Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Distinguishing Land Change From Natural Variability And Uncertainty In Central Mexico With Modis Evi, Trmm Precipitation, And Modis Lst Data, Zachary Christman, John Rogan, J. Ronald Eastman, B. L. Turner Ii

Zachary Christman

Precipitation and temperature enact variable influences on vegetation, impacting the type and condition of land cover, as well as the assessment of change over broad landscapes. Separating the influence of vegetative variability independent and discrete land cover change remains a major challenge to landscape change assessments. The heterogeneous Lerma-Chapala-Santiago watershed of central Mexico exemplifies both natural and anthropogenic forces enacting variability and change on the landscape. This study employed a time series of Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) composites from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectoradiometer (MODIS) for 2001–2007 and per-pixel multiple linear regressions in order to model changes in EVI as …

Land Use And Land Cover Dynamics Under Climate Change In Urbanizing Intermountain West: A Case Study From Cache County, Utah, Enjie Li

Enjie Li

Climate change is tightly linked with urbanization. Urban development with increasing greenhouse gas emission worsens climate change, while climate change in turn influence hydroclimate and ecosystem functions, and indirectly affect urban systems. The Intermountain West is experiencing rapid urban growth, climate change interacting with urbanization poses new challenges to the Intermountain West. Urban planning needs to adapt to these new changes and constrains, and to develop new tools and plans to effectively respond to climate changes. An urban growth model SLEUTH is applied to predict the future urban growth and land use dynamics in the Intermountain west, using Cache County …

Analysis Of Land Use Changes And Its Hydrological Implication On River Niger, Lokoja, Nigeria, O O. Ifatmehin Phd, P A. Essoka Phd, A Ahmed

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

This study evaluates the impact of urbanization on Meme river catchment of 667,560.5Km2 area in the Lokoja urbanizing area of Kogi State. The emphasis was to examine the rate of urbanization, changes in land-use, and changes in meme river channel. Land-sat satellite imageries of 1987, 2001, 2006 and 2011 were processed to examine how land use change processes affects rate of urbanization and impacted on the stream. Hydrological map of Meme River was digitized using ARCGIS 9 software to extract the precise study area. It was discovered from multiple regression analysis that light vegetation (.92), built up area (.81), rock …

Book Review: Edward L. Glaeser, Triumph Of The City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, And Happier (The Penguin Press 2011), David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

It is always a bit unnerving to read someone else’s love letters, but even more so, when you have the same object of desire. Edward Glaeser’s TRIUMPH OF THE CITY is a love letter to cities and to New York City in particular. Glaeser provides a theoertical framework of the city, arguing that “Cities are the absence of physical space between people and companies. They are proximity, density, closeness.”

Glaeser prescribes three simple rules to protect the vitality of the urban environment: First, cities should replace the current lengthy and uncertain permitting process with a simple system of fees. Second, …

A Satellite Remote Sensing Based Land Surface Temperature Retrieval From Landsat Tm Data., Olarewaju Oluseyi Ifatimehin

Olarewaju Oluseyi Ifatimehin

Land Surface Temperature (LST) of Lokoja town were retrieved from LandSat TM imagery of 1987. The NDVI and land emissivity were estimated from visible and near infrared bands, while the effective satellite temperature was estimated from the thermal infrared band. The Qin et al's mono-window algorithm was employed to obtain the land surface temperatures of the different land use/cover types in Lokoja town. The result indicated that vacant land and built-up have the highest LST values of 331.13K and 329.82K, and vegetation, water bodies and cultivated land having the least with 294.03K, 296.76K and 306.06K respectively. The average retrieved LST …