Search results for "Plant cover"
showing 10 items of 35 documents
Soil moisture changes after land abandonment in the Central Spanish Pyrenees
2001
14 páginas, 3 tablas, 6 figuras.
Predation on artificial ground nests in relation to forest fragmentation, agricultural land and habitat structure
1996
The impacts of forest fragmentation, agricultural land and habitat structure on depredation of artificial ground nests were studied in the cultivated area in central Finland and in the forest dominated area in Finnish Lapland. The overall predation rate did not differ between the regions. The overall predation rate was also independent of landscape characteristics forest patch size and the distance to patch edge. However, nest predation was clearly affected by the agricultural land since the robbing rate in forest edges was higher near farmlands than further away. This effect was caused by avian predators which proportional importance in predation was higher in the agricultural landscape th…
Vegetation cover seasonal changes assessment from TM imagery in a semi-arid landscape
2004
This work evaluates the suitability of spectral mixture analysis (SMA) methods to assess vegetation cover seasonal changes in a desertification context. Our main interest is to produce remotely sensed derived maps, sensitive to vegetation activity and quite independent of the soil background. A further aim is to analyse the inter-annual variations of this magnitude for different natural vegetation species, in response to seasonal and climatic changes. Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) was obtained using a Variable Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (VESMA) technique. The aim is to identify the main vegetation cover and lithological units and decompose them in separate stages. The use of sp…
Geostatistical Survey and Amelioration of an Inland Salt Affected Area in the Lake of Texcoco, Mexico
1999
The area formerly occupied by the Texcoco Lake, near Mexico City, was subjected to drainage since the past century, to prevent flooding of the city; however, the progressive desiccation and the geological origin of the area gave place to the appearance of strongly salt and sodium affected soils. Lacking vegetation, these soils are very susceptible to wind erosion, and has been attempted to provide the area with a plant cover, using mostly native species. However, there are extensive areas where the levels of salts and exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) are so high that the introduction of plants has not been successful; in these places, some kind of amelioration is needed, but since a gen…
The role of forest fire severity on vegetation recovery after 18 years. Implications for forest management of Quercus suber L. in Iberian Peninsula
2016
Wildfires are a widespread phenomenon in Mediterranean environments. Wildfires result in different fire severities, and then in contrasting plant cover and floristic composition. This paper analyses the recovery of the vegetation eighteen years after a wildfire in Catalonia. The Pinus pinaster ssp. forest was affected by three different severities in July 1994, and studied the spring of 1995 and again in 2008. After eighteen years (2012), our research found that burnt sites constitute a dense forest with a broad variety of species, including many young pines, shrubs and herbaceous plants, but that the risk of fire remains very high, due to the large quantity of fuel and the flammability of …
Effects of afforestation with four unmixed plant species on the soil–water interactions in a semiarid Mediterranean region (Sicily, Italy)
2012
Purpose An assessment of the effect of plant cover on the properties of four afforested soils in central Sicily was performed with the aim of discriminating among them after 60 years of afforestation. Materials and methods Chemical and biochemical soil analyses were coupled to fast field cycling (FFC) NMR relaxation investigations in order to monitor surface interactions of water in water-saturated soils. Results and discussion The traditional soil analyses revealed that the most stable soil properties such as soil texture and pH are not affected by 60 years of afforestation. Soils developed under eucalyptus trees showed larger amounts of hydrophilic organic matter as compared to the soils …
Short-term effect of human trampling on the upper infralittoral macroalgae of Ustica Island MPA (western Mediterranean, Italy)
2002
The short-term response of Mediterranean upper infralittoral macroalgal species to experimental human trampling was investigated. Disturbances of six different intensities were applied within the integral reserve of the Ustica Island marine protected area (Italy, Mediterranean Sea). The dominant macroalgal species Cystoseira brachicarpa v. balearica and Dictyota mediterranea were strongly affected by human trampling. Higher levels of disturbance significantly affected both algal percentage cover and canopy at an increasing rate. Three months after trampling, for both variables it was highlighted that the algal recovery from disturbance was incomplete, being significantly different among tra…
A methodology for obtaining the crop temperature from NOAA-9 AVHRR data
1991
Abstract In this paper a methodology for obtaining the crop temperature from NOAA-9 AVHRR data has been developed, which is based on a theoretical model that permits interpreting the remote sensing temperature measurement in heterogeneous and rough surfaces. This procedure determines the crop temperature by evaluating prsviously: (1) the temperature difference between crop and ground, (2) the atmospheric and emissivity corrections, (3) the ground and vegetation emissi-vities in the AVHRR bands 4 (10-3-11-3 μm) and 5 (11 -5-12-5 μm), and (4) the proportion of ground in each pixel. We have applied this method to obtain a map of orange-tree temperatures for the Valencian region and satisfactor…
Pinus halepensis M. versus Quercus ilex subsp. Rotundifolia L. runoff and soil erosion at pedon scale under natural rainfall in Eastern Spain three d…
2017
Abstract Afforestation aims to recover the vegetation cover, and restore natural ecosystems. The plant species selected for restoration will determine species richness and the fate of the ecosystem. Research focussing on the impact of vegetation recovery on soil quality are abundant, especially on fire affected land and where rehabilitation, afforestation and restoration projects were carried out. However, little is known about how different plants species affect soil erosion and water losses, which are key factors that will impact the fate of the afforested land. Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis M.) is the species commonly used for afforestation in the Mediterranean and is very successful whe…
The Yearly Land Cover Dynamics (YLCD) method: An analysis of global vegetation from NDVI and LST parameters
2009
NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) has been widely used to monitor vegetation changes since the early eighties. On the other hand, little use has been made of land surface temperatures (LST), due to their sensitivity to the orbital drift which affects the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) platforms flying AVHRR sensor. This study presents a new method for monitoring vegetation by using NDVI and LST data, based on an orbital drift corrected dataset derived from data provided by the GIMMS (Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies) group. This method, named Yearly Land Cover Dynamics (YLCD), characterizes NDVI and LST behavior on a yearly basis, through the…