Advances in GIS and Remote Sensing the Landscape Pattern of Land Cover on Urban Climate and Urban Ecology

Editorial

01 November 2023

Editorial: Advances in GIS and remote sensing the landscape pattern of land cover on urban climate and urban ecology

Pedzisai Kowe

Cletah Shoko

and

Steven Jerie

1,471 views

0 citations

Editors

Pedzisai Kowe

Midlands State University

CLETAH SHOKO

University of the Witwatersrand

STEVEN JERIE

Midlands State University

Impact

Original Research

25 August 2023

Study on the spatial variability of thermal landscape in Xi’an based on OSM road network and POI data

Jiang Wu

, 2 more and

Qun Hui

2,442 views

2 citations

Original Research

28 July 2023

The evolution of spatiotemporal patterns and influencing factors of high-level tourist attractions in the Yellow River Basin

Rentian Shu

, 2 more and

Xiangdan Kong

1,946 views

1 citations

Original Research

15 June 2023

Relationships between microplastic pollution and land use in the Chongqing section of the Yangtze River

Sheng Ye

and

Desheng Pei

3,227 views

5 citations

Area change and spatial distribution of landscape ecological risk shift areas in the Fuchunjiang River Basin from 1990 to 2020. (A) Area change. (B) Spatial distribution. A, B, C, D, and E represent low risk area, sub-low risk area, medium risk area, sub-high risk area, and high risk area, respectively. 0, 1, 2, and 3 represent 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, respectively, and the area unit in the figure is km2.

Original Research

11 May 2023

Landscape ecological risk assessment and influencing factor analysis of basins in suburban areas of large cities – A case study of the Fuchunjiang River Basin, China

Xiaomeng Cheng

, 5 more and

Bin Xu

2,592 views

10 citations

Original Research

05 May 2023

Large-scale measurement of urban streets’ space health based on the spatial disorder theory—A case study on the old urban area of Daoli District of Harbin City

Ting Wan

and

Mingxue Wang

1,876 views

1 citations

All drivers for predicting the LULC and LST change for the year 2032. (A) elevation, (B) slope, (C) anthropogenic activities buffer, (D) waterways buffer, and (E) road buffer.

Original Research

28 March 2023

Evaluating land use/cover change associations with urban surface temperature via machine learning and spatial modeling: Past trends and future simulations in Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan

Muhammad Sajid Mehmood

, 5 more and

Qin Yaochen

5,209 views

12 citations

Original Research

21 March 2023

Urban expansion impacts on agricultural land and thermal environment in Larkana, Pakistan

Ghani Rahman

, 2 more and

Nadhir Al Ansari

Urban area expansion and the increase in the built-up area are major threats to agriculture, the natural environment, and ecology throughout the world. The population of the city of Larkana is rapidly increasing due to natural growth and uncontrolled migration from the surrounding areas, which have resulted in a haphazard increase in the built-up area over the fertile agricultural land and affected the city’s thermal environment. This research aims to evaluate the impacts of urban area expansion on agricultural land and the thermal environment of the study area by assessing the change in land use/ land cover (LULC) from 1990 to 2020 and land surface temperature (LST). For this purpose, the Random Forest (RF) algorithm was applied, and LST was calculated in Google Earth Engine (GEE) using Landsat imageries for the years 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. For the RF classifier algorithm, 3500 reference random points were generated for each year, which were then randomly divided into two datasets, i.e., a training sample consisting of 70% of the points and a validation dataset (30% of the points). After LULC classification, the results were validated for 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, and the accuracy was 88.3%, 89%, 90.01%, and 90.8%, respectively. The study results showed that the built-up area increased from 12.31 to 43.83 km² while the barren land in the study region decreased from 56.51 km² to 11.62 km². The agricultural land was 66.66 km² in 1990, expanded to 101.38 km², and then decreased to 79.49 km² in 2020. The results also revealed that most of the urban expansion in the last decade (2010-2020) took place on agricultural land. The urban thermal environment also showed a gradual increase in surface temperatur,e as recorded by the LST results. The LST results revealed that the maximum LST was 33.4°C in 1990, which increased to 36.1°C in 2020, and similarly, the minimum LST was 25.1°C, which also increased to 26.6°C in 2020. This study provides useful results for stakeholders to devise better policies and plans to control further haphazard urban expansion on fertile agricultural land in the study area.

6,755 views

18 citations

Original Research

03 March 2023

GIS integrated RUSLE model-based soil loss estimation and watershed prioritization for land and water conservation aspects

Mahesh Chand Singh

, 4 more and

Anurag Malik

Land degradation has become one of the major threats throughout the globe, affecting about 2.6 billion people in more than 100 countries. The highest rate of land degradation is in Asia, followed by Africa and Europe. Climate change coupled with anthropogenic activities have accelerated the rate of land degradation in developing nations. In India, land degradation has affected about 105.48 million hectares. Thus, modeling and mapping soil loss, and assessing the vulnerability threat of the active erosional processes in a region are the major challenges from the land and water conservation aspects. The present study attempted rigorous modeling to estimate soil loss from the Banas Basin of Rajasthan state, India, using GIS-integrated Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) equation. Priority ranking was computed for different watersheds in terms of the degree of soil loss from their catchments, so that appropriate conservation measures can be implemented. The total area of Banas basin (68,207.82 km²) was systematically separated into 25 watersheds ranging in area from 113.0 to 7626.8 km². Rainfall dataset of Indian Meteorological Department for 30 years (1990–2020), FAO based Soil map for soil characterization, ALOS PALSAR digital elevation model for topographic assessment, and Sentinal-2 based land use and land cover map were integrated for modeling and mapping soil erosion/loss risk assessment. The total annual soil loss in the Banas basin was recorded as 21,766,048.8 tons. The areas under very low (0–1 t ha^-1 year^-1), low (1–5 t ha^-1 year^-1), medium (5–10 t ha^-1 year^-1), high (10–50 t ha^-1 year^-1) and extreme (>50 t ha^-1 year^-1) soil loss categories were recorded as 24.2, 66.8, 7.3, 0.9, and 0.7%, respectively, whereas the respective average annual soil loss values were obtained as 0.8, 3.0, 6.0, 23.1, and 52.0 t ha^-1 year^-1. The average annual soil loss among different watersheds was recorded in the range of 1.1–84.9 t ha^-1 year^-1, being highest (84.9 t ha^-1 year^-1) in WS18, followed by WS10 (38.4 t ha^-1 year^-1), SW25 (34.7 t ha^-1 year^-1) and WS23 (17.9 t ha^-1 year^-1), whereas it was lowest for WS8 (1.1 t ha^-1 year^-1). Thus, WS18 obtained the highest/top priority rank in terms of the average annual soil loss (84.9 t ha^-1 year^-1) to be considered as the first priority for land and water conservation planning and implementation. The quantitative results of this study would be useful for implementation of land and water conservation measures in the problematic areas of the Banas basin for controlling soil loss through water erosion.

5,408 views

38 citations

Original Research

19 January 2023

Characterizing urban growth and land surface temperature in the western himalayan cities of India using remote sensing and spatial metrics

Rajman Gupta

, 2 more and

Rajendra Kr Joshi

Change in NDBI (A) and degree of association of NDBI with LST (B) for Shimla.

Urban heat islands (UHI) are developing due to increasing urbanization and loss of vegetation in major cities in India. Increased urbanization modifies the urban microclimate that leads to significant land-use changes resulting in surface conversion and heat release, which poses serious risks to human health, environment and the ecosystem of the Himalayan ecosystem. Hence, mitigating UHI becomes important and requires a better understanding of underlying associated biophysical processes. In the study an attempt has been made to demonstrate the impact of urbanization on land surface temperature (LST) in Shimla and Dehradun, capitals of the Western Himalayan states, India using satellite data and spatial metrics. The process was analyzed using urban coverage patterns obtained from Landsat 5, 7, and 8 and corresponding sensors from TM, ETM⁺, and OLI. The Built-up and Non-Built-up areas were extracted and the biophysical parameters NDVI, NDBI, NDWI and LST were calculated to capture different features of urban growth. The result indicated, that the built-up area increased from 32.19 km² (2000) to 68.37 km² (2016) in Dehradun and from 12.38 km² (2000) to 29.47 km² (2016) in Shimla during the study period, resulting in an increase in NDBI and LST and Reduction and NDVI and NDWI. Results showed that temperature hotspots were largest in urban areas, followed by vegetation and water bodies. A significant correlation (p < 0.05) was observed between LST and biophysical parameters -NDVI, NDBI, NDWI. Spatial metrics at the class and landscape levels show that increased urban growth from 2000 to 2016 has made the landscape fragmented and more heterogeneous. The Identified trends and changes in landscape patterns and their impact on heterogeneous urban areas suggest that the study is feasible to estimate LST, NDVI, NDBI and NDWI with reasonable accuracy that will likely have influence on policy interventions.

5,023 views

13 citations