Effects of red brick production on land use, household income, and greenhouse gas emissions in Khartoum, Sudan

In Khartoum (Sudan) a particular factor shaping urban land use is the rapid expansion of red brick making (BM) for the construction of houses which occurs on the most fertile agricultural Gerif soils along the Nile banks. The objectives of this study were to assess the profitability of BM, to explore the income distribution among farmers and kiln owners, to measure the dry matter (DM), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and organic carbon (C_org) in cow dung used for BM, and to estimate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from burned biomass fuel (cow dung and fuel wood). About 49 kiln owners were interviewed in 2009 using a semi-structured questionnaire that allowed to record socio-economic and variable cost data for budget calculations, and determination of Gini coefficients. Samples of cow dung were collected directly from the kilns and analyzed for their nutrients concentrations. To estimate GHG emissions a modified approach of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was used. The land rental value from red brick kilns was estimated at 5-fold the rental value from agriculture and the land rent to total cost ratio was 29% for urban farms compared to 6% for BM. The Gini coefficients indicated that income distribution among kiln owners was more equal than among urban farmers. Using IPCC default values the 475, 381, and 36 t DM of loose dung, compacted dung, and fuel wood used for BM emit annually 688, 548, and 60 t of GHGs, respectively.

Implications for food production, land use and rural development of the European Union's Single Farm Payment: Indications from a survey of farmers' intentions in Germany, Portugal and the UK

The 2003 reform of the European Union's (EU) Common Agricultural Policy introduced a decoupled income support for farmers called the Single Farm Payment (SFP). Concerns were raised about possible future land use and production changes and their impact on rural communities. Here, such concerns are considered against the workings of the SFP in three EU Member States. Various quantitative studies that have determined the likely impact of the SFP within the EU and the study countries are reviewed. We present the results of a farm survey conducted in the study countries in which farmers' responses to a decoupling scenario similar to the SFP were sought. We found that little short-term change was proposed in the three, rather different, study countries with only 30% of the farmers stating that they would alter their mix of farm activities. Furthermore, less than 30% of all respondents in each country would idle any land under decoupling. Of those who would adopt a new activity, the most popular choices were forestry, woodland and non-food crops. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ohio River Basin comprehensive survey-- [microform] main report and development program formulation. Communication from the Chairman, United States Water Resources Council, transmitting the Council's report on a comprehensive program for water and related land use in the Ohio River Basin, pursuant to Public law 89-80.

Reuse of record except for individual research requires license from Congressional Information Service, Inc.

Estimates of global sources and sinks of carbon from land cover and land use changes

The distribution of sources and sinks of carbon over the land surface is dominated by changes in land use such as deforestation, reforestation, and agricultural management. Despite, the importance of land-use change in dominating long-term net terrestrial fluxes of carbon, estimates of the annual flux are uncertain relative to other terms in the global carbon budget. The interaction of the nitrogen cycle via atmospheric N inputs and N limitation with the carbon cycle contributes to the uncertain effect of land use change on terrestrial carbon uptake. This study uses two different land use datasets to force the geographically explicit terrestrial carbon-nitrogen coupled component of the Integrated Science Assessment Model (ISAM) to examine the response of terrestrial carbon stocks to historical LCLUC (cropland, pastureland and wood harvest) while accounting for changes in N deposition, atmospheric CO2 and climate. One of the land use datasets is based on satellite data (SAGE) while the other uses population density maps (HYDE), which allows this study to investigate how global LCLUC data construction can affect model estimated emissions. The timeline chosen for this study starts before the Industrial Revolution in 1765 to the year 2000 because of the influence of rising population and economic development on regional LCLUC. Additionally, this study evaluates the impact that resulting secondary forests may have on terrestrial carbon uptake. The ISAM model simulations indicate that uncertainties in net terrestrial carbon fluxes during the 1990s are largely due to uncertainties in regional LCLUC data. Also results show that secondary forests increase the terrestrial carbon sink but secondary tropical forests carbon uptake are constrained due to nutrient limitation.

Land use / land cover change detection: an object oriented approach, M��nster, Germany

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Estimation of vegetation carbon stock in Portugal using land use/ land cover data

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Land use/ land cover change and its impact on soil erosion process in Begnas Tal Rupa Tal watershed using geospatial tools, Kaski district, Nepal

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Urban land use and land cover change analysis and modeling a case study area Malatya, Turkey

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Assessing the impacts of land use and land cover change on hydrology of watershed: a case study on Gigel-Abbay Watershed, Lake Tana Basin, Ethiopia

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Analysis of urban land use and land cover changes: a case of study in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Exploratory analysis of OpenStreetMap for land use classification

In the last years, volunteers have been contributing massively to what we know nowadays as Volunteered Geographic Information. This huge amount of data might be hiding a vast geographical richness and therefore research needs to be conducted to explore their potential and use it in the solution of real world problems. In this study we conduct an exploratory analysis of data from the OpenStreetMap initiative. Using the Corine Land Cover database as reference and continental Portugal as the study area, we establish a possible correspondence between both classification nomenclatures, evaluate the quality of OpenStreetMap polygon features classification against Corine Land Cover classes from level 1 nomenclature, and analyze the spatial distribution of OpenStreetMap classes over continental Portugal. A global classification accuracy around 76% and interesting coverage areas��� values are remarkable and promising results that encourages us for future research on this topic.

Analysis of panoramio photo tags in order to extract land use information

In the recent past, hardly anyone could predict this course of GIS development. GIS is moving from desktop to cloud. Web 2.0 enabled people to input data into web. These data are becoming increasingly geolocated. Big amounts of data formed something that is called "Big Data". Scientists still don't know how to deal with it completely. Different Data Mining tools are used for trying to extract some useful information from this Big Data. In our study, we also deal with one part of these data - User Generated Geographic Content (UGGC). The Panoramio initiative allows people to upload photos and describe them with tags. These photos are geolocated, which means that they have exact location on the Earth's surface according to a certain spatial reference system. By using Data Mining tools, we are trying to answer if it is possible to extract land use information from Panoramio photo tags. Also, we tried to answer to what extent this information could be accurate. At the end, we compared different Data Mining methods in order to distinguish which one has the most suited performances for this kind of data, which is text. Our answers are quite encouraging. With more than 70% of accuracy, we proved that extracting land use information is possible to some extent. Also, we found Memory Based Reasoning (MBR) method the most suitable method for this kind of data in all cases.

Smart interior design of buildings and its relationship to land use

Architectural design is often associated with aesthetics and style, but it is also very important to building performance and sustainability. There are some studies associating architectural design to the choice for materials from sustainable sources, to indoor air quality, to energy efficiency and productivity. This article takes a step further to analyse how the use of efficient interior design techniques can impact the habitable space in order to improve building sustainability in land use. Smart interior design, a current trend related to the use of efficient and flexible furniture and movable walls in tiny or compact apartments, is analysed. A building with a standard design is used as a case study reference building and compared to a proposed theoretical design alternative using smart interior design techniques. In order to correctly assess sustainability performance, a quantifiable and verified method is used. Results showed that the use of smart interior design techniques can greatly reduce buildings�� impact on the environment.

Linkages of dietary patterns, international trade and land use: the case of olive oil in the European Union

Within only two decades olive oil developed from a niche product which could hardly be found in food stores outside the producing regions towards an integrated component in the diets of industrial countries. This paper discusses the impacts of the promotion of the ���healthy Mediterranean diet��� on land use and agro-ecosystems in the producing countries. It examines the dynamics of olive oil production, trade and consumption in the EU15 in the period 1972 to 2003 and the links between dietary patterns, trade and land use. It analyses the underlying socio-economic driving forces behind the increasing spatial disconnect between production and consumption of olive oil in the EU15 and in particular in Spain, the world largest producer during the last three decades. In the observed period olive oil consumption increased 16 fold in the non-producing EU15 countries. In the geographically limited producing regions like Spain, the 5 fold increase in export production was associated with the rapid industrialization of olive production, the conversion of vast Mediterranean landscapes to olive monocultures and a range of environmental pressures. High amounts of subsidies of the European Common Agricultural Policy and feedback loops within production and consumption systems were driving the transformation of the olive oil system. Our analysis indicates the process of change was not immediately driven by increases in demand for olive oil in non-producing countries, but rather by the institutional setting of the European Union and by concerted political interventions.

Risk-based modelling of diffuse land use impacts from rural landscapes upon salmonid fry abundance

Research has demonstrated that landscape or watershed scale processes can influence instream aquatic ecosystems, in terms of the impacts of delivery of fine sediment, solutes and organic matter. Testing such impacts upon populations of organisms (i.e. at the catchment scale) has not proven straightforward and differences have emerged in the conclusions reached. This is: (1) partly because different studies have focused upon different scales of enquiry; but also (2) because the emphasis upon upstream land cover has rarely addressed the extent to which such land covers are hydrologically connected, and hence able to deliver diffuse pollution, to the drainage network However, there is a third issue. In order to develop suitable hydrological models, we need to conceptualise the process cascade. To do this, we need to know what matters to the organism being impacted by the hydrological system, such that we can identify which processes need to be modelled. Acquiring such knowledge is not easy, especially for organisms like fish that might occupy very different locations in the river over relatively short periods of time. However, and inevitably, hydrological modellers have started by building up piecemeal the aspects of the problem that we think matter to fish. Herein, we report two developments: (a) for the case of sediment associated diffuse pollution from agriculture, a risk-based modelling framework, SCIMAP, has been developed, which is distinct because it has an explicit focus upon hydrological connectivity; and (b) we use spatially distributed ecological data to infer the processes and the associated process parameters that matter to salmonid fry. We apply the model to spatially distributed salmon and fry data from the River Eden, Cumbria, England. The analysis shows, quite surprisingly, that arable land covers are relatively unimportant as drivers of fry abundance. What matters most is intensive pasture, a land cover that could be associated with a number of stressors on salmonid fry (e.g. pesticides, fine sediment) and which allows us to identify a series of risky field locations, where this land cover is readily connected to the river system by overland flow. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.