Urban land cover is expanding rapidly worldwide. This major phenomenon is often accompanied by an expansion of a green component. Urban green can itself be considered as a most important but often ignored land cover category. With this study we investigate how IKONOS data can be used more exhaustively for the detection and more importantly the quantification of urban green, compared to state-of-the art investigations.

Climate change has the potential to influence avian population dynamics through nest-fate sensitivity to temperatures during the breeding season. Nest fate also varies across spatially heterogeneous habitat, and changing land uses may independently introduce stressors on reproductive outcome. Identifying the individual and synergistic effects of climate change and land-use change is necessary for understanding the impact of global change on native species. We studied the nest fate of 3 sympatric species breeding in urban habitat in an arid region of the western United States.

The fragmentation of construction land due to decentralised urban development, disorderly mixed land use, and large-scale transportation infrastructure poses a threat to urban integrity. There is a need to quantify the fragmentation level in a consistent way for inclusion in planning-related decisions. In the context of China's urban sprawl, this study develops a quantitative and intuitive index approach that planners can use to analyse multiple fragmentation features of construction land within urban areas.

This investigation was conducted for both constituting an urban land use planning and criticizing the appropriateness of the uses with respect to ecology by taking into consideration the ecological factors in the centre and the periphery of Çanakkale city. A method based on "Maximum Values Map Approximation Method" was used in this present study. A suggested land use map of the study area was constructed for these usage types according to the arrangements of their priorities by the experts.

In this paper, the potential of superresolution (SR) image reconstruction methods for sub-pixel land-cover mapping in dense urban areas is studied. A multiple endmember approach (MESMA) is used for unmixing both original hyperspectral CHRIS/Proba and SR enhanced CHRIS/Proba data. Validation based on high resolution orthophotos (25cm) shows that land-cover fraction maps generated from SR-enhanced CHRIS/Proba data (9m) have a lower overall fractional error compared to the land-cover fractions produced from the original CHRIS data (18m), when validating both results at the 18m resolution.

Land cover composition is a valuable indicator of the ecological performance of a city. Single-family housing areas constitute a substantial part of most cities and may as such play an important role for sustainable urban development. From aerial photos we performed detailed GIS-based mapping of land cover in three detached single-family housing areas in Denmark of different urban form but comparable housing densities (ranging from 10.0 to 11.3 houses per hectare). The findings were subjected to statistical analysis and landscape metrics.

Considering the potential of shaded coffee plantations mixed with natural vegetation for promoting biodiversity conservation, this project assessed the utility of multi-date Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite imagery for the characterization of natural vegetation versus coffee plantations in western El Salvador. For assembling a multi-temporal Landsat TM data set, we applied a regression analysis model to remove cloud cover and cloud shadows. Then, through a hybrid classification approach, a nine-class land use/land cover (LULC) map was generated.

Urbanization can alter nutrient cycling. This research evaluated how urbanization affected nutrient dynamics in the subtropics. We established 17–0.04 ha plots in five different land cover types—slash pine (Pinus elliottii) plantations (n = 3), rural natural pine forests (n = 3), rural natural oak forests (n = 4), urban pine forests (n = 3) and urban oak forests (n = 4) in the Florida panhandle, a subtropical region that has experienced rapid urbanization.

Non-point source (NPS) pollution has become a major source of water pollution. A combination of models would provide the necessary direction and approaches designed to control NPS pollution through land use planning. In this study, NPS pollution load was simulated in urban planning, historic trends and ecological protection land use scenarios based on the Conversion of Land Use and its Effect at Small regional extent (CLUE-S) and Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) models applied to Hunhe-Taizi River Watershed, Liaoning Province, China.

The installation of green roofs, defined here as rooftops with a shallow soil cover and extensive vegetation, has been proposed as a possible measure to mitigate the loss of green space caused by the steady growth of cities. However, the effectiveness of green roofs in supporting arthropod communities, and the extent to which they facilitate connectivity of these communities within the urban environment is currently largely unknown.

Urban areas contribute disproportional nitrogen (N) loads to downstream aquatic ecosystems resulting in potential hypoxic ‘dead’ zones. Riparian areas along streams and rivers reduce inorganic N concentrations through denitrification, an anaerobic microbial process. Our study objective was to investigate the denitrification potential of riparian areas with differing land cover composition along the Licking River in Kentucky, USA – a tributary of the Ohio River. For one year we collected monthly samples from four sites along a 60 km reach of the Licking River.