Search results for "Land cover"
showing 10 items of 149 documents
A generic model of reinforcement learning combined with macroscopic cellular automata to simulate land use change
2019
Better understanding the evolution of land cover is a priority concern in the field of land use change study. This evolution can be the result of interactions between major factors. The study of land use change is included in territorial planning to inform planners and policy makers of possible developments they will face. Land use models are useful for reasonable land use management to optimize future land management decisions. In this paper we present an original theoretical model of reinforcement learning combined with macroscopic cellular automata to simulate land use change.
Current anthropogenic pressures on agro-ecological protected coastal wetlands
2015
Coastal wetlands are areas that suffer from great pressure. Much of it is due to the rapid development of the surrounding artificial landscapes, where socio-economic factors lead to alterations in the nearby environment, affecting the quality of natural and agricultural systems. This work analyses interconnections among landscapes under the hypothesis that urban-artificial impacts could be detected on soils and waters of an agro-ecological protected area, L'Albufera de Valencia Natural Park, located in the vicinity of the City of Valencia, Spain. The methodological framework developed addresses two types of anthropogenic pressure: (1) direct, due to artificialisation of soil covers that cau…
Influence of 150 Years of Land Use on Anthropogenic and Natural Carbon Stocks in Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy)
2011
Changes in land use/cover that are commonly associated with urbanization can dramatically influence the amount, chemical form, and spatial distribution of carbon (C) stocks. Measured values and relative literature for composition of natural and anthropogenic materials have been compiled. These data are used in conjunction with land cover statistics and expert assessment of building design to calculate C stocks associated with 150 years of land use change and development for an area of the Po River Valley, Northern Italy. Using 4 time periods (1853, 1954, 1976, and 2003), we demonstrate that the C stocks within this densely populated area have undergone considerable modification. A 52% incre…
Assessment of ecosystem integrity and service gradients across Europe using the LTER Europe network
2015
Better integration of knowledge from ecological, social and economic science is necessary to advance the understanding and modelling of socio-ecological systems. To model ecosystem integrity (EI) and ecosystem services (ES) at the landscape scale, assessment matrices are commonly used. These matrices assign capacities to provide different services to different land cover types. We revised such an existing matrix and examined the regional heterogeneity in EI and ES provision in Europe and searched for spatial gradients in their provision to elucidate their suitability for large-scale EI and ES mapping in Europe. Overall, 28 sites belonging to the Long-Term Ecological Research network in Euro…
Anthropogenic carbon stocks analysis in sparsely urbanized areas using remote sensing: a case study
2013
Anthropogenic carbon stocks in urbanized areas is a topic of growing importance at both local and regional scale nowadays, but its assessment is subjects to difficulties due to lack of data and spatial heterogeneity of the target. Remote sensing of urban areas has demonstrated its usefulness in assessing phenomena such as soil sealing and surface imperviousness, which are considered to be effective indicators of urbanization. This work presents a preliminary study of mid resolution satellite data capabilities in providing information about anthropogenic carbon stocks over the area of Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. This has been done through a dual approach consisting of: (1) a dir…
Uncertainty analysis of gross primary production upscaling using Random Forests, remote sensing and eddy covariance data
2015
Abstract The accurate quantification of carbon fluxes at continental spatial scale is important for future policy decisions in the context of global climate change. However, many elements contribute to the uncertainty of such estimate. In this study, the uncertainties of eight days gross primary production (GPP) predicted by Random Forest (RF) machine learning models were analysed at the site, ecosystem and European spatial scales. At the site level, the uncertainties caused by the missing of key drivers were evaluated. The most accurate predictions of eight days GPP were obtained when all available drivers were used (Pearson's correlation coefficient, ρ ~ 0.84; Root Mean Square Error (RMSE…
Agricultural crop exposure and risk of childhood cancer: new findings from a case–control study in Spain
2016
Background Childhood cancer is the main cause of disease-related death in children in Spain. Although little is known about the etiology, environmental factors are potential explanations for a fraction of the cases. Previous studies have shown pesticides to be associated with childhood cancer. The difficulty of collecting personal environmental exposure data is an important limitation; this lack of information about pesticides motivates the development of new methods to subrogate this exposure. We developed a crop exposure index based on geographic information to study the relationship between exposure to different types of crops and risk of childhood tumors. Methods We conducted a populati…
On the relationship between the sky view factor and the land surface temperature derived by Landsat-8 images in Bari, Italy
2015
This study investigates the impact of landscape composition and urban morphology on land surface temperature LST in the city of Bari, Italy. For this purpose, correlation between sky view factor SVF and LST was done assigning weights to the output results and moreover expressing the latter according to the four main surface classes of the Corine land cover CLC classification method. To do this, several daytime Landsat 8 and night-time Landsat 7 ETM+ images acquired during different months of the year were used to retrieve LST by using the radiative transfer equation. The results show a positive relationship between LST and SVF, and this trend is emphasized particularly in the more dense urb…
Land surface air temperature retrieval from EOS-MODIS images
2014
The knowledge of the spatial and temporal patterns of surface air temperature (SAT) is essential to monitor a region's climate and meteorology, to quantify surface exchange processes, to improve climatic and meteorological model results, and to study health and economic impacts. This letter analyzed correlations between SAT and geophysical land surface variables, mainly land surface temperature (LST), to establish operative techniques to obtain spatially continuous land SAT maps from satellite data, unlike data provided by meteorological station networks. The correlations were analyzed by using EOS-MODIS images, meteorological station network data, and geographical variables. Linear regress…
Soil microbial biomass and bacterial diversity in southern European regions vulnerable to desertification
2022
Abstract Soil functionality is strongly dependent on the soil microbiota, which in turn is affected by soil quality and climate. Among global change factors, desertification is the most threatening ecosystem change affecting southern Europe, but the effects on the soil microbiota are largely unknown. In this study, we investigated soil microbial biomass and bacterial diversity in regions of southern European countries (Spain, Portugal and Italy), most under desertification risk, and related to key soil chemical-physical indicators and land use. Soil microbial biomass was positively related, to soil organic carbon (SOC) but bacterial diversity was negatively correlated with it. pH was the mo…