system designed to rapidly update a land cover map to a desired nominal year using a pre-existing reference land cover map. The system uses the Iteratively Reweighted Multivariate Alteration Detection (IRMAD to identify areas of change and no change. The system then automatically generates large amounts of training samples (n > 1 million in the no-change areas as input to an optimized Random Forest classifier. Experiments were conducted in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa using a reference land cover map from 2008, a change mask between 2008 and 2011 and Landsat ETM+ data for 2011. The entire system took 9.5 h to process. We expected that the use of the change mask would improve classification accuracy by reducing the number of mislabeled training data caused by land cover change between 2008 and 2011. However, this was not the case due to exceptional robustness of Random Forest classifier to mislabeled training samples. The system achieved an overall accuracy of 65%–67% using 22 detailed classes and 72%–74% using 12 aggregated national classes. “Water”, “Plantations”, “Plantations—clearfelled”, “Orchards—trees”, “Sugarcane”, “Built-up/dense settlement”, “Cultivation—Irrigated” and “Forest (indigenous” had user’s accuracies above 70%. Other detailed classes (e.g., “Low density settlements”, “Mines and Quarries”, and “Cultivation, subsistence, drylands” which are required for operational, provincial-scale land use planning and are usually mapped using manual image interpretation, could not be mapped using Landsat spectral data alone. However, the system was able to map the 12 national classes, at a sufficiently high level of accuracy for national scale land cover monitoring. This update approach and the highly automated, scalable LALCUM system can improve the efficiency and update rate of regional land

  11. Modelling Spatial Compositional Data: Reconstructions of past land cover and uncertainties

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pirzamanbein, Behnaz; Lindström, Johan; Poska, Anneli

    2018-01-01

    In this paper, we construct a hierarchical model for spatial compositional data, which is used to reconstruct past land-cover compositions (in terms of coniferous forest, broadleaved forest, and unforested/open land) for five time periods during the past $6\\,000$ years over Europe. The model...... to a fast MCMC algorithm. Reconstructions are obtained by combining pollen-based estimates of vegetation cover at a limited number of locations with scenarios of past deforestation and output from a dynamic vegetation model. To evaluate uncertainties in the predictions a novel way of constructing joint...... confidence regions for the entire composition at each prediction location is proposed. The hierarchical model's ability to reconstruct past land cover is evaluated through cross validation for all time periods, and by comparing reconstructions for the recent past to a present day European forest map...

  12. Tracking Land Use/Land Cover Dynamics in Cloud Prone Areas Using Moderate Resolution Satellite Data: A Case Study in Central Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bikash Basnet

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Tracking land surface dynamics over cloud prone areas with complex mountainous terrain is an important challenge facing the Earth Science community. One such region is the Lake Kivu region in Central Africa. We developed a processing chain to systematically monitor the spatio-temporal land use/land cover dynamics of this region over the years 1988, 2001, and 2011 using Landsat data, complemented by ancillary data. Topographic compensation was performed on Landsat reflectances to avoid the strong illumination angle impacts and image compositing was used to compensate for frequent cloud cover and thus incomplete annual data availability in the archive. A systematic supervised classification was applied to the composite Landsat imagery to obtain land cover thematic maps with overall accuracies of 90% and higher. Subsequent change analysis between these years found extensive conversions of the natural environment as a result of human related activities. The gross forest cover loss for 1988–2001 and 2001–2011 period was 216.4 and 130.5 thousand hectares, respectively, signifying significant deforestation in the period of civil war and a relatively stable and lower deforestation rate later, possibly due to conservation and reforestation efforts in the region. The other dominant land cover changes in the region were aggressive subsistence farming and urban expansion displacing natural vegetation and arable lands. Despite limited data availability, this study fills the gap of much needed detailed and updated land cover change information for this biologically important region of Central Africa. These multi-temporal datasets will be a valuable baseline for land use managers in the region interested in developing ecologically sustainable land management strategies and measuring the impacts of biodiversity conservation efforts.

  13. Detection and Mapping of Land Use and Land Cover Classes of a ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    FIRST LADY

    Cover Classes of a Developing City in Southeastern. Region of Nigeria .... The emergence of small and medium sized agro-husbandry industries in the peripheral, semi- ..... lack of spatial specialization a hindrance to integrated land management and development .... Journal of Applied Sciences Asian Network for Scientific ...

  14. Global albedo change and radiative cooling from anthropogenic land cover change, 1700 to 2005 based on MODIS, land use harmonization, radiative kernels, and reanalysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghimire, Bardan; Williams, Christopher A.; Masek, Jeffrey; Gao, Feng; Wang, Zhuosen; Schaaf, Crystal; He, Tao

    2014-12-01

    Widespread anthropogenic land cover change over the last five centuries has influenced the global climate system through both biogeochemical and biophysical processes. Models indicate that warming from carbon emissions associated with land cover conversion has been partially offset by cooling from elevated albedo, but considerable uncertainty remains partly because of uncertainty in model treatments of albedo. This study incorporates a new spatially and temporally explicit, land cover specific albedo product derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer with a historical land use data set (Land Use Harmonization product) to provide more precise, observationally derived estimates of albedo impacts from anthropogenic land cover change with a complete range of data set specific uncertainty. The mean annual global albedo increase due to land cover change during 1700-2005 was estimated as 0.00106 ± 0.00008 (mean ± standard deviation), mainly driven by snow exposure due to land cover transitions from natural vegetation to agriculture. This translates to a top-of-atmosphere radiative cooling of -0.15 ± 0.1 W m-2 (mean ± standard deviation). Our estimate was in the middle of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report range of -0.05 to -0.25 W m-2 and incorporates variability in albedo within land cover classes.

  15. Investigating the Feasibility of Geo-Tagged Photographs as Sources of Land Cover Input Data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vyron Antoniou

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Geo-tagged photographs are used increasingly as a source of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI, which could potentially be used for land use and land cover applications. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the feasibility of using this source of spatial information for three use cases related to land cover: Calibration, validation and verification. We first provide an inventory of the metadata that are collected with geo-tagged photographs and then consider what elements would be essential, desirable, or unnecessary for the aforementioned use cases. Geo-tagged photographs were then extracted from Flickr, Panoramio and Geograph for an area of London, UK, and classified based on their usefulness for land cover mapping including an analysis of the accompanying metadata. Finally, we discuss protocols for geo-tagged photographs for use of VGI in relation to land cover applications.

  16. Central American Vegetation/Land Cover Classification and Conservation Status

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Central American Vegetation/Land Cover Classification and Conservation Status data set consists of GIS coverages of vegetation classes (forests, woodlands,...

  17. Mapping land cover gradients through analysis of hyper-temporal NDVI imagery

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ali, A.; de Bie, C.A.J.M.; Skidmore, A.K.; Scarrott, R.G.; Hamad, A.A.; Venus, V.; Lymberakis, P.

    2013-01-01

    The green cover of the earth exhibits various spatial gradients that represent gradual changes in space of vegetation density and/or in species composition. To date, land cover mapping methods differentiate at best, mapping units with different cover densities and/or species compositions, but

  18. ANALYSING THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT LAND COVER TYPES ON LAND SURFACE TEMPERATURE USING SATELLITE DATA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Şekertekin

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Monitoring Land Surface Temperature (LST via remote sensing images is one of the most important contributions to climatology. LST is an important parameter governing the energy balance on the Earth and it also helps us to understand the behavior of urban heat islands. There are lots of algorithms to obtain LST by remote sensing techniques. The most commonly used algorithms are split-window algorithm, temperature/emissivity separation method, mono-window algorithm and single channel method. In this research, mono window algorithm was implemented to Landsat 5 TM image acquired on 28.08.2011. Besides, meteorological data such as humidity and temperature are used in the algorithm. Moreover, high resolution Geoeye-1 and Worldview-2 images acquired on 29.08.2011 and 12.07.2013 respectively were used to investigate the relationships between LST and land cover type. As a result of the analyses, area with vegetation cover has approximately 5 ºC lower temperatures than the city center and arid land., LST values change about 10 ºC in the city center because of different surface properties such as reinforced concrete construction, green zones and sandbank. The temperature around some places in thermal power plant region (ÇATES and ZETES Çatalağzı, is about 5 ºC higher than city center. Sandbank and agricultural areas have highest temperature due to the land cover structure.

  19. Analysing the Effects of Different Land Cover Types on Land Surface Temperature Using Satellite Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Şekertekin, A.; Kutoglu, Ş. H.; Kaya, S.; Marangoz, A. M.

    2015-12-01

    Monitoring Land Surface Temperature (LST) via remote sensing images is one of the most important contributions to climatology. LST is an important parameter governing the energy balance on the Earth and it also helps us to understand the behavior of urban heat islands. There are lots of algorithms to obtain LST by remote sensing techniques. The most commonly used algorithms are split-window algorithm, temperature/emissivity separation method, mono-window algorithm and single channel method. In this research, mono window algorithm was implemented to Landsat 5 TM image acquired on 28.08.2011. Besides, meteorological data such as humidity and temperature are used in the algorithm. Moreover, high resolution Geoeye-1 and Worldview-2 images acquired on 29.08.2011 and 12.07.2013 respectively were used to investigate the relationships between LST and land cover type. As a result of the analyses, area with vegetation cover has approximately 5 ºC lower temperatures than the city center and arid land., LST values change about 10 ºC in the city center because of different surface properties such as reinforced concrete construction, green zones and sandbank. The temperature around some places in thermal power plant region (ÇATES and ZETES) Çatalağzı, is about 5 ºC higher than city center. Sandbank and agricultural areas have highest temperature due to the land cover structure.

  20. Monitoring and Analysing Land Use/Cover Changes in an Arid Region Based on Multi-Satellite Data: The Kashgar Region, Northwest China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ayisulitan Maimaitiaili

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available In arid regions, oases ecosystems are fragile and sensitive to climate change, and water is the major limiting factor for environmental and socio-economic developments. Understanding the drivers of land use/cover change (LUCC in arid regions is important for the development of management strategies to improve or prevent environmental deterioration and loss of natural resources. The Kashgar Region is the key research area in this study; it is a typical mountain-alluvial plain-oasis-desert ecosystem in an arid region, and is one of the largest oases in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. In addition, the Kashgar Region is an important cotton and grain production area. This study’s main objectives are to quantify predominant LUCCs and identify their driving forces, based on the integration of multiple remote sensors and applications of environmental and socio-economic data. Results showed that LUCCs have been significant in the Kashgar Region during the last 42 years. Cultivated land and urban/built-up lands were the most changed land cover (LC, by 3.6% and 0.4% from 1972 to 10.2% and 3% in 2014, respectively. By contrast, water and forest areas declined. Grassland and snow-covered areas have fluctuated along with climate and human activities. Bare land was changed slightly from 1972 to 2014. According to the land use transfer matrix, cultivated land replaced grass- and forestland. Urban/built-up land mainly expanded over cultivated and bare land. LUCCs were triggered by the interplay of natural and social drivers. Increasing runoff, caused by regional climate changes in seasonal variation, and snow melt water, have provided water resources for LC changes. In the same way, population growth, changes in land tenure, and socio-economic development also induced LUCCs. However, expansion of cultivated land and urban/built-up land led to increased water consumption and stressed fragile water systems during on-going climate changes. Therefore

  1. Land Cover Characterization and Mapping of South America for the Year 2010 Using Landsat 30 m Satellite Data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chandra Giri

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Detailed and accurate land cover and land cover change information is needed for South America because the continent is in constant flux, experiencing some of the highest rates of land cover change and forest loss in the world. The land cover data available for the entire continent are too coarse (250 m to 1 km for resource managers, government and non-government organizations, and Earth scientists to develop conservation strategies, formulate resource management options, and monitor land cover dynamics. We used Landsat 30 m satellite data of 2010 and prepared the land cover database of South America using state-of-the-science remote sensing techniques. We produced regionally consistent and locally relevant land cover information by processing a large volume of data covering the entire continent. Our analysis revealed that in 2010, 50% of South America was covered by forests, 2.5% was covered by water, and 0.02% was covered by snow and ice. The percent forest area of South America varies from 9.5% in Uruguay to 96.5% in French Guiana. We used very high resolution (<5 m satellite data to validate the land cover product. The overall accuracy of the 2010 South American 30-m land cover map is 89% with a Kappa coefficient of 79%. Accuracy of barren areas needs to improve possibly using multi-temporal Landsat data. An update of land cover and change database of South America with additional land cover classes is needed. The results from this study are useful for developing resource management strategies, formulating biodiversity conservation strategies, and regular land cover monitoring and forecasting.

  2. VEGETATION ANALYSIS AND LAND USE LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION OF FOREST IN UTTARA KANNADA DISTRICT INDIA USING REMOTE SENSIGN AND GIS TECHNIQUES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. G. Koppad

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available The study was conducted in Uttara Kannada districts during the year 2012–2014. The study area lies between 13.92° N to 15.52° N latitude and 74.08° E to 75.09° E longitude with an area of 10,215 km2. The Indian satellite IRS P6 LISS-III imageries were used to classify the land use land cover classes with ground truth data collected with GPS through supervised classification in ERDAS software. The land use and land cover classes identified were dense forest, horticulture plantation, sparse forest, forest plantation, open land and agriculture land. The dense forest covered an area of 63.32 % (6468.70 sq km followed by agriculture 12.88 % (1315.31 sq. km, sparse forest 10.59 % (1081.37 sq. km, open land 6.09 % (622.37 sq. km, horticulture plantation and least was forest plantation (1.07 %. Settlement, stony land and water body together cover about 4.26 percent of the area. The study indicated that the aspect and altitude influenced the forest types and vegetation pattern. The NDVI map was prepared which indicated that healthy vegetation is represented by high NDVI values between 0.1 and 1. The non- vegetated features such as water bodies, settlement, and stony land indicated less than 0.1 values. The decrease in forest area in some places was due to anthropogenic activities. The thematic map of land use land cover classes was prepared using Arc GIS Software.

  3. Simulation of the influence of historical land cover changes on the global climate

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wang, Y. [Nanjing Univ. of Aeronautics and Astronautics (China). College of Civil Aviation; Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (China). Key Lab. of Regional Climate-Environment for East Asia; Yan, X. [Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (China). Key Lab. of Regional Climate-Environment for East Asia; Beijing Normal Univ. (China). State Key Lab. of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology (ESPRE); Wang, Z. [British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge (United Kingdom)

    2013-09-01

    In order to estimate biogeophysical effects of historical land cover change on climate during last three centuries, a set of experiments with a climate system model of intermediate complexity (MPM-2) is performed. In response to historical deforestation, the model simulates a decrease in annual mean global temperature in the range of 0.07-0.14 C based on different grassland albedos. The effect of land cover changes is most pronounced in the middle northern latitudes with maximum cooling reaching approximately 0.6 C during northern summer. The cooling reaches 0.57 C during northern spring owing to the large effects of land surface albedo. These results suggest that land cover forcing is important for study on historical climate change and that more research is necessary in the assessment of land management options for climate change mitigation. (orig.)

  4. Potential climate effect of mineral aerosols over West Africa: Part II—contribution of dust and land cover to future climate change

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ji, Zhenming; Wang, Guiling; Yu, Miao; Pal, Jeremy S.

    2018-04-01

    Mineral dust aerosols are an essential component of climate over West Africa, however, little work has been performed to investigate their contributions to potential climate change. A set of regional climate model experiments with and without mineral dust processes and land cover changes is performed to evaluate their climatic effects under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 for two global climate models. Results suggest surface warming to be in the range of 4-8 °C by the end of the century (2081-2100) over West Africa with respect to the present day (1981-2000). The presence of mineral dusts dampens the warming by 0.1-1 °C in all seasons. Accounting for changes in land cover enhances the warming over the north of Sahel and dampens it to the south in spring and summer; however, the magnitudes are smaller than those resulting from dusts. Overall dust loadings are projected to increase, with the greatest increase occurring over the Sahara and Sahel in summer. Accounting for land cover changes tends to reduce dust loadings over the southern Sahel. Future precipitation is projected to decrease by 5-40 % in the western Sahara and Sahel and increase by 10-150 % over the eastern Sahel and Guinea Coast in JJA. A dipole pattern of future precipitation changes is attributed to dust effects, with decrease in the north by 5-20 % and increase by 5-20 % in the south. Future changes in land cover result in a noisy non-significant response with a tendency for slight wetting in MAM, JJA, and SON and drying in DJF.

  5. Effect of land cover change on runoff curve number estimation in Iowa, 1832-2001

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wehmeyer, Loren L.; Weirich, Frank H.; Cuffney, Thomas F.

    2011-01-01

    Within the first few decades of European-descended settlers arriving in Iowa, much of the land cover across the state was transformed from prairie and forest to farmland, patches of forest, and urbanized areas. Land cover change over the subsequent 126 years was minor in comparison. Between 1832 and 1859, the General Land Office conducted a survey of the State of Iowa to aid in the disbursement of land. In 1875, an illustrated atlas of the State of Iowa was published, and in 2001, the US Geological Survey National Land Cover Dataset was compiled. Using these three data resources for classifying land cover, the hydrologic impact of the land cover change at three points in time over a period of 132+ years is presented in terms of the effect on the area-weighted average curve number, a term commonly used to predict peak runoff from rainstorms. In the four watersheds studied, the area-weighted average curve number associated with the first 30 years of settlement increased from 61·4 to 77·8. State-wide mapped forest area over this same period decreased 19%. Over the next 126 years, the area-weighted average curve number decreased to 76·7, despite an additional forest area reduction of 60%. This suggests that degradation of aquatic resources (plants, fish, invertebrates, and habitat) arising from hydrologic alteration was likely to have been much higher during the 30 years of initial settlement than in the subsequent period of 126 years in which land cover changes resulted primarily from deforestation and urbanization. 

  6. Agricultural land cover changes in metropolitan areas of Poland for the period 1990–2012

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nalej Marta

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Agricultural land covers more than half the area of metropolitan areas in Poland, and is therefore particularly prone to the influences of the processes associated with their development. The aim of the study was to analyse changes in agricultural land cover within the metropolitan areas of Poland for the years 1990–2012; and to capture their dynamics, types and directions. The percentage share of the total study area, for each of the forms of agricultural land cover and their changes were traced, with the spatial distribution of the changes also being determined. The results of the study show that in metropolitan areas, agricultural land cover is undergoing transformations that do not result in the loss of agricultural lands, or that involve a decrease in surface area due to their change into anthropogenic forms of land cover. The greatest transitions occurred between 2000 and 2006 and were observed in the outer zones of metropolitan areas.

  7. The Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium: 20 years of development and integration of USA national land cover data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wickham, James D.; Homer, Collin G.; Vogelmann, James E.; McKerrow, Alexa; Mueller, Rick; Herold, Nate; Coluston, John

    2014-01-01

    The Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium demonstrates the national benefits of USA Federal collaboration. Starting in the mid-1990s as a small group with the straightforward goal of compiling a comprehensive national Landsat dataset that could be used to meet agencies’ needs, MRLC has grown into a group of 10 USA Federal Agencies that coordinate the production of five different products, including the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), the Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP), the Cropland Data Layer (CDL), the Gap Analysis Program (GAP), and the Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools (LANDFIRE). As a set, the products include almost every aspect of land cover from impervious surface to detailed crop and vegetation types to fire fuel classes. Some products can be used for land cover change assessments because they cover multiple time periods. The MRLC Consortium has become a collaborative forum, where members share research, methodological approaches, and data to produce products using established protocols, and we believe it is a model for the production of integrated land cover products at national to continental scales. We provide a brief overview of each of the main products produced by MRLC and examples of how each product has been used. We follow that with a discussion of the impact of the MRLC program and a brief overview of future plans.

  8. Land cover characterization and mapping of South America for the year 2010 using Landsat 30 m satellite data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giri, Chandra; Long, Jordan

    2014-01-01

    Detailed and accurate land cover and land cover change information is needed for South America because the continent is in constant flux, experiencing some of the highest rates of land cover change and forest loss in the world. The land cover data available for the entire continent are too coarse (250 m to 1 km) for resource managers, government and non-government organizations, and Earth scientists to develop conservation strategies, formulate resource management options, and monitor land cover dynamics. We used Landsat 30 m satellite data of 2010 and prepared the land cover database of South America using state-of-the-science remote sensing techniques. We produced regionally consistent and locally relevant land cover information by processing a large volume of data covering the entire continent. Our analysis revealed that in 2010, 50% of South America was covered by forests, 2.5% was covered by water, and 0.02% was covered by snow and ice. The percent forest area of South America varies from 9.5% in Uruguay to 96.5% in French Guiana. We used very high resolution (change database of South America with additional land cover classes is needed. The results from this study are useful for developing resource management strategies, formulating biodiversity conservation strategies, and regular land cover monitoring and forecasting.

  9. Impacts of land use/cover change on ecosystem services for Xiamen

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, L.; Cui, S.

    2009-12-01

    Based on remote sensing images of Xiamen in 1987, 1997 and 2007, the process of ecosystem service alteration resulting from land use/cover change was quantitatively analyzed through RS and GIS techniques. Consulting relative researches, an integrated assessment model was built to evaluating regional ecosystem services of Xiamen. The results showed that the total ecosystem service value of Xiamen was increased by 14.67%, from 3271.5 million to 3751.39 RMB. The relative change rate of supplying service, regulation service, cultural service and supporting service were 97.8%, -25.1%, 165.0% and -44.7% respectively, which indicated that land use/ cover change had positive effects on supplying and cultural service, whereas it had negatively affected both regulation service and supporting service. Land use/cover types of Xiamen in 1987, 1997 and 2007 Ecosystem values of Xiamen in 1987, 1997 and 2007 10 thousand RMB

  10. South African National Land-Cover Change Map | Schoeman ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Globally, countries face a changing environment due to population growth, increase in agricultural production, increasing demand on natural resources, climate change and resultant degradation of the natural environment. One means of monitoring this changing scenario is through land-cover change mapping. Modern ...

  11. TESTING OF LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION FROM MULTISPECTRAL AIRBORNE LASER SCANNING DATA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    K. Bakuła

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Multispectral Airborne Laser Scanning provides a new opportunity for airborne data collection. It provides high-density topographic surveying and is also a useful tool for land cover mapping. Use of a minimum of three intensity images from a multiwavelength laser scanner and 3D information included in the digital surface model has the potential for land cover/use classification and a discussion about the application of this type of data in land cover/use mapping has recently begun. In the test study, three laser reflectance intensity images (orthogonalized point cloud acquired in green, near-infrared and short-wave infrared bands, together with a digital surface model, were used in land cover/use classification where six classes were distinguished: water, sand and gravel, concrete and asphalt, low vegetation, trees and buildings. In the tested methods, different approaches for classification were applied: spectral (based only on laser reflectance intensity images, spectral with elevation data as additional input data, and spectro-textural, using morphological granulometry as a method of texture analysis of both types of data: spectral images and the digital surface model. The method of generating the intensity raster was also tested in the experiment. Reference data were created based on visual interpretation of ALS data and traditional optical aerial and satellite images. The results have shown that multispectral ALS data are unlike typical multispectral optical images, and they have a major potential for land cover/use classification. An overall accuracy of classification over 90% was achieved. The fusion of multi-wavelength laser intensity images and elevation data, with the additional use of textural information derived from granulometric analysis of images, helped to improve the accuracy of classification significantly. The method of interpolation for the intensity raster was not very helpful, and using intensity rasters with both first and

  12. Land use and land cover change in the Western Cape Province: quantification of changes & understanding of driving factors

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Tizora, P

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available changes in land use and land cover (LULC) and incited issues such as urban sprawl, marginalization of the poor, limited public access to resources, land degradation and climate change. This paper seeks to understand the most significant drivers of LULC...

  13. Forecasting land cover change impacts on drinking water treatment costs in Minneapolis, Minnesota

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woznicki, S. A.; Wickham, J.

    2017-12-01

    Source protection is a critical aspect of drinking water treatment. The benefits of protecting source water quality in reducing drinking water treatment costs are clear. However, forecasting the impacts of environmental change on source water quality and its potential to influence future treatment processes is lacking. The drinking water treatment plant in Minneapolis, MN has recognized that land cover change threatens water quality in their source watershed, the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB). Over 1,000 km2 of forests, wetlands, and grasslands in the UMRB were lost to agriculture from 2008-2013. This trend, coupled with a projected population increase of one million people in Minnesota by 2030, concerns drinking water treatment plant operators in Minneapolis with respect to meeting future demand for clean water in the UMRB. The objective of this study is to relate land cover change (forest and wetland loss, agricultural expansion, urbanization) to changes in treatment costs for the Minneapolis, MN drinking water utility. To do this, we first developed a framework to determine the relationship between land cover change and water quality in the context of recent historical changes and projected future changes in land cover. Next we coupled a watershed model, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to projections of land cover change from the FOREcasting SCEnarios of Land-use Change (FORE-SCE) model for the mid-21st century. Using historical Minneapolis drinking water treatment data (chemical usage and costs), source water quality in the UMRB was linked to changes in treatment requirements as a function of projected future land cover change. These analyses will quantify the value of natural landscapes in protecting drinking water quality and future treatment processes requirements. In addition, our study provides the Minneapolis drinking water utility with information critical to their planning and capital improvement process.

  14. Land use/cover change and perceived watershed status in Eastern ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    ROBERT

    Five land use/cover types were identified namely; (1) ... The focus group discussion findings indicated a negative trend in land ... Awoja watershed in Kyoga Water Management Zone of eastern ... as compared to the national average of 11% (MWE, 2013). ... This was acquired from USGS Earth ... The unit of analysis was the.

  15. Spatial Variation of Temperature and Precipitation in Bhutan and Links to Vegetation and Land Cover

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ugyen Dorji

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Bhutan, located in the Himalayas in the South Asian monsoon region, has extremely high variation in elevation, climatic conditions, and land cover despite its small geographical area, as well as great biodiversity. This paper provides the first comprehensive description of climatic conditions in Bhutan. It assesses the spatial variation of temperature and precipitation across the country and evaluates the causes for this variation based on daily data from 70 meteorological stations that have been recording data for time spans ranging from 3 to 21 years. Temperature and precipitation show contrasting spatial variation, with temperature primarily affected by elevation and precipitation by latitude. Models were developed using mixed linear regression models to predict seasonal and annual mean temperature and precipitation based on geographical location. Using linear regression we found that temperatures changed by about 0.5°C for every 100 m of change in elevation, with lapse rates being highest in February, March, and November and lowest from June to August. The lapse rate was highest for minimum temperatures and lowest for maximum temperatures, with the greatest difference during winter. The spatial distribution of precipitation was mainly controlled by latitude, having a quadratic relationship, with the highest rates in the southern foothills of the Himalayan range and the lowest at midlatitudes. The land cover is affected by topography and local climate, with variations in temperature being a main deciding factor for vegetation types; most human settlements and associated land uses are concentrated at lower elevations.

  16. Development of deforestation and land cover database for Bhutan (1930-2014).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reddy, C Sudhakar; Satish, K V; Jha, C S; Diwakar, P G; Murthy, Y V N Krishna; Dadhwal, V K

    2016-12-01

    Bhutan is a mountainous country located in the Himalayan biodiversity hotspot. This study has quantified the total area under land cover types, estimated the rate of forest cover change, analyzed the changes across forest types, and modeled forest cover change hotpots in Bhutan. The topographical maps and satellite remote sensing images were analyzed to get the spatial patterns of forest and associated land cover changes over the past eight decades (1930-1977-1987-1995-2005-2014). Forest is the largest land cover in Bhutan and constitutes 68.3% of the total geographical area in 2014. Subtropical broad leaved hill forest is predominant type occupies 34.1% of forest area in Bhutan, followed by montane dry temperate (20.9%), montane wet temperate (18.9%), Himalayan moist temperate (10%), and tropical moist sal (8.1%) in 2014. The major forest cover loss is observed in subtropical broad leaved hill forest (64.5 km 2 ) and moist sal forest (9.9 km 2 ) from 1977 to 2014. The deforested areas have mainly been converted into agriculture and contributed for 60.9% of forest loss from 1930 to 2014. In spite of major decline of forest cover in time interval of 1930-1977, there is no net rate of deforestation is recorded in Bhutan since 1995. Forest cover change analysis has been carried out to evaluate the conservation effectiveness in "Protected Areas" of Bhutan. Hotspots that have undergone high transformation in forest cover for afforestation and deforestation were highlighted in the study for conservation prioritisation. Forest conservation policies in Bhutan are highly effective in controlling deforestation as compared to neighboring Asian countries and such service would help in mitigating climate change.

  17. ASSESSING LAND COVER CHANGES CAUSED BY GRANITE QUARRYING USING REMOTE SENSING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R. S. Moeletsi

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Dimension stone quarrying in the area between Rustenburg and Brits in the North West Province of South Africa has been in existence for over 70 decades. The unique characteristics of the granite deposits in South Africa resulted in making the country a global producer of the granite rocks. This led to intensified quarrying activities between Rustenburg and Brits town. However, this surface mining method, has a potential to impact the environment in a negative way causing loss in vegetation, depletion of natural resources, loss of scenic beauty and contamination of surface water resources. To assess the land cover changes caused by granite quarrying activities, remotely sensed data in the form of Landsat images between 1998 and 2015 were used. Supervised classification was used to create maps. Accuracy assessment using Google EarthTM as a reference data yielded an overall accuracy of 78 %. The post classification change detection method was used to assess land cover changes within the granite quarries. Granite quarries increased by 1174.86 ha while formation of quarry lakes increased to 5.3 ha over the 17-year period. Vegetation cover decreased by 1308 ha in area while 18.3 ha bare land was lost during the same period. This study demonstrated the utility of remote sensing to detect changes in land cover within granite quarries.

  18. Impacts of land use and land cover on surface and air temperature in urban landscapes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crum, S.; Jenerette, D.

    2015-12-01

    Accelerating urbanization affects regional climate as the result of changing land cover and land use (LCLU). Urban land cover composition may provide valuable insight into relationships among urbanization, air, and land-surface temperature (Ta and LST, respectively). Climate may alter these relationships, where hotter climates experience larger LULC effects. To address these hypotheses we examined links between Ta, LST, LCLU, and vegetation across an urban coastal to desert climate gradient in southern California, USA. Using surface temperature radiometers, continuously measuring LST on standardized asphalt, concrete, and turf grass surfaces across the climate gradient, we found a 7.2°C and 4.6°C temperature decrease from asphalt to vegetated cover in the coast and desert, respectively. There is 131% more temporal variation in asphalt than turf grass surfaces, but 37% less temporal variation in concrete than turf grass. For concrete and turf grass surfaces, temporal variation in temperature increased from coast to desert. Using ground-based thermal imagery, measuring LST for 24 h sequences over citrus orchard and industrial use locations, we found a 14.5°C temperature decrease from industrial to orchard land use types (38.4°C and 23.9°C, respectively). Additionally, industrial land use types have 209% more spatial variation than orchard (CV=0.20 and 0.09, respectively). Using a network of 300 Ta (iButton) sensors mounted in city street trees throughout the region and hyperspectral imagery data we found urban vegetation greenness, measured using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), was negatively correlated to Ta at night across the climate gradient. Contrasting previous findings, the closest coupling between NDVI and Ta is at the coast from 0000 h to 0800 h (highest r2 = 0.6, P urbanized regions of southern California, USA decrease Ta and LST and spatial variation in LST, while built surfaces and land uses have the opposite effect. Furthermore

  19. Use of AMSR-E microwave satellite data for land surface characteristics and snow cover variation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mukesh Singh Boori

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This data article contains data related to the research article entitled “Global land cover classification based on microwave polarization and gradient ratio (MPGR” [1] and “Microwave polarization and gradient ratio (MPGR for global land surface phenology” [2]. This data article presents land surface characteristics and snow cover variation information from sensors like EOS Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E. This data article use the HDF Explorer, Matlab, and ArcGIS software to process the pixel latitude, longitude, snow water equivalent (SWE, digital elevation model (DEM and Brightness Temperature (BT information from AMSR-E satellite data to provide land surface characteristics and snow cover variation data in all-weather condition at any time. This data information is useful to discriminate different land surface cover types and snow cover variation, which is turn, will help to improve monitoring of weather, climate and natural disasters.

  20. The Effect of Land Cover/Land Use Changes on the Regional Climate of the USA High Plains

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Denis Mutiibwa

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available We present the detection of the signatures of land use/land cover (LULC changes on the regional climate of the US High Plains. We used the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI as a proxy of LULC changes and atmospheric CO2 concentrations as a proxy of greenhouse gases. An enhanced signal processing procedure was developed to detect the signatures of LULC changes by integrating autoregression and moving average (ARMA modeling and optimal fingerprinting technique. The results, which are representative of the average spatial signatures of climate response to LULC change forcing on the regional climate of the High Plains during the 26 years of the study period (1981–2006, show a significant cooling effect on the regional temperatures during the summer season. The cooling effect was attributed to probable evaporative cooling originating from the increasing extensive irrigation in the region. The external forcing of atmospheric CO2 was included in the study to suppress the radiative warming effect of greenhouse gases, thus, enhancing the LULC change signal. The results show that the greenhouse gas radiative warming effect in the region is significant, but weak, compared to the LULC change signal. The study demonstrates the regional climatic impact of anthropogenic induced atmospheric-biosphere interaction attributed to LULC change, which is an additional and important climate forcing in addition to greenhouse gas radiative forcing in High Plains region.

  1. Estimation and comparision of curve numbers based on dynamic land use land cover change, observed rainfall-runoff data and land slope

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deshmukh, Dhananjay Suresh; Chaube, Umesh Chandra; Ekube Hailu, Ambaye; Aberra Gudeta, Dida; Tegene Kassa, Melaku

    2013-06-01

    The CN represents runoff potential is estimated using three different methods for three watersheds namely Barureva, Sher and Umar watershed located in Narmada basin. Among three watersheds, Sher watershed has gauging site for the runoff measurements. The CN computed from the observed rainfall-runoff events is termed as CN(PQ), land use and land cover (LULC) is termed as CN(LU) and the CN based on land slope is termed as SACN2. The estimated annual CN(PQ) varies from 69 to 87 over the 26 years data period with median 74 and average 75. The range of CN(PQ) from 70 to 79 are most significant values and these truly represent the AMC II condition for the Sher watershed. The annual CN(LU) was computed for all three watersheds using GIS and the years are 1973, 1989 and 2000. Satellite imagery of MSS, TM and ETM+ sensors are available for these years and obtained from the Global Land Cover Facility Data Center of Maryland University USA. The computed CN(LU) values show rising trend with the time and this trend is attributed to expansion of agriculture area in all watersheds. The predicted values of CN(LU) with time (year) can be used to predict runoff potential under the effect of change in LULC. Comparison of CN(LU) and CN(PQ) values shows close agreement and it also validates the classification of LULC. The estimation of slope adjusted SA-CN2 shows the significant difference over conventional CN for the hilly forest lands. For the micro watershed planning, SCS-CN method should be modified to incorporate the effect of change in land use and land cover along with effect of land slope.

  2. Effects of Seasonal Land Surface Conditions on Hydrometeorological Dynamics in South-western North America

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-09-21

    rain gauges to measure precipitation , and 1 internal mini-flume to measure runoff . 9 Fig. 8. Processed fluxes measured at the two eddy...SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: Arid and semiarid landscapes in regions with seasonal precipitation experience dramatic changes that alter land surface...semiarid landscapes in regions with seasonal precipitation experience dramatic changes that alter land surface conditions, including soil moisture

  3. 81 An Assessment of the land use and land cover changes in ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    `123456789jkl''''#

    Three satellite images for three different years (1991, 2000 and 2009) were used to come up with a ... land cover change maps among other data resources that are .... in agro-ecological region 3 that receives an average rainfall of .... After field observation and collection of .... the image along with statistical comparison of.

  4. Spatial and temporal land cover changes in Terminos Lagoon Reserve, Mexico.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soto-Galera, Ernesto; Piera, Jaume; López, Pilar

    2010-06-01

    Terminos Lagoon ecosystem is the largest fluvial-lagoon estuarine system in the country and one of the most important reserves of coastal flora and fauna in Mexico. Since the seventies, part of the main infrastructure for country's oil extraction is located in this area. Its high biodiversity has motivated different type of studies including deforestation processes and land use planning. In this work we used satellite image analysis to determine land cover changes in the area from 1974 to 2001. Our results indicate that tropical forest and mangroves presented the most extensive losses in its coverage. In contrast, urban areas and induced grassland increased considerably. In 2001 more than half of the ecosystem area showed changes from its original land cover, and a third part of it was deteriorated. The main causes of deforestation were both the increase in grassland and the growth of urban areas. However, deforestation was attenuated by natural reforestation and plant canopy recovery. We conclude that the introduction of cattle and urban development were the main causes for the land cover changes; however, the oil industry activity located in the ecosystem, has promoted indirectly to urban growth and rancher boom.

  5. Potential Role of Land Use and Land Cover Information in Powerplant Siting: Example of Three Mile Island

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wray, J. R.

    1982-01-01

    Selecting a site for a nuclear powerplant can be helped by digitizing land use and land cover data, population data, and other pertinent data sets, and then placing them in a geographic information system. Such a system begins with a set of standardized maps for location reference and then provides for retrieval and analysis of spatial data keyed to the maps. This makes possible thematic mapping by computer, or interactive visual display for decisionmaking. It also permits correlating land use area measurements with census and other data (such as fallout dosages), and the updating of all data sets. The system is thus a tool for dealing with resource management problems and for analyzing the interaction between people and their environment. An explanation of a computer-plotted map of land use and cover for Three Mile Island and vicinity is given.

  6. Land-Use and Land-Cover Change around Mobile Bay, Alabama from 1974-2008

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ellis, Jean; Spruce, Joseph P.; Swann, Roberta; Smooth, James C.

    2009-01-01

    This document summarizes the major findings of a Gulf of Mexico Application Pilot project led by NASA Stennis Space Center (SSC) in conjunction with a regional collaboration network of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA). NASA researchers processed and analyzed multi-temporal Landsat data to assess land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes in the coastal counties of Mobile and Baldwin, AL between 1974 and 2008. Our goal was to create satellite-based LULC data products using methods that could be transferable to other coastal areas of concern within the Gulf of Mexico. The Mobile Bay National Estuary Program (MBNEP) is the primary end-user, however, several other state and local groups may benefit from the project s data products that will be available through NOAA-NCDDC s Regional Ecosystem Data Management program. Mobile Bay is a critical ecologic and economic region in the Gulf of Mexico and to the entire country. Mobile Bay was designated as an estuary of national significance in 1996. This estuary receives the fourth largest freshwater inflow in the United States. It provides vital nursery habitat for commercially and recreationally important fish species. It has exceptional aquatic and terrestrial bio-diversity, however, its estuary health is influenced by changing LULC patterns, such as urbanization. Mobile and Baldwin counties have experienced a population growth of 1.1% and 20.5% from 2000-2006. Urban expansion and population growth are likely to accelerate with the construction and operation of the ThyssenKrupp steel mill in the northeast portion of Mobile County. Land-use and land-cover change can negatively impact Gulf coast water quality and ecological resources. The conversion of forest to urban cover types impacts the carbon cycle and increases the freshwater and sediment in coastal waters. Increased freshwater runoff decreases salinity and increases the turbidity of coastal waters, thus impacting the growth potential of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV

  7. Water Resources Response to Climate and Land-Cover Changes in a Semi-Arid Watershed, New Mexico, USA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joonghyeok Heo

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This research evaluates a climate-land cover-water resources interconnected system in a semi-arid watershed with minimal human impact from 1970 - 2009. We found _ increase in temperature and 10.9% decrease in precipitation. The temperature exhibited a lower increase trend and precipitation showed a similar decrease trend compared to previous studies. The dominant land-cover change trend was grass and forest conversion into bush/shrub and developed land and crop land into barren and grass land. These alterations indicate that changes in temperature and precipitation in the study area may be linked to changes in land cover, although human intervention is recognized as the major land-cover change contributor for the short term. These alterations also suggest that decreasing human activity in the study area leads to developed land and crop land conversion into barren and grass land. Hydrological responses to climate and land-cover changes for surface runoff, groundwater discharge, soil water content and evapotranspiration decreased by 10.2, 10.0, 4.1, and 10.5%, respectively. Hydrological parameters generally follow similar trends to that of precipitation in semi-arid watersheds with minimal human development. Soil water content is sensitive to land-cover change and offset relatively by the changes in precipitation.

  8. Land-surface initialisation improves seasonal climate prediction skill for maize yield forecast.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ceglar, Andrej; Toreti, Andrea; Prodhomme, Chloe; Zampieri, Matteo; Turco, Marco; Doblas-Reyes, Francisco J

    2018-01-22

    Seasonal crop yield forecasting represents an important source of information to maintain market stability, minimise socio-economic impacts of crop losses and guarantee humanitarian food assistance, while it fosters the use of climate information favouring adaptation strategies. As climate variability and extremes have significant influence on agricultural production, the early prediction of severe weather events and unfavourable conditions can contribute to the mitigation of adverse effects. Seasonal climate forecasts provide additional value for agricultural applications in several regions of the world. However, they currently play a very limited role in supporting agricultural decisions in Europe, mainly due to the poor skill of relevant surface variables. Here we show how a combined stress index (CSI), considering both drought and heat stress in summer, can predict maize yield in Europe and how land-surface initialised seasonal climate forecasts can be used to predict it. The CSI explains on average nearly 53% of the inter-annual maize yield variability under observed climate conditions and shows how concurrent heat stress and drought events have influenced recent yield anomalies. Seasonal climate forecast initialised with realistic land-surface achieves better (and marginally useful) skill in predicting the CSI than with climatological land-surface initialisation in south-eastern Europe, part of central Europe, France and Italy.

  9. Assessing Wetland Health Using a Newly Developed Land Cover ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Citizen science combines environmental research with environmental education .... health of the wetland using land cover type impacts. Once the impact is ... to interpret the findings of the quantitative method using the qualitative findings.

  10. "Land-Cover Conversion in Amazonia, The Role of ENV" Ironment and Substrate composition in Modifying SOI

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Dar A.; Chadwick, Oliver A.; Batista, Getulio T.

    2003-01-01

    LBA research from the first phase of LBA focused on three broad categories: 1) mapping land cover and quantifying rates of change, persistence of pasture, and area of recovering forest; 2) evaluating the role of environmental factors and land-use history on soil biogeochemistry; and 3) quantifying the natural and human controls on stream nutrient concentrations. The focus of the research was regional, concentrating primarily in the state of RondBnia, but also included land-cover mapping in the vicinity of Maraba, Para, and Manaus, Amazonas. Remote sensing analysis utilized Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Multispectral Scanner (MS S) data to map historical patterns of land-cover change. Specific questions addressed by the remote sensing component of the research included: 1) what is the areal extent of dominant land-cover classes? 2) what are the rates of change of dominant land cover through processes of deforestation, disturbance and regeneration? and 3) what are the dynamic properties of each class that characterize temporal variability, duration, and frequency of repeat disturbance? Biogeochemical analysis focused on natural variability and impacts of land-use/land-cover changes on soil and stream biogeochemical properties at the regional scale. An emphasis was given to specific soil properties considered to be primary limiting factors regionally, including phosphorus, nitrogen, base cations and cation-exchange properties. Stream sampling emphasized the relative effects of the rates and timing of land-cover change on stream nutrients, demonstrating that vegetation conversion alone does not impact nutrients as much as subsequent land use and urbanization.

  11. Optimal land use/land cover classification using remote sensing imagery for hydrological modeling in a Himalayan watersched

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Saran, S.; Sterk, G.; Kumar, S.

    2009-01-01

    Land use/land cover is an important watershed surface characteristic that affects surface runoff and erosion. Many of the available hydrological models divide the watershed into Hydrological Response Units (HRU), which are spatial units with expected similar hydrological behaviours. The division

  12. Nitrate-nitrogen losses through subsurface drainage under various agricultural land covers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qi, Zhiming; Helmers, Matthew J; Christianson, Reid D; Pederson, Carl H

    2011-01-01

    Nitrate-nitrogen (NO₃-N) loading to surface water bodies from subsurface drainage is an environmental concern in the midwestern United States. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of various land covers on NO₃-N loss through subsurface drainage. Land-cover treatments included (i) conventional corn ( L.) (C) and soybean [ (L.) Merr.] (S); (ii) winter rye ( L.) cover crop before corn (rC) and before soybean (rS); (iii) kura clover ( M. Bieb.) as a living mulch for corn (kC); and (iv) perennial forage of orchardgrass ( L.) mixed with clovers (PF). In spring, total N uptake by aboveground biomass of rye in rC, rye in rS, kura clover in kC, and grasses in PF were 14.2, 31.8, 87.0, and 46.3 kg N ha, respectively. Effect of land covers on subsurface drainage was not significant. The NO₃-N loss was significantly lower for kC and PF than C and S treatments (p rye cover crop did not reduce NO₃-N loss, but NO₃-N concentration was significantly reduced in rC during March to June and in rS during July to November (p rye cover crop on NO-N loss reduction needs further investigation under conditions of different N rates, wider weather patterns, and fall tillage. by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, Inc.

  13. Land-cover impacts on streamflow: a change-detection modelling approach that incorporates parameter uncertainty

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jan Seibert; Jeffrey J. McDonnell

    2010-01-01

    The effect of land-use or land-cover change on stream runoff dynamics is not fully understood. In many parts of the world, forest management is the major land-cover change agent. While the paired catchment approach has been the primary methodology used to quantify such effects, it is only possible for small headwater catchments where there is uniformity in...

  14. USGS National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) Downloadable Data Collection

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — NLCD 1992, NLCD 2001, NLCD 2006, and NLCD 2011 are National Land Cover Database classification schemes based primarily on Landsat data along with ancillary data...

  15. What is the role of historical anthropogenically-induced land-cover change on the surface climate of West Africa? Results from the LUCID intercomparison project

    Science.gov (United States)

    Souleymane, S.

    2015-12-01

    West Africa has been highlighted as a hot spot of land surface-atmosphere interactions. This study analyses the outputs of the project Land-Use and Climate, IDentification of Robust Impacts (LUCID) over West Africa. LUCID used seven atmosphere-land models with a common experimental design to explore the impacts of Land Use induced Land Cover Change (LULCC) that are robust and consistent across the climate models. Focusing the analysis on Sahel and Guinea, this study shows that, even though the seven climate models use the same atmospheric and land cover forcing, there are significant differences of West African Monsoon variability across the climate models. The magnitude of that variability differs significantly from model to model resulting two major "features": (1) atmosphere dynamics models; (2) how the land-surface functioning is parameterized in the Land surface Model, in particular regarding the evapotranspiration partitioning within the different land-cover types, as well as the role of leaf area index (LAI) in the flux calculations and how strongly the surface is coupled to the atmosphere. The major role that the models'sensitivity to land-cover perturbations plays in the resulting climate impacts of LULCC has been analysed in this study. The climate models show, however, significant differences in the magnitude and the seasonal partitioning of the temperature change. The LULCC induced cooling is directed by decreases in net shortwave radiation that reduced the available energy (QA) (related to changes in land-cover properties other than albedo, such as LAI and surface roughness), which decreases during most part of the year. The biophysical impacts of LULCC were compared to the impact of elevated greenhouse gases resulting changes in sea surface temperatures and sea ice extent (CO2SST). The results show that the surface cooling (related a decrease in QA) induced by the biophysical effects of LULCC are insignificant compared to surface warming (related an

  16.   Quantitative reconstruction of past land cover in Denmark - The first results

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Anne Birgitte; Odgaard, Bent Vad

    reflects a frequency change in the same direction of the mother plant may be unsubstantiated. Here, we present a first attempt at pollen based quantitative reconstruction of land cover around 9 Danish lake sites for the past 2500 years, based on models of pollen dispersal and -deposition (Prentice, 1985...... and local pollen signals at small sites, thus providing reconstructions of local vegetation around the sites. Results reflect rather stable land cover through the last 2500 years at the regional level but strong forest-open land dynamics at the local scale. The approach should be applicable to any...

  17. Trajectory analysis of land use and land cover maps to improve spatial-temporal patterns, and impact assessment on groundwater recharge

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zomlot, Z.; Verbeiren, B.; Huysmans, M.; Batelaan, O.

    2017-11-01

    Land use/land cover (LULC) change is a consequence of human-induced global environmental change. It is also considered one of the major factors affecting groundwater recharge. Uncertainties and inconsistencies in LULC maps are one of the difficulties that LULC timeseries analysis face and which have a significant effect on hydrological impact analysis. Therefore, an accuracy assessment approach of LULC timeseries is needed for a more reliable hydrological analysis and prediction. The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of land use uncertainty and to improve the accuracy of a timeseries of CORINE (coordination of information on the environment) land cover maps by using a new approach of identifying spatial-temporal LULC change trajectories as a pre-processing tool. This ensures consistency of model input when dealing with land-use dynamics and as such improves the accuracy of land use maps and consequently groundwater recharge estimation. As a case study the impact of consistent land use changes from 1990 until 2013 on groundwater recharge for the Flanders-Brussels region is assessed. The change trajectory analysis successfully assigned a rational trajectory to 99% of all pixels. The methodology is shown to be powerful in correcting interpretation inconsistencies and overestimation errors in CORINE land cover maps. The overall kappa (cell-by-cell map comparison) improved from 0.6 to 0.8 and from 0.2 to 0.7 for forest and pasture land use classes respectively. The study shows that the inconsistencies in the land use maps introduce uncertainty in groundwater recharge estimation in a range of 10-30%. The analysis showed that during the period of 1990-2013 the LULC changes were mainly driven by urban expansion. The results show that the resolution at which the spatial analysis is performed is important; the recharge differences using original and corrected CORINE land cover maps increase considerably with increasing spatial resolution. This study indicates

  18. Lake Michigan Diversion Accounting land cover change estimation by use of the National Land Cover Dataset and raingage network partitioning analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sharpe, Jennifer B.; Soong, David T.

    2015-01-01

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Chicago District, is responsible for monitoring and computation of the quantity of Lake Michigan water diverted by the State of Illinois. As part of this effort, the USACE uses the Hydrological Simulation Program–FORTRAN (HSPF) with measured meteorological data inputs to estimate runoff from the Lake Michigan diversion special contributing areas (SCAs), the North Branch Chicago River above Niles and the Little Calumet River above South Holland gaged basins, and the Lower Des Plaines and the Calumet ungaged that historically drained to Lake Michigan. These simulated runoffs are used for estimating the total runoff component from the diverted Lake Michigan watershed, which is accountable to the total diversion by the State of Illinois. The runoff is simulated from three interpreted land cover types in the HSPF models: impervious, grass, and forest. The three land cover data types currently in use were derived from aerial photographs acquired in the early 1990s.

  19. A comprehensive change detection method for updating the National Land Cover Database to circa 2011

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jin, Suming; Yang, Limin; Danielson, Patrick; Homer, Collin G.; Fry, Joyce; Xian, George

    2013-01-01

    The importance of characterizing, quantifying, and monitoring land cover, land use, and their changes has been widely recognized by global and environmental change studies. Since the early 1990s, three U.S. National Land Cover Database (NLCD) products (circa 1992, 2001, and 2006) have been released as free downloads for users. The NLCD 2006 also provides land cover change products between 2001 and 2006. To continue providing updated national land cover and change datasets, a new initiative in developing NLCD 2011 is currently underway. We present a new Comprehensive Change Detection Method (CCDM) designed as a key component for the development of NLCD 2011 and the research results from two exemplar studies. The CCDM integrates spectral-based change detection algorithms including a Multi-Index Integrated Change Analysis (MIICA) model and a novel change model called Zone, which extracts change information from two Landsat image pairs. The MIICA model is the core module of the change detection strategy and uses four spectral indices (CV, RCVMAX, dNBR, and dNDVI) to obtain the changes that occurred between two image dates. The CCDM also includes a knowledge-based system, which uses critical information on historical and current land cover conditions and trends and the likelihood of land cover change, to combine the changes from MIICA and Zone. For NLCD 2011, the improved and enhanced change products obtained from the CCDM provide critical information on location, magnitude, and direction of potential change areas and serve as a basis for further characterizing land cover changes for the nation. An accuracy assessment from the two study areas show 100% agreement between CCDM mapped no-change class with reference dataset, and 18% and 82% disagreement for the change class for WRS path/row p22r39 and p33r33, respectively. The strength of the CCDM is that the method is simple, easy to operate, widely applicable, and capable of capturing a variety of natural and

  20. Rubber and Land-Cover Land-Use Change in Mainland Southeast Asia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fox, J. M.; Hurni, K.

    2017-12-01

    Over the past half century, the five countries of Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA) - Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam - have witnessed major shifts from predominantly subsistence agrarian economies to increasingly commercialized agriculture. Major drivers of change include policy initiatives that fostered regional economic integration and promoted among other changes rapid expansion of boom-crop plantations. Among the many types of commercial boom crops promoted and grown in MSEA are numerous tree-based products such as rubber, coffee, tree species for pulp and paper (particularly eucalyptus and acacia), cashews, and fruits such as oranges, lychees, and longans. The project proposal hypothesized that most (but not all) tree crops replaced swidden cultivation fields and hence are not necessarily accompanied by deforestation. We used MODIS EVI and SWIR time-series from 2001-2014 to classify changes in tree cover across MSEA; a total of 6849 sample points were used to train the classifier (75%) and verification (25%). The classification consists of 24 classes and 17 classes represent tree crops. Project results suggest that 4.4 m ha of rubber have been planted since 2003; 50% of rubber is planted on former evergreen forest land, 18% on deciduous forest land, and 32% on low vegetation area (former crop lands, bushes, scrub). Tree crops occupy about 8% of the landscape (half of that is rubber). Due to the differences in their political and economic histories these countries display different LCLUCs. In northern Laos, smallholder rubber plantations dominate and shifting cultivation is common in the upland. In southern Laos, large-scale plantations of rubber, coffee, eucalyptus, and sugarcane are widespread. In Thailand, vast areas are covered by annual agriculture; fruit trees and rubber are the prevailing tree crops and are mostly planted by smallholders. In Cambodia, large-scale rubber plantations have expanded in recent years on forest lands; smallholder

  1. Land-use and Land-cover Change from 1974 to 2008 around Mobile Bay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ellis, Jean; Spruce, Joseph; Smoot, James; Hilbert, Kent; Swann, Roberta

    2008-01-01

    This project is a Gulf of Mexico Application Pilot in which NASA Stennis Space Center (SSC) is working within a regional collaboration network of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance. NASA researchers, with support from the NASA SSC Applied Science Program Steering Committee, employed multi-temporal Landsat data to assess land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes in the coastal counties of Mobile and Baldwin, AL, between 1974 and 2008. A multi-decadal time-series, coastal LULC product unique to NASA SSC was produced. The geographic extent and nature of change was quantified for the open water, barren, upland herbaceous, non-woody wetland, upland forest, woody wetland, and urban landscapes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Coastal Development Data Center (NCDDC) will assist with the transition of the final product to the operational end user, which primarily is the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program (MBNEP). We found substantial LULC change over the 34-year study period, much more than is evident when the change occurring in the last years. Between 1974 and 2008, the upland forest landscape lost almost 6% of the total acreage, while urban land cover increased by slightly more than 3%. With exception to open water, upland forest is the dominant landscape, accounting for about 25-30% of the total area.

  2. Inventory and change detection of urban land cover in Illinois using Landsat Thematic Mapper data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cook, E.A.; Iverson, L.R.

    1991-01-01

    In order to provide information about urban forests and other vegetative land cover in Illinois cities, Landsat TM data from June 17, 1988, were classified for the Chicago metropolitan region and five urban areas of central Illinois. Ten land cover classes were identified, including three types of forestland, cropland, two grassland categories, two urban classes, water, and miscellaneous vegetation. The cities inventoried have a significantly higher proportion of forests and forested residential areas than the surrounding rural areas because of preservation measures and accruement of tree cover from landscaping. Short-term change in land cover for the Chicago region was also assessed by postclassification comparison of the 1988 data with similarly derived data from a June 3, 1985, TM scene. The largest single category of change in the six-county area was cropland to urban land use. A majority of cover loss was conversion of forested tracts to residential areas, and forest cover increase was negligible. 16 refs

  3. National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Percent Tree Canopy Collection

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Percent Tree Canopy Collection is a product of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and is produced through a cooperative project...

  4. Effect of Feature Dimensionality on Object-based Land Cover ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Myburgh, G, Mnr

    features, it has not been demonstrated with land cover mapping in an ... classifiers were chosen for benchmarking as the latter is the most commonly .... Additional open-source libraries were acquired to complete the implementation of the.

  5. Clifton, AZ 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  6. Tularosa, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  7. Gallup, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  8. Clifton, AZ 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  9. Albuquerque, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  10. Douglas, AZ 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  11. Gallup, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  12. Roswell, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  13. Socorro, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  14. Douglas, AZ 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  15. Roswell, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  16. Shiprock, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  17. Aztec, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  18. Aztec, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  19. Socorro, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  20. Carlsbad, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  1. Raton, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  2. Shiprock, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  3. Albuquerque, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  4. Raton, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  5. Carlsbad, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  6. Tularosa, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  7. Assessing changes in the value of ecosystem services in response to land-use/land-cover dynamics in Nigeria.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arowolo, Aisha Olushola; Deng, Xiangzheng; Olatunji, Olusanya Abiodun; Obayelu, Abiodun Elijah

    2018-09-15

    Increasing human activities worldwide have significantly altered the natural ecosystems and consequently, the services they provide. This is no exception in Nigeria, where land-use/land-cover has undergone a series of dramatic changes over the years mainly due to the ever-growing large population. However, estimating the impact of such changes on a wide range of ecosystem services is seldom attempted. Thus, on the basis of GlobeLand30 land-cover maps for 2000 and 2010 and using the value transfer methodology, we evaluated changes in the value of ecosystem services in response to land-use/land-cover dynamics in Nigeria. The results showed that over the 10-year period, cultivated land sprawl over the forests and savannahs was predominant, and occurred mainly in the northern region of the country. During this period, we calculated an increase in the total ecosystem services value (ESV) in Nigeria from 665.93 billion (2007 US$) in 2000 to 667.44 billion (2007 US$) in 2010, 97.38% of which was contributed by cultivated land. The value of provisioning services increased while regulation, support, recreation and culture services decreased, amongst which, water regulation (-11.01%), gas regulation (-7.13%), cultural (-4.84%) and climate regulation (-4.3%) ecosystem functions are estimated as the most impacted. The increase in the total ESV in Nigeria associated with the huge increase in ecosystem services due to cultivated land expansion may make land-use changes (i.e. the ever-increasing agricultural expansion in Nigeria) appear economically profitable. However, continuous loss of services such as climate and water regulation that are largely provided by the natural ecosystems can result in huge economic losses that may exceed the apparent gains from cultivated land development. Therefore, we advocate that the conservation of the natural ecosystem should be a priority in future land-use management in Nigeria, a country highly vulnerable to climate change and incessantly

  8. Generation and Assessment of Urban Land Cover Maps Using High-Resolution Multispectral Aerial Images

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Höhle, Joachim; Höhle, Michael

    2013-01-01

    a unique method for the automatic generation of urban land cover maps. In the present paper, imagery of a new medium-format aerial camera and advanced geoprocessing software are applied to derive normalized digital surface models and vegetation maps. These two intermediate products then become input...... to a tree structured classifier, which automatically derives land cover maps in 2D or 3D. We investigate the thematic accuracy of the produced land cover map by a class-wise stratified design and provide a method for deriving necessary sample sizes. Corresponding survey adjusted accuracy measures...... and their associated confidence intervals are used to adequately reflect uncertainty in the assessment based on the chosen sample size. Proof of concept for the method is given for an urban area in Switzerland. Here, the produced land cover map with six classes (building, wall and carport, road and parking lot, hedge...

  9. Investigation of accuracy of CORINE 2006 land cover data used in watershed studies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ayhan Ateşoğlu

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available There have been many studies concerning the use of sustainable natural resources. The planning concerning the results of watershed-based studies is made for the future. The issue to be considered in these studies, is obtaining accurate data. The most important data of the studies in the watershed basin is obtaining land cover/use data. Land cover / land classification done by using remote sensing and GIS and monitoring the change periodically are both easy and economical. To this end, CORINE (Coordination of Information on the Environment land cover program was initiated by The European Commission (CEC. The accuracy of CORINE 2006 land cover data was evaluated using high resolution Google Earth data in two separate test areas located in the Black Sea and Central Anatolia region. Random 5000 points for each test area were assigned to classes according to the CORINE classification method using Google Earth and were compared with the CORINE 2006 data. The accuracy of first test area in Black Sea region was calculated as 51.80% the accuracy of second test area in Central Anatolia region was calculated as 55.32%. For each test area, CORINE 2006 data has not been found to be up to date and has been detected to have low accuracy.

  10. Ecosystem services from converted land: the importance of tree cover in Amazonian pastures

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barrett, Kirsten; Valentim, Judson; Turner, B. L.

    2013-01-01

    Deforestation is responsible for a substantial fraction of global carbon emissions and changes in surface energy budgets that affect climate. Deforestation losses include wildlife and human habitat, and myriad forest products on which rural and urban societies depend for food, fiber, fuel, fresh water, medicine, and recreation. Ecosystem services gained in the transition from forests to pasture and croplands, however, are often ignored in assessments of the impact of land cover change. The role of converted lands in tropical areas in terms of carbon uptake and storage is largely unknown. Pastures represent the fastest-growing form of converted land use in the tropics, even in some areas of rapid urban expansion. Tree biomass stored in these areas spans a broad range, depending on tree cover. Trees in pasture increase carbon storage, provide shade for cattle, and increase productivity of forage material. As a result, increasing fractional tree cover can provide benefits land managers as well as important ecosystem services such as reducing conversion pressure on forests adjacent to pastures. This study presents an estimation of fractional tree cover in pasture in a dynamic region on the verge of large-scale land use change. An appropriate sampling interval is established for similar studies, one that balances the need for independent samples of sufficient number to characterize a pasture in terms of fractional tree cover. This information represents a useful policy tool for government organizations and NGOs interested in encouraging ecosystem services on converted lands. Using high spatial resolution remotely sensed imagery, fractional tree cover in pasture is quantified for the municipality of Rio Branco, Brazil. A semivariogram and devolving spatial resolution are employed to determine the coarsest sampling interval that may be used, minimizing effects of spatial autocorrelation. The coarsest sampling interval that minimizes spatial dependence was about 22 m. The

  11. Integration of land use and land cover inventories for landscape management and planning in Italy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sallustio, Lorenzo; Munafò, Michele; Riitano, Nicola; Lasserre, Bruno; Fattorini, Lorenzo; Marchetti, Marco

    2016-01-01

    There are both semantic and technical differences between land use (LU) and land cover (LC) measurements. In cartographic approaches, these differences are often neglected, giving rise to a hybrid classification. The aim of this paper is to provide a better understanding and characterization of the two classification schemes using a comparison that allows maximization of the informative power of both. The analysis was carried out in the Molise region (Central Italy) using sample information from the Italian Land Use Inventory (IUTI). The sampling points were classified with a visual interpretation of aerial photographs for both LU and LC in order to estimate surfaces and assess the changes that occurred between 2000 and 2012. The results underscore the polarization of land use and land cover changes resulting from the following: (a) recolonization of natural surfaces, (b) strong dynamisms between the LC classes in the natural and semi-natural domain and (c) urban sprawl on the lower hills and plains. Most of the observed transitions are attributable to decreases in croplands, natural grasslands and pastures, owing to agricultural abandonment. The results demonstrate that a comparison between LU and LC estimates and their changes provides an understanding of the causes of misalignment between the two criteria. Such information may be useful for planning policies in both natural and semi-natural contexts as well as in urban areas.

  12. Land-Cover Change Analysis and Simulation in Conakry (Guinea, Using Hybrid Cellular-Automata and Markov Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arafan Traore

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available In this study, land-cover change in the capital Conakry of Guinea was simulated using the integrated Cellular Automata and Markov model (CA-Markov in the Geographic Information System (GIS and Remote Sensing (RS. Historical land-cover change information was derived from 1986, 2000 and 2016 Landsat data. Using the land-cover change maps of 1986 and 2000, the land-cover change map for 2016 was simulated based on the Markov model in IDRISSI software (Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA. The simulated result was compared with the 2016 land-cover map for validation using the Relative Operating Characteristic (ROC. The ROC result showed a very strong agreement between the two maps. From this result, the land-cover change map for 2025 was simulated using CA-Markov model. The result has indicated that the proportion of the urban area was 49% in 2016, and it is expected to increase to 52% by 2025, while vegetation will decrease from 35% in 2016 to 32% in 2025. This study suggests that the rapid land-cover change has been led by both rapid population growth and extreme poverty in rural areas, which will result in migration into Conakry. The results of this study will provide bases for assessing the sustainability and the management of the urban area and for taking actions to mitigate the degradation of the urban environment.

  13. Geospatial Analysis of Land Use and Land Cover Transitions from 1986–2014 in a Peri-Urban Ghana

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Divine Odame Appiah

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Recently, peri-urbanisation has led to the transformation of the rural landscape, changing rural land uses into peri-urban land uses, under varying driving factors. This paper analyzes the dynamic transitions among identified land use and land cover (LULC types in the Bosomtwe district of Ghana, from 1986 to 2014. An integrated approach of geo-information tools of satellite remote sensing in Earth Resource Data Analysis System (ERDAS Imagine 13 and ArcMap 10.2 Geographic Information System (GIS, with Markov chain analytical techniques were used to examine the combined forest land cover transitions, relative to build-up, recent fallows and grasslands and projected possible factors influencing the transitions under business as usual and unusual situations. Statistical analyses of the classified Landsat TM, ETM+ and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor (OLI/TIS indicated that over the period of 24 years, the Bosomtwe district has undergone a series of land use conversions with remarkable forest losses especially between 2002 and 2010. In 2010 dense forest cover was degraded to low forest by 4040 ha indicating 0.40% transition probability in the future. There was a remarkable increase of built-up/bare and concrete area with a 380% increment in the 1986–2002 transition periods. The application of the Markov futuristic land use dynamics by the years 2018 and 2028, projected from the 2014 LULC indicated a future steady decline in the area coverage of the dense forest to low forest category. This is currently being driven (as at the 2017 LULC trends, by the combined effects of increasing build up bare and concrete surface land uses as well as the expanding recent fallows and grassland. The paper concluded that the health of the ecosystem and biodiversity of the lake Bosomtwe need to be sustainably managed by the Bosomtwe district assembly.

  14. NASA Land Cover and Land Use Change (LCLUC): an interdisciplinary research program.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Justice, Chris; Gutman, Garik; Vadrevu, Krishna Prasad

    2015-01-15

    Understanding Land Cover/Land Use Change (LCLUC) in diverse regions of the world and at varied spatial scales is one of the important challenges in global change research. In this article, we provide a brief overview of the NASA LCLUC program, its focus areas, and the importance of satellite remote sensing observations in LCLUC research including future directions. The LCLUC Program was designed to be a cross-cutting theme within NASA's Earth Science program. The program aims to develop and use remote sensing technologies to improve understanding of human interactions with the environment. Since 1997, the NASA LCLUC program has supported nearly 280 research projects on diverse topics such as forest loss and carbon, urban expansion, land abandonment, wetland loss, agricultural land use change and land use change in mountain systems. The NASA LCLUC program emphasizes studies where land-use changes are rapid or where there are significant regional or global LCLUC implications. Over a period of years, the LCLUC program has contributed to large regional science programs such as Land Biosphere-Atmosphere (LBA), the Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI), and the Monsoon Area Integrated Regional Study (MAIRS). The primary emphasis of the program will remain on using remote sensing datasets for LCLUC research. The program will continue to emphasize integration of physical and social sciences to address regional to global scale issues of LCLUC for the benefit of society. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  15. Modeling Historical Land Cover and Land Use: A Review fromContemporary Modeling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laura Alfonsina Chang-Martínez

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Spatially-explicit land cover land use change (LCLUC models are becoming increasingly useful tools for historians and archaeologists. Such kinds of models have been developed and used by geographers, ecologists and land managers over the last few decades to carry out prospective scenarios. In this paper, we review historical models to compare them with prospective models, with the assumption that the ample experience gained in the development of models of prospective simulation can benefit the development of models having as their objective the simulation of changes that happened in the past. The review is divided into three sections: in the first section, we explain the functioning of contemporary LCLUC models; in the second section, we analyze historical LCLUC models; in the third section, we compare the former two types of models, and finally, we discuss the contributions to historical LCLUC models of contemporary LCLUC models.

  16. Land-use and land-cover change carbon emissions between 1901 and 2012 constrained by biomass observations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wei Li; Philippe Ciais; Shushi Peng; Chao Yue; Yilong Wang; Martin Thurner; Sassan S. Saatchi; Almut Arneth; Valerio Avitabile; Nuno Carvalhais; Anna B. Harper; Etsushi Kato; Charles Koven; Yi Y. Liu; Julia E. M. S. Nabel; Yude Pan; Julia Pongratz; Benjamin Poulter; Thomas A. M. Pugh; Maurizio Santoro; Stephen Sitch; Benjamin D. Stocker; Nicolas Viovy; Andy Wiltshire; Rasoul Yousefpour; Sönke Zaehle

    2017-01-01

    The use of dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) to estimate CO2 emissions from land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) offers a new window to account for spatial and temporal details of emissions and for ecosystem processes affected by LULCC. One drawback of LULCC emissions from DGVMs, however, is lack of observation constraint. Here, we...

  17. Monitoring urban expansion and its effects on land use and land cover changes in Guangzhou city, China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Yanyan; Li, Shuyuan; Yu, Shixiao

    2016-01-01

    There are widespread concerns about urban sprawl in China. In response, modeling and assessing urban expansion and subsequent land use and land cover (LULC) changes have become important approaches to support decisions about appropriate development and land resource use. Guangzhou, a major metropolitan city in South China, has experienced rapid urbanization and great economic growth in the past few decades. This study applied a series of Landsat images to assess the urban expansion and subsequent LULC changes over 35 years, from 1979 to 2013. From start to end, urban expansion increased by 1512.24 km(2) with an annual growth rate of 11.25 %. There were four stages of urban growth: low rates from 1979 to 1990, increased rates from 1990 to 2001, high rates from 2001 to 2009, and steady increased rates from 2009 to 2013. There were also three different urban growth types in these different stages: edge-expansion growth, infilling growth, and spontaneous growth. Other land cover, such as cropland, forest, and mosaics of cropland and natural vegetation, were severely impacted as a result. To analyze these changes, we used landscape metrics to characterize the changes in the spatial patterns across the Guangzhou landscape and the impacts of urban growth on other types of land cover. The significant changes in LULC and urban expansion were highly correlated with economic development, population growth, technical progress, policy elements, and other similar indexes.

  18. Tropical Montane Cloud Forests: Hydrometeorological variability in three neighbouring catchments with different forest cover

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramírez, Beatriz H.; Teuling, Adriaan J.; Ganzeveld, Laurens; Hegger, Zita; Leemans, Rik

    2017-09-01

    Mountain areas are characterized by a large heterogeneity in hydrological and meteorological conditions. This heterogeneity is currently poorly represented by gauging networks and by the coarse scale of global and regional climate and hydrological models. Tropical Montane Cloud Forests (TMCFs) are found in a narrow elevation range and are characterized by persistent fog. Their water balance depends on local and upwind temperatures and moisture, therefore, changes in these parameters will alter TMCF hydrology. Until recently the hydrological functioning of TMCFs was mainly studied in coastal regions, while continental TMCFs were largely ignored. This study contributes to fill this gap by focusing on a TMCF which is located on the northern eastern Andes at an elevation of 1550-2300 m asl, in the Orinoco river basin highlands. In this study, we describe the spatial and seasonal meteorological variability, analyse the corresponding catchment hydrological response to different land cover, and perform a sensitivity analysis on uncertainties related to rainfall interpolation, catchment area estimation and streamflow measurements. Hydro-meteorological measurements, including hourly solar radiation, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, precipitation, soil moisture and streamflow, were collected from June 2013 to May 2014 at three gauged neighbouring catchments with contrasting TMCF/grassland cover and less than 250 m elevation difference. We found wetter and less seasonally contrasting conditions at higher elevations, indicating a positive relation between elevation and fog or rainfall persistence. This pattern is similar to that of other eastern Andean TMCFs, however, the study site had higher wet season rainfall and lower dry season rainfall suggesting that upwind contrasts in land cover and moisture can influence the meteorological conditions at eastern Andean TMCFs. Contrasting streamflow dynamics between the studied catchments reflect the overall system response

  19. Assessing the Accuracy of MODIS-NDVI Derived Land-Cover Across the Great Lakes Basin

    Science.gov (United States)

    This research describes the accuracy assessment process for a land-cover dataset developed for the Great Lakes Basin (GLB). This land-cover dataset was developed from the 2007 MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) 16-day composite (MOD13Q) 250 m time-series data. Tr...

  20. Mapping land cover change over continental Africa using Landsat and Google Earth Engine cloud computing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Midekisa, Alemayehu; Holl, Felix; Savory, David J; Andrade-Pacheco, Ricardo; Gething, Peter W; Bennett, Adam; Sturrock, Hugh J W

    2017-01-01

    Quantifying and monitoring the spatial and temporal dynamics of the global land cover is critical for better understanding many of the Earth's land surface processes. However, the lack of regularly updated, continental-scale, and high spatial resolution (30 m) land cover data limit our ability to better understand the spatial extent and the temporal dynamics of land surface changes. Despite the free availability of high spatial resolution Landsat satellite data, continental-scale land cover mapping using high resolution Landsat satellite data was not feasible until now due to the need for high-performance computing to store, process, and analyze this large volume of high resolution satellite data. In this study, we present an approach to quantify continental land cover and impervious surface changes over a long period of time (15 years) using high resolution Landsat satellite observations and Google Earth Engine cloud computing platform. The approach applied here to overcome the computational challenges of handling big earth observation data by using cloud computing can help scientists and practitioners who lack high-performance computational resources.

  1. A web-based system for supporting global land cover data production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Gang; Chen, Jun; He, Chaoying; Li, Songnian; Wu, Hao; Liao, Anping; Peng, Shu

    2015-05-01

    Global land cover (GLC) data production and verification process is very complicated, time consuming and labor intensive, requiring huge amount of imagery data and ancillary data and involving many people, often from different geographic locations. The efficient integration of various kinds of ancillary data and effective collaborative classification in large area land cover mapping requires advanced supporting tools. This paper presents the design and development of a web-based system for supporting 30-m resolution GLC data production by combining geo-spatial web-service and Computer Support Collaborative Work (CSCW) technology. Based on the analysis of the functional and non-functional requirements from GLC mapping, a three tiers system model is proposed with four major parts, i.e., multisource data resources, data and function services, interactive mapping and production management. The prototyping and implementation of the system have been realised by a combination of Open Source Software (OSS) and commercially available off-the-shelf system. This web-based system not only facilitates the integration of heterogeneous data and services required by GLC data production, but also provides online access, visualization and analysis of the images, ancillary data and interim 30 m global land-cover maps. The system further supports online collaborative quality check and verification workflows. It has been successfully applied to China's 30-m resolution GLC mapping project, and has improved significantly the efficiency of GLC data production and verification. The concepts developed through this study should also benefit other GLC or regional land-cover data production efforts.

  2. Towards automated statewide land cover mapping in Wisconsin using satellite remote sensing and GIS techniques

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cosentino, B.L.; Lillesand, T.M.

    1991-01-01

    Attention is given to an initial research project being performed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Environmental Remote Sensing Center in conjunction with seven local, state, and federal agencies to implement automated statewide land cover mapping using satellite remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS) techniques. The basis, progress, and future research needs for this mapping program are presented. The research efforts are directed toward strategies that integrate satellite remote sensing and GIS techniques in the generation of land cover data for multiple users of land cover information. The project objectives are to investigate methodologies that integrate satellite data with other imagery and spatial data resident in emerging GISs in the state for particular program needs, and to develop techniques that can improve automated land cover mapping efficiency and accuracy. 10 refs

  3. Determining Topographic and Some Physical Characteristics of the Land in Artvin City and Investigating Relationship between These Characteristics with Land Cover

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ayşe Yavuz Özalp

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available In this study, the aim was to determine topographic (elevation, slope, and aspect and some physical (Great Soil Groups (GSG and Land Use Capability Classes (LUCC characteristics of the land in Artvin and to reveal relations between these characteristics and land cover of the city that lies along the northeast border of Turkey and due to its natural resources, consists of several protected areas as well as many development projects -both planned and ongoing. Within this scope, areal and percentile distributions in respect to slope, aspect, elevation, GSG, LUCC and land cover were determined for eight towns of Artvin using digitized 1/25000 topographic and soil maps along with CORINE 2006 land cover map with the help of Geographical Information System (GIS. Then, distributions of chosen land use types (forest, agriculture, grassland/meadow were investigated according to the determined-ranges for the parameters of slope, aspect, elevation, GSG, and LUCC. The results showed that about 48.22% of Artvin’s whole land is between an elevation ranges of 1000 – 2000 m while 31.07% of the land lies above 2000 m. Moreover, average elevation of all the towns, except for Hopa, is over the country’s mean elevation of 1132 m and 81.25% of the city’s land consists of more than 30% slope, meaning that topography of the land in Artvin

  4. EnviroAtlas - Percent Land Cover with Potentially Restorable Wetlands on Agricultural Land per 12-Digit HUC - Contiguous United States

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset shows the percent land cover with potentially restorable wetlands on agricultural land for each 12-digit Hydrologic Unit (HUC) watershed in...

  5. IDENTIFICATION OF LAND COVER IN THE PAST USING INFRARED IMAGES AT PRESENT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. Šafář

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Czech landscape is an old residential area used by humans since ancient times. People have influenced it since their arrival and various activities in different periods create landscape layers called a palimpsest. Land Cover of one location could have changed several times. The most important reason is meandering and subsequent straightening of rivers, deforestation, relocation and change in soil layers. These changes in the past affected the present management and it is important to identify them. A suitable tool for the determination of different sites is remote sensing in the infrared spectrum, which monitors changes in the vegetation with the support of archival materials. After identifying the different places you can search the archival materials, how the land cover looked in the past. There have been used these archival materials: maps II. and III. military mapping, basic maps and other maps and historical orthophotomap. Czech Republic has a national archive of aerial photographs with aerial photographs from the thirties of the last century maintained by MGHO Dobruska. A comparative analysis of Land Cover shows the increases and decreases in agricultural land, changes in communication line elements, forest losses and increases, comparing the legal and actual status of the forest boundaries and their changes over time, changes in the built areas and links to the surrounding countryside. Land Cover of this study was created primarily with a visual interpretation of each area with their vectorization and assigning attributes to these areas and then comparing each of archival materials.

  6. Generation of Land Cover Maps Using High-Resolution Multispectral Aerial Cameras

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Höhle, Joachim

    2013-01-01

    . The classification had an overall accuracy of 79%. Suggestions for the improvements in the applied methodology are made. The potential of land cover maps lies in updating of topographic databases, quality control of maps, studies of town development, and other geo-spatial domain applications. The automatic...... for classification of land cover. A high degree of automation can be achieved. The obtained results of a practical example are checked with reference values derived from ortho-images in natural colour and from colour images using stereo-vision. An error matrix is applied in the evaluation of the results...

  7. Corine land cover change detection in Europe (case studies of the Netherlands and Slovakia)

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Feranec, J.; Hazeu, G.W.; Christensen, S.; Jaffrain, G.

    2007-01-01

    We present a land cover change detection methodology in the framework of the IMAGE and CORINE Land Cover 2000 (I&CLC2000) project managed jointly by the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen, Denmark and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Ispra, Italy. The generated data

  8. Land use/ land cover and ecosystem functions change in the grassland restoration program areas in China from 2000 to 2010

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, H.; Fan, J.

    2015-12-01

    The grassland restoration areas in China, most of which was located in arid and semi-arid areas, are affected by climate change and anthropogenic activities. Using the 3S (RS, GIS, GPS) technologies, quantitative analysis method of landscape patterns and ecological simulation, this study examines the spatiotemporal characteristics of land use/ land cover and ecosystem functions change in the grassland restoration areas in China from 2000 to 2010. We apply two parameters land use transfer matrix and land use dynamic degree to explore the speed and regional differentiation of land use change. We propose vegetation coverage, net primary production (NPP), soil and water conservation capacity to assess the ecosystem functions. This study analyzes the characteristics of landscape patterns at the class and landscape levels and explores the ecological effect of land use pattern and regional ecological processes. The results show that: (1) Grassland and others were the main landscape types in the study area in the past decade. The ecosystem structure was stable. About 0.37% of the total grassland area in 2000 experienced change in land use / land cover types. The area of woodlands, wetlands, farmlands, and built-up areas expanded. The area of others has declined. (2) The dynamic degree of regional land use was less than one percent in the recent ten years. The speed of land use and land cover change was low, and regional differentiation of change between the provinces was small. (3) The matrix of the landscape did not change in the study area. Landscape fragmentation index values decreased progressively; landscape diversity rose continuously; landscape aggregation and continuity decreased slightly; the landscape maintained relative integrity. (4) Ecosystem functions has increased as a whole. The vegetation coverages with significant increase (with a 1.99% yr-1 slope of regression) in the total study area; NPP has a fluctuating and increasing tendency, ranging from 218.23 g

  9. PRESENTATION ON--LAND-COVER CHANGE DETECTION USING MULTI-TEMPORAL MODIS NDVI DATA

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monitoring the locations and distributions of land-cover changes is important for establishing linkages between policy decisions, regulatory actions and subsequent landuse activities. Past efforts incorporating two-date change detection using moderate resolution data (e.g., Lands...

  10. Estimation of evapotranspiration across the conterminous United States using a regression with climate and land-cover data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sanford, Ward E.; Selnick, David L.

    2013-01-01

    Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important quantity for water resource managers to know because it often represents the largest sink for precipitation (P) arriving at the land surface. In order to estimate actual ET across the conterminous United States (U.S.) in this study, a water-balance method was combined with a climate and land-cover regression equation. Precipitation and streamflow records were compiled for 838 watersheds for 1971-2000 across the U.S. to obtain long-term estimates of actual ET. A regression equation was developed that related the ratio ET/P to climate and land-cover variables within those watersheds. Precipitation and temperatures were used from the PRISM climate dataset, and land-cover data were used from the USGS National Land Cover Dataset. Results indicate that ET can be predicted relatively well at a watershed or county scale with readily available climate variables alone, and that land-cover data can also improve those predictions. Using the climate and land-cover data at an 800-m scale and then averaging to the county scale, maps were produced showing estimates of ET and ET/P for the entire conterminous U.S. Using the regression equation, such maps could also be made for more detailed state coverages, or for other areas of the world where climate and land-cover data are plentiful.

  11. Scenario Simulation and the Prediction of Land Use and Land Cover Change in Beijing, China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huiran Han

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Land use and land cover (LULC models are essential for analyzing LULC change and predicting land use requirements and are valuable for guiding reasonable land use planning and management. However, each LULC model has its own advantages and constraints. In this paper, we explore the characteristics of LULC change and simulate future land use demand by combining a CLUE-S model with a Markov model to deal with some shortcomings of existing LULC models. Using Beijing as a case study, we describe the related driving factors from land-adaptive variables, regional spatial variables and socio-economic variables and then simulate future land use scenarios from 2010 to 2020, which include a development scenario (natural development and rapid development and protection scenarios (ecological and cultivated land protection. The results indicate good consistency between predicted results and actual land use situations according to a Kappa statistic. The conversion of cultivated land to urban built-up land will form the primary features of LULC change in the future. The prediction for land use demand shows the differences under different scenarios. At higher elevations, the geographical environment limits the expansion of urban built-up land, but the conversion of cultivated land to built-up land in mountainous areas will be more prevalent by 2020; Beijing, however, still faces the most pressure in terms of ecological and cultivated land protection.

  12. Simulation of regional temperature change effect of land cover change in agroforestry ecotone of Nenjiang River Basin in China

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Tingxiang; Zhang, Shuwen; Yu, Lingxue; Bu, Kun; Yang, Jiuchun; Chang, Liping

    2017-05-01

    The Northeast China is one of typical regions experiencing intensive human activities within short time worldwide. Particularly, as the significant changes of agriculture land and forest, typical characteristics of pattern and process of agroforestry ecotone change formed in recent decades. The intensive land use change of agroforestry ecotone has made significant change for regional land cover, which had significant impact on the regional climate system elements and the interactions among them. This paper took agroforestry ecotone of Nenjiang River Basin in China as study region and simulated temperature change based on land cover change from 1950s to 1978 and from 1978 to 2010. The analysis of temperature difference sensitivity to land cover change based on Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model showed that the land cover change from 1950s to 1978 induced warming effect over all the study area, including the change of grassland to agriculture land, grassland to deciduous broad-leaved forest, and deciduous broad-leaved forest to shrub land. The land cover change from 1978 to 2010 induced cooling effect over all the study area, including the change of deciduous broad-leaved forest to agriculture land, grassland to agriculture land, shrub land to agriculture land, and deciduous broad-leaved forest to grassland. In addition, the warming and cooling effect of land cover change was more significant in the region scale than specific land cover change area.

  13. An Operational Framework for Land Cover Classification in the Context of REDD+ Mechanisms. A Case Study from Costa Rica

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alfredo Fernández-Landa

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available REDD+ implementation requires robust, consistent, accurate and transparent national land cover historical data and monitoring systems. Satellite imagery is the only data source with enough periodicity to provide consistent land cover information in a cost-effective way. The main aim of this paper is the creation of an operational framework for monitoring land cover dynamics based on Landsat imagery and open-source software. The methodology integrates the entire land cover and land cover change mapping processes to produce a consistent series of Land Cover maps. The consistency of the time series is achieved through the application of a single trained machine learning algorithm to radiometrically normalized imagery using iteratively re-weighted multivariate alteration detection (IR-MAD across all dates of the historical period. As a result, seven individual Land Cover maps of Costa Rica were produced from 1985/1986 to 2013/2014. Post-classification land cover change detection was performed to evaluate the land cover dynamics in Costa Rica. The validation of the land cover maps showed an overall accuracy of 87% for the 2013/2014 map, 93% for the 2000/2001 map and 89% for the 1985/1986 map. Land cover changes between forest and non-forest classes were validated for the period between 2001 and 2011, obtaining an overall accuracy of 86%. Forest age-classes were generated through a multi-temporal analysis of the maps. By linking deforestation dynamics with forest age, a more accurate discussion of the carbon emissions along the time series can be presented.

  14. Louisiana Land Cover Data Set, UTM Zone 15 NAD83, USGS [landcover_la_nlcd_usgs_2001.tif

    Data.gov (United States)

    Louisiana Geographic Information Center — The National Land Cover Database 2001 land cover layer for mapping zone 37A was produced through a cooperative project conducted by the Multi-Resolution Land...

  15. Using remote sensing and GIS to detect and monitor land use and land cover change in Dhaka Metropolitan of Bangladesh during 1960-2005.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dewan, Ashraf M; Yamaguchi, Yasushi

    2009-03-01

    This paper illustrates the result of land use/cover change in Dhaka Metropolitan of Bangladesh using topographic maps and multi-temporal remotely sensed data from 1960 to 2005. The Maximum likelihood supervised classification technique was used to extract information from satellite data, and post-classification change detection method was employed to detect and monitor land use/cover change. Derived land use/cover maps were further validated by using high resolution images such as SPOT, IRS, IKONOS and field data. The overall accuracy of land cover change maps, generated from Landsat and IRS-1D data, ranged from 85% to 90%. The analysis indicated that the urban expansion of Dhaka Metropolitan resulted in the considerable reduction of wetlands, cultivated land, vegetation and water bodies. The maps showed that between 1960 and 2005 built-up areas increased approximately 15,924 ha, while agricultural land decreased 7,614 ha, vegetation decreased 2,336 ha, wetland/lowland decreased 6,385 ha, and water bodies decreased about 864 ha. The amount of urban land increased from 11% (in 1960) to 344% in 2005. Similarly, the growth of landfill/bare soils category was about 256% in the same period. Much of the city's rapid growth in population has been accommodated in informal settlements with little attempt being made to limit the risk of environmental impairments. The study quantified the patterns of land use/cover change for the last 45 years for Dhaka Metropolitan that forms valuable resources for urban planners and decision makers to devise sustainable land use and environmental planning.

  16. Effects of rainfall patterns and land cover on the subsurface flow generation of sloping Ferralsols in southern China.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jian Duan

    Full Text Available Rainfall patterns and land cover are two important factors that affect the runoff generation process. To determine the surface and subsurface flows associated with different rainfall patterns on sloping Ferralsols under different land cover types, observational data related to surface and subsurface flows from 5 m × 15 m plots were collected from 2010 to 2012. The experiment was conducted to assess three land cover types (grass, litter cover and bare land in the Jiangxi Provincial Soil and Water Conservation Ecological Park. During the study period, 114 natural rainfall events produced subsurface flow and were divided into four groups using k-means clustering according to rainfall duration, rainfall depth and maximum 30-min rainfall intensity. The results showed that the total runoff and surface flow values were highest for bare land under all four rainfall patterns and lowest for the covered plots. However, covered plots generated higher subsurface flow values than bare land. Moreover, the surface and subsurface flows associated with the three land cover types differed significantly under different rainfall patterns. Rainfall patterns with low intensities and long durations created more subsurface flow in the grass and litter cover types, whereas rainfall patterns with high intensities and short durations resulted in greater surface flow over bare land. Rainfall pattern I had the highest surface and subsurface flow values for the grass cover and litter cover types. The highest surface flow value and lowest subsurface flow value for bare land occurred under rainfall pattern IV. Rainfall pattern II generated the highest subsurface flow value for bare land. Therefore, grass or litter cover are able to convert more surface flow into subsurface flow under different rainfall patterns. The rainfall patterns studied had greater effects on subsurface flow than on total runoff and surface flow for covered surfaces, as well as a greater effect on surface

  17. Impact of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change on urban air quality in representative cities of China

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, L.; Wei, J.; Duan, D. H.; Guo, Y. M.; Yang, D. X.; Jia, C.; Mi, X. T.

    2016-05-01

    The atmospheric particulate pollution in China is getting worse. Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) is a key factor that affects atmospheric particulate pollution. Understanding the response of particulate pollution to LUCC is necessary for environmental protection. Eight representative cities in China, Qingdao, Jinan, Zhengzhou, Xi'an, Lanzhou, Zhangye, Jiuquan, and Urumqi were selected to analyze the relationship between particulate pollution and LUCC. The MODIS (MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) aerosol product (MOD04) was used to estimate atmospheric particulate pollution for nearly 10 years, from 2001 to 2010. Six land-use types, water, woodland, grassland, cultivated land, urban, and unused land, were obtained from the MODIS land cover product (MOD12), where the LUCC of each category was estimated. The response of particulate pollution to LUCC was analyzed from the above mentioned two types of data. Moreover, the impacts of time-lag and urban type changes on particulate pollution were also considered. Analysis results showed that due to natural factors, or human activities such as urban sprawl or deforestation, etc., the response of particulate pollution to LUCC shows obvious differences in different areas. The correlation between particulate pollution and LUCC is lower in coastal areas but higher in inland areas. The dominant factor affecting urban air quality in LUCC changes from ocean, to woodland, to urban land, and eventually into grassland or unused land when moving from the coast to inland China.

  18. Land cover classification using reformed fuzzy C-means

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    This paper explains the task of land cover classification using reformed fuzzy C means. Clustering is the assignment of objects into groups called clusters so that objects from the same cluster are more similar to each other than objects from different clusters. The most basic attribute for clustering of an image is its luminance ...

  19. Assessing the land cover situation in Surkhang, Upper Mustang, Nepal, using an ASTER image

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sharma, B.D.; Clevers, J.G.P.W.; Graaf, de N.R.; Chapagain, N.R.

    2003-01-01

    This paper describes the remote sensing technique used to prepare a land cover map of Surkhang, Upper Mustang Nepal. The latest ASTER image (October 2002) and an ASTER DEM were used for the land cover classification. The study was carried out in Surkhang Village Development Committee (area 799 km2)

  20. Comparison of Hyperspectral and Multispectral Satellites for Discriminating Land Cover in Northern California

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clark, M. L.; Kilham, N. E.

    2015-12-01

    Land-cover maps are important science products needed for natural resource and ecosystem service management, biodiversity conservation planning, and assessing human-induced and natural drivers of land change. Most land-cover maps at regional to global scales are produced with remote sensing techniques applied to multispectral satellite imagery with 30-500 m pixel sizes (e.g., Landsat, MODIS). Hyperspectral, or imaging spectrometer, imagery measuring the visible to shortwave infrared regions (VSWIR) of the spectrum have shown impressive capacity to map plant species and coarser land-cover associations, yet techniques have not been widely tested at regional and greater spatial scales. The Hyperspectral Infrared Imager (HyspIRI) mission is a VSWIR hyperspectral and thermal satellite being considered for development by NASA. The goal of this study was to assess multi-temporal, HyspIRI-like satellite imagery for improved land cover mapping relative to multispectral satellites. We mapped FAO Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) classes over 22,500 km2 in the San Francisco Bay Area, California using 30-m HyspIRI, Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 imagery simulated from data acquired by NASA's AVIRIS airborne sensor. Random Forests (RF) and Multiple-Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) classifiers were applied to the simulated images and accuracies were compared to those from real Landsat 8 images. The RF classifier was superior to MESMA, and multi-temporal data yielded higher accuracy than summer-only data. With RF, hyperspectral data had overall accuracy of 72.2% and 85.1% with full 20-class and reduced 12-class schemes, respectively. Multispectral imagery had lower accuracy. For example, simulated and real Landsat data had 7.5% and 4.6% lower accuracy than HyspIRI data with 12 classes, respectively. In summary, our results indicate increased mapping accuracy using HyspIRI multi-temporal imagery, particularly in discriminating different natural vegetation types, such as

  1. Conversion of traditional agricultural land to built-up areas. Land use/cover changes in the municipality of Valencia (1956-2012

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio Valera Lozano

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this study is to understand the land use-cover dynamics from the mid- 1950s to 2012 in the municipality of Valencia, eastern Spain. The study area is a very interesting example of the many land use and land cover changes in the landscape of Mediterranean alluvial plains. The analysis was based on photo interpretation of aerial photographs (1956, 1984, 2006 and 2012 and GIS based methodology. At a detailed scale (1:10,000, results show that there has been a highly dynamic process produced by the extent of land developed as urban area. In 1956 11,112 hectares were occupied by agricultural land and natural areas. During fifty five years, the sealed surface was 2,396 hectares. In 2012 the built-up extent was around 33% of the studied area. In the municipality of Valencia much of the land converted to urban use was once highly productive agricultural land.

  2. Feasibility Study of Land Cover Classification Based on Normalized Difference Vegetation Index for Landslide Risk Assessment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thilanki Dahigamuwa

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Unfavorable land cover leads to excessive damage from landslides and other natural hazards, whereas the presence of vegetation is expected to mitigate rainfall-induced landslide potential. Hence, unexpected and rapid changes in land cover due to deforestation would be detrimental in landslide-prone areas. Also, vegetation cover is subject to phenological variations and therefore, timely classification of land cover is an essential step in effective evaluation of landslide hazard potential. The work presented here investigates methods that can be used for land cover classification based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI, derived from up-to-date satellite images, and the feasibility of application in landslide risk prediction. A major benefit of this method would be the eventual ability to employ NDVI as a stand-alone parameter for accurate assessment of the impact of land cover in landslide hazard evaluation. An added benefit would be the timely detection of undesirable practices such as deforestation using satellite imagery. A landslide-prone region in Oregon, USA is used as a model for the application of the classification method. Five selected classification techniques—k-nearest neighbor, Gaussian support vector machine (GSVM, artificial neural network, decision tree and quadratic discriminant analysis support the viability of the NDVI-based land cover classification. Finally, its application in landslide risk evaluation is demonstrated.

  3. Remote Sensing Based Two-Stage Sampling for Accuracy Assessment and Area Estimation of Land Cover Changes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heinz Gallaun

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Land cover change processes are accelerating at the regional to global level. The remote sensing community has developed reliable and robust methods for wall-to-wall mapping of land cover changes; however, land cover changes often occur at rates below the mapping errors. In the current publication, we propose a cost-effective approach to complement wall-to-wall land cover change maps with a sampling approach, which is used for accuracy assessment and accurate estimation of areas undergoing land cover changes, including provision of confidence intervals. We propose a two-stage sampling approach in order to keep accuracy, efficiency, and effort of the estimations in balance. Stratification is applied in both stages in order to gain control over the sample size allocated to rare land cover change classes on the one hand and the cost constraints for very high resolution reference imagery on the other. Bootstrapping is used to complement the accuracy measures and the area estimates with confidence intervals. The area estimates and verification estimations rely on a high quality visual interpretation of the sampling units based on time series of satellite imagery. To demonstrate the cost-effective operational applicability of the approach we applied it for assessment of deforestation in an area characterized by frequent cloud cover and very low change rate in the Republic of Congo, which makes accurate deforestation monitoring particularly challenging.

  4. A Comparative Study of Land Cover Classification by Using Multispectral and Texture Data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Salman Qadri

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The main objective of this study is to find out the importance of machine vision approach for the classification of five types of land cover data such as bare land, desert rangeland, green pasture, fertile cultivated land, and Sutlej river land. A novel spectra-statistical framework is designed to classify the subjective land cover data types accurately. Multispectral data of these land covers were acquired by using a handheld device named multispectral radiometer in the form of five spectral bands (blue, green, red, near infrared, and shortwave infrared while texture data were acquired with a digital camera by the transformation of acquired images into 229 texture features for each image. The most discriminant 30 features of each image were obtained by integrating the three statistical features selection techniques such as Fisher, Probability of Error plus Average Correlation, and Mutual Information (F + PA + MI. Selected texture data clustering was verified by nonlinear discriminant analysis while linear discriminant analysis approach was applied for multispectral data. For classification, the texture and multispectral data were deployed to artificial neural network (ANN: n-class. By implementing a cross validation method (80-20, we received an accuracy of 91.332% for texture data and 96.40% for multispectral data, respectively.

  5. Assessing the impact of land use/land cover and climate changes on water stress in the derived savanna

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Amidu, A

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Understanding the impact of land use/land cover (LULC) and climate patterns on basin runoff is necessary in assessing basin water stress. This assessment requires long-term observed rainfall time series and LULC spatial data. In order to assess...

  6. Data Mining Relationships Among Urban Socioeconomic, Land Cover, and Remotely Sensed Ecological Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mennis, J.; Wessman, C.; Golubiewski, N.

    2003-12-01

    This research investigates the relationships among socioeconomic character, land cover, and ecological function in a rapidly urbanizing region, the Front Range of Colorado. We use novel spatial geographic information systems- (GIS-) based data integration and data mining techniques to integrate and analyze diverse spatial data sets. These data include elevation data, transportation data, land cover data derived from aerial photography, block group-level U.S. Census data, and vegetation greenness (NDVI) data derived from Landsat imagery. These data are used to derive a variety of U.S. block group-level variables indicating demographic, geographic, ecological, and land cover characteristics. We employ spatial association rule mining, decision tree induction, and spatial on-line analytical processing (OLAP), in addition to more conventional multivariate statistical techniques, to investigate relationships among these variables.

  7. Investigating the climate and carbon cycle impacts of CMIP6 Land Use and Land Cover Change in the Community Earth System Model (CESM2)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lawrence, P.; Lawrence, D. M.; O'Neill, B. C.; Hurtt, G. C.

    2017-12-01

    For the next round of CMIP6 climate simulations there are new historical and SSP - RCP land use and land cover change (LULCC) data sets that have been compiled through the Land Use Model Intercomparison Project (LUMIP). The new time series data include new functionality following lessons learned through CMIP5 project and include new developments in the Community Land Model (CLM5) that will be used in all the CESM2 simulations of CMIP6. These changes include representing explicit crop modeling and better forest representation through the extended to 12 land units of the Global Land Model (GLM). To include this new information in CESM2 and CLM5 simulations new transient land surface data sets have been generated for the historical period 1850 - 2015 and for preliminary SSP - RCP paired future scenarios. The new data sets use updated MODIS Land Cover, Vegetation Continuous Fields, Leaf Area Index and Albedo to describe Primary and Secondary, Forested and Non Forested land units, as well as Rangelands and Pasture. Current day crop distributions are taken from the MIRCA2000 crop data set as done with the CLM 4.5 crop model and used to guide historical and future crop distributions. Preliminary "land only" simulations with CLM5 have been performed for the historical period and for the SSP1-RCP2.6 and SSP3-RCP7 land use and land cover change time series data. Equivalent no land use and land cover change simulations have been run for these periods under the same meteorological forcing data. The "land only" simulations use GSWP3 historical atmospheric forcing data from 1850 to 2010 and then time increasing RCP 8.5 atmospheric CO2 and climate anomalies on top of the current day GSWP3 atmospheric forcing data from 2011 to 2100. The offline simulations provide a basis to evaluate the surface climate, carbon cycle and crop production impacts of changing land use and land cover for each of these periods. To further evaluate the impacts of the new CLM5 model and the CMIP6 land

  8. Investigating the feasibility of geo-Tagged photographs as sources of land cover input data

    OpenAIRE

    Antoniou, Vyron; Fonte, Cidália Costa; See, Linda; Estima, Jacinto; Arsanjani, Jamal Jokar; Lupia, Flavio; Minghini, Marco; Foody, Giles; Fritz, Steffen

    2016-01-01

    Geo-Tagged photographs are used increasingly as a source of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), which could potentially be used for land use and land cover applications. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the feasibility of using this source of spatial information for three use cases related to land cover: Calibration, validation and verification. We first provide an inventory of the metadata that are collected with geo-Tagged photographs and then consider what elements would be es...

  9. Land use/land cover mapping using multi-scale texture processing of high resolution data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wong, S. N.; Sarker, M. L. R.

    2014-02-01

    Land use/land cover (LULC) maps are useful for many purposes, and for a long time remote sensing techniques have been used for LULC mapping using different types of data and image processing techniques. In this research, high resolution satellite data from IKONOS was used to perform land use/land cover mapping in Johor Bahru city and adjacent areas (Malaysia). Spatial image processing was carried out using the six texture algorithms (mean, variance, contrast, homogeneity, entropy, and GLDV angular second moment) with five difference window sizes (from 3×3 to 11×11). Three different classifiers i.e. Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Supported Vector Machine (SVM) were used to classify the texture parameters of different spectral bands individually and all bands together using the same training and validation samples. Results indicated that texture parameters of all bands together generally showed a better performance (overall accuracy = 90.10%) for land LULC mapping, however, single spectral band could only achieve an overall accuracy of 72.67%. This research also found an improvement of the overall accuracy (OA) using single-texture multi-scales approach (OA = 89.10%) and single-scale multi-textures approach (OA = 90.10%) compared with all original bands (OA = 84.02%) because of the complementary information from different bands and different texture algorithms. On the other hand, all of the three different classifiers have showed high accuracy when using different texture approaches, but SVM generally showed higher accuracy (90.10%) compared to MLC (89.10%) and ANN (89.67%) especially for the complex classes such as urban and road.

  10. Land use/land cover mapping using multi-scale texture processing of high resolution data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wong, S N; Sarker, M L R

    2014-01-01

    Land use/land cover (LULC) maps are useful for many purposes, and for a long time remote sensing techniques have been used for LULC mapping using different types of data and image processing techniques. In this research, high resolution satellite data from IKONOS was used to perform land use/land cover mapping in Johor Bahru city and adjacent areas (Malaysia). Spatial image processing was carried out using the six texture algorithms (mean, variance, contrast, homogeneity, entropy, and GLDV angular second moment) with five difference window sizes (from 3×3 to 11×11). Three different classifiers i.e. Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Supported Vector Machine (SVM) were used to classify the texture parameters of different spectral bands individually and all bands together using the same training and validation samples. Results indicated that texture parameters of all bands together generally showed a better performance (overall accuracy = 90.10%) for land LULC mapping, however, single spectral band could only achieve an overall accuracy of 72.67%. This research also found an improvement of the overall accuracy (OA) using single-texture multi-scales approach (OA = 89.10%) and single-scale multi-textures approach (OA = 90.10%) compared with all original bands (OA = 84.02%) because of the complementary information from different bands and different texture algorithms. On the other hand, all of the three different classifiers have showed high accuracy when using different texture approaches, but SVM generally showed higher accuracy (90.10%) compared to MLC (89.10%) and ANN (89.67%) especially for the complex classes such as urban and road

  11. Remote sensing of land use/cover changes and its effect on wind erosion potential in southern Iran

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rezaei, Mahrooz; Sameni, Abdolmajid; Fallah Shamsi, Seyed Rashid; Bartholomeus, Harm

    2016-01-01

    Wind erosion is a complex process influenced by different factors. Most of these factors are stable over time, but land use/cover and land management practices are changing gradually. Therefore, this research investigates the impact of changing land use/cover and land management on wind erosion

  12. The distribution of selected CORINE land cover classes in different natural landscapes in Slovakia: Methodological framework and applications

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pazúr Róbert

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available The distribution of selected CORINE land cover classes in different physical conditions was subject to modelling, analysis and evaluation in this article. In three regions with different geo-relief, the occurrence of land cover classes was analysed by using determinants commonly used in land-use models. Using three different modelling frameworks, the importance of methodological design in land-cover modelling was demonstrated. High levels of explanatory power for the factors defined here were found in landscapes of high heterogeneity. Findings derived from the statistical models highlight the importance of landscape disaggregation by natural conditions in complex land-cover or land-use models.

  13. Sustaining forest landscape connectivity under different land cover change scenarios

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rubio, L.; Rodriguez-Freire, M.; Mateo-Sanchez, M. C.; Estreguil, C.; Saura, S.

    2012-11-01

    Managing forest landscapes to sustain functional connectivity is considered one of the key strategies to counteract the negative effects of climate and human-induced changes in forest species pools. With this objective, we evaluated whether a robust network of forest connecting elements can be identified so that it remains efficient when facing different types of potential land cover changes that may affect forest habitat networks and ecological fluxes. For this purpose we considered changes both in the forested areas and in the non-forest intervening landscape matrix. We combined some of the most recent developments in graph theory with models of land cover permeability and least-cost analysis through the forest landscape. We focused on a case of study covering the habitat of a forest dwelling bird (nuthatch, Sitta europaea) in the region of Galicia (NW Spain). Seven land-use change scenarios were analysed for their effects on connecting forest elements (patches and links): one was the simplest case in which the landscape is represented as a binary forest/non-forest pattern (and where matrix heterogeneity is disregarded), four scenarios in which forest lands were converted to other cover types (to scrubland due to wildfires, to extensive and intensive agriculture, and to urban areas), and two scenarios that only involved changes in the non-forested matrix (re naturalization and intensification). Our results show that while the network of connecting elements for the species was very robust to the conversion of the forest habitat patches to different cover types, the different change scenarios in the landscape matrix could more significantly weaken its long-term validity and effectiveness. This is particularly the case when most of the key connectivity providers for the nuthatch are located outside the protected areas or public forests in Galicia, where biodiversity-friendly measures might be more easily implemented. We discuss how the methodology can be applied to

  14. Seasonal habitat use and selection by grizzly bears in Northern British Columbia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Milakovic, B.; Parker, K.L.; Gustine, D.D.; Lay, R.J.; Walker, A.B.D.; Gillingham, M.P.

    2012-01-01

    We defined patterns of habitat use and selection by female grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) in the Besa-Prophet watershed of northern British Columbia. We fitted 13 adult females with Geographic Positioning System (GPS) radio-collars and monitored them between 2001 and 2004. We examined patterns of habitat selection by grizzly bears relative to topographical attributes and 3 potential surrogates of food availability: land-cover class, vegetation biomass or quality (as measured by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), and selection value for prey species themselves (moose [Alces alces], elk [Cervus elaphus], woodland caribou [Rangifer tarandus], Stone's sheep [Ovis dalli stonei]). Although vegetation biomass and quality, and selection values for prey were important in seasonal selection by some individual bears, land-cover class, elevation, aspect, and vegetation diversity most influenced patterns of habitat selection across grizzly bears, which rely on availability of plant foods and encounters with ungulate prey. Grizzly bears as a group avoided conifer stands and areas of low vegetation diversity, and selected for burned land-cover classes and high vegetation diversity across seasons. They also selected mid elevations from what was available within seasonal ranges. Quantifying relative use of different attributes helped place selection patterns within the context of the landscape. Grizzly bears used higher elevations (1,595??31 m SE) in spring and lower elevations (1,436??27 m) in fall; the range of average elevations used among individuals was highest (500 m) during the summer. During all seasons, grizzly bears most frequented aspects with high solar gain. Use was distributed across 10 land-cover classes and depended on season. Management and conservation actions must maintain a diverse habitat matrix distributed across a large elevational gradient to ensure persistence of grizzly bears as levels of human access increase in the northern Rocky Mountains

  15. A land-use and land-cover modeling strategy to support a national assessment of carbon stocks and fluxes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sohl, Terry L.; Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Zhu, Zhi-Liang; Sayler, Kristi L.; Bennett, Stacie; Bouchard, Michelle; Reker, Ryan R.; Hawbaker, Todd; Wein, Anne; Liu, Shu-Guang; Kanengieter, Ronald; Acevedo, William

    2012-01-01

    Changes in land use, land cover, disturbance regimes, and land management have considerable influence on carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes within ecosystems. Through targeted land-use and land-management activities, ecosystems can be managed to enhance carbon sequestration and mitigate fluxes of other GHGs. National-scale, comprehensive analyses of carbon sequestration potential by ecosystem are needed, with a consistent, nationally applicable land-use and land-cover (LULC) modeling framework a key component of such analyses. The U.S. Geological Survey has initiated a project to analyze current and projected future GHG fluxes by ecosystem and quantify potential mitigation strategies. We have developed a unique LULC modeling framework to support this work. Downscaled scenarios consistent with IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) were constructed for U.S. ecoregions, and the FORE-SCE model was used to spatially map the scenarios. Results for a prototype demonstrate our ability to model LULC change and inform a biogeochemical modeling framework for analysis of subsequent GHG fluxes. The methodology was then successfully used to model LULC change for four IPCC SRES scenarios for an ecoregion in the Great Plains. The scenario-based LULC projections are now being used to analyze potential GHG impacts of LULC change across the U.S.

  16. The Analysis of Land Use Based on CORINE Land Cover in the Romanian Part of the Tisa Catchment Area

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    CIPRIAN MOLDOVAN

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available The analysis of the land use structure of the 13 counties of the Romanian part of Tisa catchment area has been made according to the 2000 edition of CORINE Land Cover, while the 1990 edition has been used for comparative purposes. Out of the total area of 8,269,229.48 hectares, the forests cover 37.92%, the arable lands 35.02% and the grasslands 17.97%. The other types of land use have lower weights, such as the continuous and discontinuous urban fabric 4.81%, the orchards 1.10% and the vineyards 0.98%. In the category of forests, the following types of land use are included: broad-leaved forests, which form the majority (24.72%, coniferous forests (6.22%, mixed forests (3.46% and transitional woodland-shrub areas (3.52%. The forests are mainly located in the Carpathians and the hills. The non-irrigated arable lands (23.50% are predominant within the arable lands. They lie mostly in the Western Plain and in the basins and corridors of the Transylvanian Depression and the Western Hills. The analysis of the dynamics of the land use structure between 1990 and 2000 indicates a relative stability in the case of forests, a decrease of arable lands and an increase of grasslands.

  17. Sensitivity of tsunami evacuation modeling to direction and land cover assumptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schmidtlein, Mathew C.; Wood, Nathan J.

    2015-01-01

    Although anisotropic least-cost-distance (LCD) modeling is becoming a common tool for estimating pedestrian-evacuation travel times out of tsunami hazard zones, there has been insufficient attention paid to understanding model sensitivity behind the estimates. To support tsunami risk-reduction planning, we explore two aspects of LCD modeling as it applies to pedestrian evacuations and use the coastal community of Seward, Alaska, as our case study. First, we explore the sensitivity of modeling to the direction of movement by comparing standard safety-to-hazard evacuation times to hazard-to-safety evacuation times for a sample of 3985 points in Seward's tsunami-hazard zone. Safety-to-hazard evacuation times slightly overestimated hazard-to-safety evacuation times but the strong relationship to the hazard-to-safety evacuation times, slightly conservative bias, and shorter processing times of the safety-to-hazard approach make it the preferred approach. Second, we explore how variations in land cover speed conservation values (SCVs) influence model performance using a Monte Carlo approach with one thousand sets of land cover SCVs. The LCD model was relatively robust to changes in land cover SCVs with the magnitude of local model sensitivity greatest in areas with higher evacuation times or with wetland or shore land cover types, where model results may slightly underestimate travel times. This study demonstrates that emergency managers should be concerned not only with populations in locations with evacuation times greater than wave arrival times, but also with populations with evacuation times lower than but close to expected wave arrival times, particularly if they are required to cross wetlands or beaches.

  18. The Improvement of Land Cover Classification by Thermal Remote Sensing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liya Sun

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Land cover classification has been widely investigated in remote sensing for agricultural, ecological and hydrological applications. Landsat images with multispectral bands are commonly used to study the numerous classification methods in order to improve the classification accuracy. Thermal remote sensing provides valuable information to investigate the effectiveness of the thermal bands in extracting land cover patterns. k-NN and Random Forest algorithms were applied to both the single Landsat 8 image and the time series Landsat 4/5 images for the Attert catchment in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, trained and validated by the ground-truth reference data considering the three level classification scheme from COoRdination of INformation on the Environment (CORINE using the 10-fold cross validation method. The accuracy assessment showed that compared to the visible and near infrared (VIS/NIR bands, the time series of thermal images alone can produce comparatively reliable land cover maps with the best overall accuracy of 98.7% to 99.1% for Level 1 classification and 93.9% to 96.3% for the Level 2 classification. In addition, the combination with the thermal band improves the overall accuracy by 5% and 6% for the single Landsat 8 image in Level 2 and Level 3 category and provides the best classified results with all seven bands for the time series of Landsat TM images.

  19. National climate assessment technical report on the impacts of climate and land use and land cover change

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thomas Loveland; Rezaul Mahmood; Toral Patel-Weynand; Krista Karstensen; Kari Beckendorf; Norman Bliss; Andrew Carleton

    2012-01-01

    This technical report responds to the recognition by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and the National Climate Assessment (NCA) of the importance of understanding how land use and land cover (LULC) affects weather and climate variability and change and how that variability and change affects LULC. Current published, peer-reviewed, scientific literature...

  20. Land cover mapping and change detection in urban watersheds using QuickBird high spatial resolution satellite imagery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hester, David Barry

    The objective of this research was to develop methods for urban land cover analysis using QuickBird high spatial resolution satellite imagery. Such imagery has emerged as a rich commercially available remote sensing data source and has enjoyed high-profile broadcast news media and Internet applications, but methods of quantitative analysis have not been thoroughly explored. The research described here consists of three studies focused on the use of pan-sharpened 61-cm spatial resolution QuickBird imagery, the spatial resolution of which is the highest of any commercial satellite. In the first study, a per-pixel land cover classification method is developed for use with this imagery. This method utilizes a per-pixel classification approach to generate an accurate six-category high spatial resolution land cover map of a developing suburban area. The primary objective of the second study was to develop an accurate land cover change detection method for use with QuickBird land cover products. This work presents an efficient fuzzy framework for transforming map uncertainty into accurate and meaningful high spatial resolution land cover change analysis. The third study described here is an urban planning application of the high spatial resolution QuickBird-based land cover product developed in the first study. This work both meaningfully connects this exciting new data source to urban watershed management and makes an important empirical contribution to the study of suburban watersheds. Its analysis of residential roads and driveways as well as retail parking lots sheds valuable light on the impact of transportation-related land use on the suburban landscape. Broadly, these studies provide new methods for using state-of-the-art remote sensing data to inform land cover analysis and urban planning. These methods are widely adaptable and produce land cover products that are both meaningful and accurate. As additional high spatial resolution satellites are launched and the

  1. Las Cruces, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  2. Santa Fe, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  3. Silver City, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  4. El Paso, TX 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  5. Silver City, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  6. Saint Johns, AZ 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  7. Fort Sumner, NM 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  8. Las Cruces, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  9. El Paso, TX 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  10. Santa Fe, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  11. Saint Johns, AZ 1:250,000 Quad West Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  12. Fort Sumner, NM 1:250,000 Quad East Half USGS Land Use/Land Cover, 2000

    Data.gov (United States)

    Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico — This land cover data set was produced as part of a cooperative project between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)...

  13. Application of spectrometer cropscan MSR 16R and Landsat imagery for identification the spectral characteristics of land cover

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tampubolon, Togi; Abdullah, Khiruddin bin; San, Lim Hwee

    2013-09-01

    The spectral characteristics of land cover are basic references in classifying satellite image for geophysics analysis. It can be obtained from the measurements using spectrometer and satellite image processing. The aims of this study to investigate the spectral characteristics of land cover based on the results of measurement using Spectrometer Cropscan MSR 16R and Landsat satellite imagery. The area of study in this research is in Medan, (Deli Serdang, North Sumatera) Indonesia. The scope of this study is the basic survey from the measurements of spectral land cover which is covered several type of land such as a cultivated and managed terrestrial areas, natural and semi-natural, cultivated aquatic or regularly flooded areas, natural and semi-natural aquatic, artificial surfaces and associated areas, bare areas, artificial waterbodies and natural waterbodies. The measurement and verification were conducted using a spectrometer provided their spectral characteristics and Landsat imagery, respectively. The results of the spectral characteristics of land cover shows that each type of land cover have a unique characteristic. The correlation of spectral land cover based on spectrometer Cropscan MSR 16R and Landsat satellite image are above 90 %. However, the land cover of artificial waterbodiese have a correlation under 40 %. That is because the measurement of spectrometer Cropscan MSR 16R and acquisition of Landsat satellite imagery has a time different.

  14. Nitrogen deposition, land cover conversion, and contemporary carbon balance of Europe

    Science.gov (United States)

    Churkina, G.; Zaehle, S.; Hughes, J.; Viovy, N.; Jung, M.; Chen, Y.; Heimann, M.; Roedenbeck, C.; Jones, C.

    2009-04-01

    In Europe, atmospheric nitrogen deposition has more than doubled, forest cover was steadily increasing, and agricultural area was declining over the last 50 years. What effect have these changes had on the European carbon balance? In this study we estimate responses of the European land ecosystems to nitrogen deposition, land cover conversion and climate. We use results from four ecosystem process models such as BIOME-BGC, JULES, ORCHIDEE, and ORCHIDEE-CN to address this question. We discuss to which degree carbon balance of Europe has been altered by nitrogen deposition in comparison to other drivers and identify areas which carbon balance has been most effected by anthropogenic changes.

  15. Impacts of historic and projected land-cover, land-use, and land-management change on carbon and water fluxes: The Land Use Model Intercomparison Project (LUMIP)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lawrence, D. M.; Lombardozzi, D. L.; Lawrence, P.; Hurtt, G. C.

    2017-12-01

    Human land-use activities have resulted in large changes to the Earth surface, with resulting implications for climate. In the future, land-use activities are likely to intensify to meet growing demands for food, fiber, and energy. The Land Use Model Intercomparison Project (LUMIP) aims to further advance understanding of the broad question of impacts of land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) as well as more detailed science questions to get at process-level attribution, uncertainty, and data requirements in more depth and sophistication than possible in a multi-model context to date. LUMIP is multi-faceted and aims to advance our understanding of land-use change from several perspectives. In particular, LUMIP includes a factorial set of land-only simulations that differ from each other with respect to the specific treatment of land use or land management (e.g., irrigation active or not, crop fertilization active or not, wood harvest on or not), or in terms of prescribed climate. This factorial series of experiments serves several purposes and is designed to provide a detailed assessment of how the specification of land-cover change and land management affects the carbon, water, and energy cycle response to land-use change. The potential analyses that are possible through this set of experiments are vast. For example, comparing a control experiment with all land management active to an experiment with no irrigation allows a multi-model assessment of whether or not the increasing use of irrigation during the 20th century is likely to have significantly altered trends of regional water and energy fluxes (and therefore climate) and/or crop yield and carbon fluxes in agricultural regions. Here, we will present preliminary results from the factorial set of experiments utilizing the Community Land Model (CLM5). The analyses presented here will help guide multi-model analyses once the full set of LUMIP simulations are available.

  16. Assessing land use and cover change effects on hydrological response in the river C

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nunes, A.

    2009-04-01

    Assessing the impacts of land use change, especially the role of vegetation, on hydrological response from the plot to the catchment scale has become one of the widespread issues of scientific concern,in recent decades. The continuous expansion of urban areas, the dramatic changes in land-cover and land-use patterns and the climate change which have taken place on a global scale explain this increasing interest. Although scientists have long recognized that changes in land use and land cover are important factors affecting water circulation and the spatial-temporal variations in the distribution of water resources, little is known about the quantitative relation between land use/coverage characteristics and runoff generation or processes. Therefore, a better understanding of how land-use changes impact watershed hydrological processes will become a crucial issue for the planning, management, and sustainable development of water resources. In the past decades, abandonment of marginal agricultural land has been a widespread phenomenon in Portugal, as well as in many other countries of Europe, especially in the Mediterranean countries. The abandonment of arable land typically leads to natural succession and to the development of shrub and woodland. Shrubs like Cytisus spp.usually establish in study area. A Quercus pyrenaica Willd. wood generally appears after a long time, about 3 or 4 decades. The general aim of this work is to analyse the temporal evolution of water supplies in a Côa basins (located between 41°00'' N and 40°15'' N and 7°15'' W and 6°55'' W Greenwich)and relate its behaviour with changes undergone by the plant cover and by the main climatic variables (temperatures and precipitation). To achieve this goal, dynamics on the land use and land cover were estimated after the second half of the 20th century. The hydrological response under different land uses and plant covers were monitored during 2005 and 2006, using small permanently establish bounded

  17. Mapping land cover in urban residential landscapes using fine resolution imagery and object-oriented classification

    Science.gov (United States)

    A knowledge of different types of land cover in urban residential landscapes is important for building social and economic city-wide policies including landscape ordinances and water conservation programs. Urban landscapes are typically heterogeneous, so classification of land cover in these areas ...

  18. Predicting future land cover change and its impact on streamflow and sediment load in a trans-boundary river basin

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. Wang

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available Sediment load can provide very important perspective on erosion of river basin. The changes of human-induced vegetation cover, such as deforestation or afforestation, affect sediment yield process of a catchment. We have already evaluated that climate change and land cover change changed the historical streamflow and sediment yield, and land cover change is the main factor in Red river basin. But future streamflow and sediment yield changes under potential future land cover change scenario still have not been evaluated. For this purpose, future scenario of land cover change is developed based on historical land cover changes and land change model (LCM. In addition, future leaf area index (LAI is simulated by ecological model (Biome-BGC based on future land cover scenario. Then future scenarios of land cover change and LAI are used to drive hydrological model and new sediment rating curve. The results of this research provide information that decision-makers need in order to promote water resources planning efforts. Besides that, this study also contributes a basic framework for assessing climate change impacts on streamflow and sediment yield that can be applied in the other basins around the world.

  19. The Application of Remote Sensing Data to GIS Studies of Land Use, Land Cover, and Vegetation Mapping in the State of Hawaii

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hogan, Christine A.

    1996-01-01

    A land cover-vegetation map with a base classification system for remote sensing use in a tropical island environment was produced of the island of Hawaii for the State of Hawaii to evaluate whether or not useful land cover information can be derived from Landsat TM data. In addition, an island-wide change detection mosaic combining a previously created 1977 MSS land classification with the TM-based classification was produced. In order to reach the goal of transferring remote sensing technology to State of Hawaii personnel, a pilot project was conducted while training State of Hawaii personnel in remote sensing technology and classification systems. Spectral characteristics of young island land cover types were compared to determine if there are differences in vegetation types on lava, vegetation types on soils, and barren lava from soils, and if they can be detected remotely, based on differences in pigments detecting plant physiognomic type, health, stress at senescence, heat, moisture level, and biomass. Geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS) were used to assist in image rectification and classification. GIS was also used to produce large-format color output maps. An interactive GIS program was written to provide on-line access to scanned photos taken at field sites. The pilot project found Landsat TM to be a credible source of land cover information for geologically young islands, and TM data bands are effective in detecting spectral characteristics of different land cover types through remote sensing. Large agriculture field patterns were resolved and mapped successfully from wildland vegetation, but small agriculture field patterns were not. Additional processing was required to work with the four TM scenes from two separate orbits which span three years, including El Nino and drought dates. Results of the project emphasized the need for further land cover and land use processing and research. Change in vegetation

  20. Integrating land cover and terrain characteristics to explain plague ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Literature suggests that higher resolution remote sensing data integrated in Geographic Information System (GIS) can provide greater possibility to refine the analysis of land cover and terrain characteristics for explanation of abundance and distribution of plague hosts and vectors and hence of health risk hazards to ...

  1. A comprehensive set of benchmark tests for a land surface model of simultaneous fluxes of water and carbon at both the global and seasonal scale

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    E. Blyth

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available Evaluating the models we use in prediction is important as it allows us to identify uncertainties in prediction as well as guiding the priorities for model development. This paper describes a set of benchmark tests that is designed to quantify the performance of the land surface model that is used in the UK Hadley Centre General Circulation Model (JULES: Joint UK Land Environment Simulator. The tests are designed to assess the ability of the model to reproduce the observed fluxes of water and carbon at the global and regional spatial scale, and on a seasonal basis. Five datasets are used to test the model: water and carbon dioxide fluxes from ten FLUXNET sites covering the major global biomes, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at four representative stations from the global network, river flow from seven catchments, the seasonal mean NDVI over the seven catchments and the potential land cover of the globe (after the estimated anthropogenic changes have been removed. The model is run in various configurations and results are compared with the data.

    A few examples are chosen to demonstrate the importance of using combined use of observations of carbon and water fluxes in essential in order to understand the causes of model errors. The benchmarking approach is suitable for application to other global models.

  2. Fine Resolution Probabilistic Land Cover Classification of Landscapes in the Southeastern United States

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joseph St. Peter

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Land cover classification provides valuable information for prioritizing management and conservation operations across large landscapes. Current regional scale land cover geospatial products within the United States have a spatial resolution that is too coarse to provide the necessary information for operations at the local and project scales. This paper describes a methodology that uses recent advances in spatial analysis software to create a land cover classification over a large region in the southeastern United States at a fine (1 m spatial resolution. This methodology used image texture metrics and principle components derived from National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP aerial photographic imagery, visually classified locations, and a softmax neural network model. The model efficiently produced classification surfaces at 1 m resolution across roughly 11.6 million hectares (28.8 million acres with less than 10% average error in modeled probability. The classification surfaces consist of probability estimates of 13 visually distinct classes for each 1 m cell across the study area. This methodology and the tools used in this study constitute a highly flexible fine resolution land cover classification that can be applied across large extents using standard computer hardware, common and open source software and publicly available imagery.

  3. Impacts of Land Cover and Land Use Change on the Hydrology of the US-Mexico Border Region, 1992-2011

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bohn, T. J.; Vivoni, E. R.; Mascaro, G.; White, D. D.

    2016-12-01

    The semi-arid US-Mexico border region has been experiencing rapid urbanization and agricultural expansion over the last several decades, due in part to the lifting of trade barriers of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), placing additional pressures on the region's already strained water resources. Here we examine the effects of changes in land cover/use over the period 1992-2011 on the region's hydrology and water resources, using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model with an irrigation module to estimate both natural and anthropogenic water fluxes. Land cover has been taken from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) over the US, and from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) database over Mexico, for three snapshots: 1992/3, 2001/2, and 2011. We have performed 3 simulations, one per land cover snapshot, at 6 km resolution, driven by a gridded observed meteorology dataset and a climatology of land surface characteristics derived from remote sensing products. Urban water withdrawal rates were estimated from literature. The primary changes in the region's water budget over the period 1992-2011 consisted of: (1) a shift in agricultural irrigation water withdrawals from the US to Mexico, accompanied by similar shifts in runoff (via agricultural return flow) and evapotranspiration; and (2) a 50% increase in urban water withdrawals, concentrated in the US. Because groundwater supplied most of the additional agricultural withdrawals, and occurred over already over-exploited aquifers, these changes call into question the sustainability of the region's land and water management. By synthesizing the implications of these hydrologic changes, we present a novel view of how NAFTA has altered the US-Mexico border region, possibly in unintended ways.

  4. Data mining algorithms for land cover change detection: a review

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Sangram Panigrahi

    2017-11-24

    Nov 24, 2017 ... values, poor quality measurement, high resolution and high dimensional data. The land cover .... These data sets also include quality assurance information, ...... 2012 A new data mining framework for forest fire mapping.

  5. 2005 Kansas Land Cover Patterns, Level IV, Kansas River Watershed

    Data.gov (United States)

    Kansas Data Access and Support Center — The 2005 Kansas Land Cover Patterns (KLCP) Mapping Initiative was a two-phase mapping endeavor that occurred over a three-year period (2007-2009). Note that while...

  6. Land Cover Classification Using Integrated Spectral, Temporal, and Spatial Features Derived from Remotely Sensed Images

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yongguang Zhai

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Obtaining accurate and timely land cover information is an important topic in many remote sensing applications. Using satellite image time series data should achieve high-accuracy land cover classification. However, most satellite image time-series classification methods do not fully exploit the available data for mining the effective features to identify different land cover types. Therefore, a classification method that can take full advantage of the rich information provided by time-series data to improve the accuracy of land cover classification is needed. In this paper, a novel method for time-series land cover classification using spectral, temporal, and spatial information at an annual scale was introduced. Based on all the available data from time-series remote sensing images, a refined nonlinear dimensionality reduction method was used to extract the spectral and temporal features, and a modified graph segmentation method was used to extract the spatial features. The proposed classification method was applied in three study areas with land cover complexity, including Illinois, South Dakota, and Texas. All the Landsat time series data in 2014 were used, and different study areas have different amounts of invalid data. A series of comparative experiments were conducted on the annual time-series images using training data generated from Cropland Data Layer. The results demonstrated higher overall and per-class classification accuracies and kappa index values using the proposed spectral-temporal-spatial method compared to spectral-temporal classification methods. We also discuss the implications of this study and possibilities for future applications and developments of the method.

  7. Land Cover Change in the Vicinity of MT. Qomolangma (everest), Central High Himalayas Since 1976

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Y.; Nie, Y.; Liu, L.; Wang, Z.; Ding, M.; Zhang, J.

    2010-12-01

    Under the background of global environmental change, the Mt. Qomolangma (Everest) region becomes the ideal place for the research of earth-atmosphere system, water and energy change, ecosystem patterns and processes change due to its sensitive and fragile natural environment. Land change science has emerged as a fundamental component of global environmental change and sustainability research. In this paper, geography, spatial information, climate science and other related theories and methods were applied, with the help of remote sensing, GIS, GPS, combining with a large number of RS data, field survey data and meteorological observation data to build 3 periods (1976, 1988 and 2006) of land cover, 30 periods (1970-2009) of major lakes data and long time-series NDVI change data from 1982 to 2009 in the Mt. Qomolangma region. The main results are as follows: 1. The land cover types in Mt. Qomolangma region are rich and with distinctive alpine features. The main land cover types include: closed to open grassland, alpine sparse vegetation, bare rock, closed grassland, forbs and glaciers (each percentage larger than 7%) with the area of 8274.27 km2, 7515.15 km2, 5450.82 km2, 5215.85 km2, 2782.66 km2 and 2710.17 km2 respectively in 2006. 2. The distribution of the main cover types are of obvious vertical zonallity. The transition of land cover types is forest→shrubland→grassland→meadow→sparse grassland→bare rock →glacier in order as the altitude arises with basically Gaussian distribution and assending peak in each elevation zone of types. The dominant natural zones distributed from bottom to top are: forest dominated zone (1500 ~ 3900 m), shrubland dominated zone (3900 ~ 4100 m), grassland dominated zone (4100 ~ 5000 m), sparse vegetation dominated zone (5000 ~ 5600 m), bare land dominated zone (5600 ~ 5900 m) and glacier (>5900 m). The altitude distribution of forest, shrubland and grassland in north and south slope are generally consistent. The range of

  8. Effect of land use land cover change on soil erosion potential in an agricultural watershed.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sharma, Arabinda; Tiwari, Kamlesh N; Bhadoria, P B S

    2011-02-01

    Universal soil loss equation (USLE) was used in conjunction with a geographic information system to determine the influence of land use and land cover change (LUCC) on soil erosion potential of a reservoir catchment during the period 1989 to 2004. Results showed that the mean soil erosion potential of the watershed was increased slightly from 12.11 t ha(-1) year(-1) in the year 1989 to 13.21 t ha(-1) year(-1) in the year 2004. Spatial analysis revealed that the disappearance of forest patches from relatively flat areas, increased in wasteland in steep slope, and intensification of cultivation practice in relatively more erosion-prone soil were the main factors contributing toward the increased soil erosion potential of the watershed during the study period. Results indicated that transition of other land use land cover (LUC) categories to cropland was the most detrimental to watershed in terms of soil loss while forest acted as the most effective barrier to soil loss. A p value of 0.5503 obtained for two-tailed paired t test between the mean erosion potential of microwatersheds in 1989 and 2004 also indicated towards a moderate change in soil erosion potential of the watershed over the studied period. This study revealed that the spatial location of LUC parcels with respect to terrain and associated soil properties should be an important consideration in soil erosion assessment process.

  9. Combining global land cover datasets to quantify agricultural expansion into forests in Latin America: Limitations and challenges

    Science.gov (United States)

    Persson, U. Martin

    2017-01-01

    While we know that deforestation in the tropics is increasingly driven by commercial agriculture, most tropical countries still lack recent and spatially-explicit assessments of the relative importance of pasture and cropland expansion in causing forest loss. Here we present a spatially explicit quantification of the extent to which cultivated land and grassland expanded at the expense of forests across Latin America in 2001–2011, by combining two “state-of-the-art” global datasets (Global Forest Change forest loss and GlobeLand30-2010 land cover). We further evaluate some of the limitations and challenges in doing this. We find that this approach does capture some of the major patterns of land cover following deforestation, with GlobeLand30-2010’s Grassland class (which we interpret as pasture) being the most common land cover replacing forests across Latin America. However, our analysis also reveals some major limitations to combining these land cover datasets for quantifying pasture and cropland expansion into forest. First, a simple one-to-one translation between GlobeLand30-2010’s Cultivated land and Grassland classes into cropland and pasture respectively, should not be made without caution, as GlobeLand30-2010 defines its Cultivated land to include some pastures. Comparisons with the TerraClass dataset over the Brazilian Amazon and with previous literature indicates that Cultivated land in GlobeLand30-2010 includes notable amounts of pasture and other vegetation (e.g. in Paraguay and the Brazilian Amazon). This further suggests that the approach taken here generally leads to an underestimation (of up to ~60%) of the role of pasture in replacing forest. Second, a large share (~33%) of the Global Forest Change forest loss is found to still be forest according to GlobeLand30-2010 and our analysis suggests that the accuracy of the combined datasets, especially for areas with heterogeneous land cover and/or small-scale forest loss, is still too poor for

  10. Combining global land cover datasets to quantify agricultural expansion into forests in Latin America: Limitations and challenges.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Florence Pendrill

    Full Text Available While we know that deforestation in the tropics is increasingly driven by commercial agriculture, most tropical countries still lack recent and spatially-explicit assessments of the relative importance of pasture and cropland expansion in causing forest loss. Here we present a spatially explicit quantification of the extent to which cultivated land and grassland expanded at the expense of forests across Latin America in 2001-2011, by combining two "state-of-the-art" global datasets (Global Forest Change forest loss and GlobeLand30-2010 land cover. We further evaluate some of the limitations and challenges in doing this. We find that this approach does capture some of the major patterns of land cover following deforestation, with GlobeLand30-2010's Grassland class (which we interpret as pasture being the most common land cover replacing forests across Latin America. However, our analysis also reveals some major limitations to combining these land cover datasets for quantifying pasture and cropland expansion into forest. First, a simple one-to-one translation between GlobeLand30-2010's Cultivated land and Grassland classes into cropland and pasture respectively, should not be made without caution, as GlobeLand30-2010 defines its Cultivated land to include some pastures. Comparisons with the TerraClass dataset over the Brazilian Amazon and with previous literature indicates that Cultivated land in GlobeLand30-2010 includes notable amounts of pasture and other vegetation (e.g. in Paraguay and the Brazilian Amazon. This further suggests that the approach taken here generally leads to an underestimation (of up to ~60% of the role of pasture in replacing forest. Second, a large share (~33% of the Global Forest Change forest loss is found to still be forest according to GlobeLand30-2010 and our analysis suggests that the accuracy of the combined datasets, especially for areas with heterogeneous land cover and/or small-scale forest loss, is still too

  11. Detecting land cover change by evaluating the internal covariance matrix of the extended Kalman filter

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Salmon, BP

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available - fective way to monitor and evaluate land cover changes. An operator making an image-to-image comparison is still a com- mon method in most organizations when mapping land cover change, which is time consuming and resource intensive. Au- tomated change...

  12. Mapping fractional woody cover in semi-arid savannahs using multi-seasonal composites from Landsat data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Higginbottom, Thomas P.; Symeonakis, Elias; Meyer, Hanna; van der Linden, Sebastian

    2018-05-01

    Increasing attention is being directed at mapping the fractional woody cover of savannahs using Earth-observation data. In this study, we test the utility of Landsat TM/ ETM-based spectral-temporal variability metrics for mapping regional-scale woody cover in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, for 2010. We employ a machine learning framework to compare the accuracies of Random Forest models derived using metrics calculated from different seasons. We compare these results to those from fused Landsat-PALSAR data to establish if seasonal metrics can compensate for structural information from the PALSAR signal. Furthermore, we test the applicability of a statistical variable selection method, the recursive feature elimination (RFE), in the automation of the model building process in order to reduce model complexity and processing time. All of our tests were repeated at four scales (30, 60, 90, and 120 m-pixels) to investigate the role of spatial resolution on modelled accuracies. Our results show that multi-seasonal composites combining imagery from both the dry and wet seasons produced the highest accuracies (R2 = 0.77, RMSE = 9.4, at the 120 m scale). When using a single season of observations, dry season imagery performed best (R2 = 0.74, RMSE = 9.9, at the 120 m resolution). Combining Landsat and radar imagery was only marginally beneficial, offering a mean relative improvement of 1% in accuracy at the 120 m scale. However, this improvement was concentrated in areas with lower densities of woody coverage (continue to exploit the Landsat archive, but should aim to use multi-seasonal derived information. When the coarser 120 m pixel scale is adequate, integration of Landsat and SAR data should be considered, especially in areas with lower woody cover densities. The use of multiple seasonal compositing periods offers promise for large-area mapping of savannahs, even in regions with a limited historical Landsat coverage.

  13. 2005 Kansas Land Cover Patterns, Level I, Kansas River Watershed

    Data.gov (United States)

    Kansas Data Access and Support Center — The Upper Kansas River Watershed Land Cover Patterns map represents Phase 1 of a two-phase mapping initiative occurring over a three-year period as part of a...

  14. Potential solar radiation and land cover contributions to digital climate surface modeling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Puig, Pol; Batalla, Meritxell; Pesquer, Lluís; Ninyerola, Miquel

    2016-04-01

    Overview: We have designed a series of ad-hoc experiments to study the role of factors that a priori have a strong weight in developing digital models of temperature and precipitation, such as solar radiation and land cover. Empirical test beds have been designed to improve climate (mean air temperature and total precipitation) digital models using statistical general techniques (multiple regression) with residual correction (interpolated with inverse weighting distance). Aim: Understand what roles these two factors (solar radiation and land cover) play to incorporate them into the process of generating mapping of temperature and rainfall. Study area: The Iberian Peninsula and supported in this, Catalonia and the Catalan Pyrenees. Data: The dependent variables used in all experiments relate to data from meteorological stations precipitation (PL), mean temperature (MT), average temperature minimum (MN) and maximum average temperature (MX). These data were obtained monthly from the AEMET (Agencia Estatal de Meteorología). Data series of stations covers the period between 1950 to 2010. Methodology: The idea is to design ad hoc, based on a sample of more equitable space statistician, to detect the role of radiation. Based on the influence of solar radiation on the temperature of the air from a quantitative point of view, the difficulty in answering this lies in the fact that there are lots of weather stations located in areas where solar radiation is similar. This suggests that the role of the radiation variable remains "off" when, instead, we intuitively think that would strongly influence the temperature. We have developed a multiple regression analysis between these meteorological variables as the dependent ones (Temperature and rainfall), and some geographical variables: altitude (ALT), latitude (LAT), continentality (CON) and solar radiation (RAD) as the independent ones. In case of the experiment with land covers, we have used the NDVI index as a proxy of land

  15. An Automated Algorithm for Producing Land Cover Information from Landsat Surface Reflectance Data Acquired Between 1984 and Present

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rover, J.; Goldhaber, M. B.; Holen, C.; Dittmeier, R.; Wika, S.; Steinwand, D.; Dahal, D.; Tolk, B.; Quenzer, R.; Nelson, K.; Wylie, B. K.; Coan, M.

    2015-12-01

    Multi-year land cover mapping from remotely sensed data poses challenges. Producing land cover products at spatial and temporal scales required for assessing longer-term trends in land cover change are typically a resource-limited process. A recently developed approach utilizes open source software libraries to automatically generate datasets, decision tree classifications, and data products while requiring minimal user interaction. Users are only required to supply coordinates for an area of interest, land cover from an existing source such as National Land Cover Database and percent slope from a digital terrain model for the same area of interest, two target acquisition year-day windows, and the years of interest between 1984 and present. The algorithm queries the Landsat archive for Landsat data intersecting the area and dates of interest. Cloud-free pixels meeting the user's criteria are mosaicked to create composite images for training the classifiers and applying the classifiers. Stratification of training data is determined by the user and redefined during an iterative process of reviewing classifiers and resulting predictions. The algorithm outputs include yearly land cover raster format data, graphics, and supporting databases for further analysis. Additional analytical tools are also incorporated into the automated land cover system and enable statistical analysis after data are generated. Applications tested include the impact of land cover change and water permanence. For example, land cover conversions in areas where shrubland and grassland were replaced by shale oil pads during hydrofracking of the Bakken Formation were quantified. Analytical analysis of spatial and temporal changes in surface water included identifying wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota with potential connectivity to ground water, indicating subsurface permeability and geochemistry.

  16. High spatial resolution decade-time scale land cover change at multiple locations in the Beringian Arctic (1948–2000s)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lin, D H; Johnson, D R; Tweedie, C E; Andresen, C

    2012-01-01

    Analysis of time series imagery from satellite and aircraft platforms is useful for detecting land cover change at plot to regional scales. In this study, we created multi-temporal high spatial resolution land cover maps for seven locations in the Beringian Arctic and assessed the change in land cover over time. Land cover classifications were site specific and mostly aligned with a soil moisture gradient. Time series varied between 60 and 21 years. Four of the five landscapes studied in Alaska underwent an expansion of drier land cover classes while the two landscapes studies in Chukotka, Russia showed an expansion of wetter land cover types. While a range of land cover types was present across the landscapes studied, the extent of shrubs (in Chukotka) and open water (in Alaska) increased in all landscapes where these land cover types were present. The results support trends documented for regional change in NDVI (a measure of vegetation greenness and productivity) as well as a host of other long term, experimental and modeling studies. Using historic change trends for each land cover type at each landscape, we use a simple probabilistic vegetation model to establish hypotheses of future change trajectories for different land cover types at each of the landscapes investigated. This study is a contribution to the International Polar Year Back to the Future project (IPY-BTF). (letter)

  17. Land cover controls on summer discharge and runoff solution chemistry of semi-arid urban catchments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallo, Erika L.; Brooks, Paul D.; Lohse, Kathleen A.; McLain, Jean E. T.

    2013-04-01

    SummaryRecharge of urban runoff to groundwater as a stormwater management practice has gained importance in semi-arid regions where water resources are scarce and urban centers are growing. Despite this trend, the importance of land cover in controlling semi-arid catchment runoff quantity and quality remains unclear. Here we address the question: How do land cover characteristics control the amount and quality of storm runoff in semi-arid urban catchments? We monitored summertime runoff quantity and quality from five catchments dominated by distinct urban land uses: low, medium, and high density residential, mixed use, and commercial. Increasing urban land cover increased runoff duration and the likelihood that a rainfall event would result in runoff, but did not increase the time to peak discharge of episodic runoff. The effect of urban land cover on hydrologic responses was tightly coupled to the magnitude of rainfall. At distinct rainfall thresholds, roads, percent impervious cover and the stormwater drainage network controlled runoff frequency, runoff depth and runoff ratios. Contrary to initial expectations, runoff quality did not vary in repose to impervious cover or land use. We identified four major mechanisms controlling runoff quality: (1) variable solute sourcing due to land use heterogeneity and above ground catchment connectivity; (2) the spatial extent of pervious and biogeochemically active areas; (3) the efficiency of overland flow and runoff mobilization; and (4) solute flushing and dilution. Our study highlights the importance of the stormwater drainage systems characteristics in controlling urban runoff quantity and quality; and suggests that enhanced wetting and in-stream processes may control solute sourcing and retention. Finally, we suggest that the characteristics of the stormwater drainage system should be integrated into stormwater management approaches.

  18. Reconstructing Historical Land Cover Type and Complexity by Synergistic Use of Landsat Multispectral Scanner and CORONA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amir Reza Shahtahmassebi

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Survey data describing land cover information such as type and diversity over several decades are scarce. Therefore, our capacity to reconstruct historical land cover using field data and archived remotely sensed data over large areas and long periods of time is somewhat limited. This study explores the relationship between CORONA texture—a surrogate for actual land cover type and complexity—with spectral vegetation indices and texture variables derived from Landsat MSS under the Spectral Variation Hypothesis (SVH such as to reconstruct historical continuous land cover type and complexity. Image texture of CORONA was calculated using a mean occurrence measure while image textures of Landsat MSS were calculated by occurrence and co-occurrence measures. The relationship between these variables was evaluated using correlation and regression techniques. The reconstruction procedure was undertaken through regression kriging. The results showed that, as expected, texture based on the visible bands and corresponding indices indicated larger correlation with CORONA texture, a surrogate of land cover (correlation >0.65. In terms of prediction, the combination of the first-order mean of band green, second-order measure of tasseled cap brightness, second-order mean of Normalized Visible Index (NVI and second-order entropy of NIR yielded the best model with respect to Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC, r-square, and variance inflation factors (VIF. The regression model was then used in regression kriging to map historical continuous land cover. The resultant maps indicated the type and degree of complexity in land cover. Moreover, the proposed methodology minimized the impacts of topographic shadow in the region. The performance of this approach was compared with two conventional classification methods: hard classifiers and continuous classifiers. In contrast to conventional techniques, the technique could clearly quantify land cover complexity and

  19. Optimal use of land surface temperature data to detect changes in tropical forest cover

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Leeuwen, T. T.; Frank, A. J.; Jin, Y.; Smyth, P.; Goulden, M.; van der Werf, G.; Randerson, J. T.

    2011-12-01

    Rapid and accurate assessment of global forest cover change is needed to focus conservation efforts and to better understand how deforestation is contributing to the build up of atmospheric CO2. Here we examined different ways to use remotely sensed land surface temperature (LST) to detect changes in tropical forest cover. In our analysis we used monthly 0.05×0.05 degree Terra MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) observations of LST and PRODES (Program for the Estimation of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon) estimates of forest cover change. We also compared MODIS LST observations with an independent estimate of forest cover loss derived from MODIS and Landsat observations. Our study domain of approximately 10×10 degree included most of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. For optimal use of LST data to detect changes in tropical forest cover in our study area, we found that using data sampled during the end of the dry season (~1-2 months after minimum monthly precipitation) had the greatest predictive skill. During this part of the year, precipitation was low, surface humidity was at a minimum, and the difference between day and night LST was the largest. We used this information to develop a simple temporal sampling algorithm appropriate for use in pan-tropical deforestation classifiers. Combined with the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), a logistic regression model using day-night LST did moderately well at predicting forest cover change. Annual changes in day-night LST difference decreased during 2006-2009 relative to 2001-2005 in many regions within the Amazon, providing independent confirmation of lower deforestation levels during the latter part of this decade as reported by PRODES. The use of day-night LST differences may be particularly valuable for use with satellites that do not have spectral bands that allow for the estimation of NDVI or other vegetation indices.

  20. A New Fusion Technique of Remote Sensing Images for Land Use/Cover

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    WU Lian-Xi; SUN Bo; ZHOU Sheng-Lu; HUANG Shu-E; ZHAO Qi-Guo

    2004-01-01

    In China,accelerating industrialization and urbanization following high-speed economic development and population increases have greatly impacted land use/cover changes,making it imperative to obtain accurate and up to date information on changes so as to evaluate their environmental effects. The major purpose of this study was to develop a new method to fuse lower spatial resolution multispectral satellite images with higher spatial resolution panchromatic ones to assist in land use/cover mapping. An algorithm of a new fusion method known as edge enhancement intensity modulation (EEIM) was proposed to merge two optical image data sets of different spectral ranges. The results showed that the EEIM image was quite similar in color to lower resolution multispectral images,and the fused product was better able to preserve spectral information. Thus,compared to conventional approaches,the spectral distortion of the fused images was markedly reduced. Therefore,the EEIM fusion method could be utilized to fuse remote sensing data from the same or different sensors,including TM images and SPOT5 panchromatic images,providing high quality land use/cover images.