Land use/land cover (LU/LC) changes were determined in an urban area, Tirupati, from 1976 to 2003 by using Geographical Information Systems (GISs) and remote sensing technology. These studies were employed by using the Survey of India topographic map 57 O/6 and the remote sensing data of LISS III and PAN of IRS ID of 2003. The study area was classified into eight categories on the basis of field study, geographical conditions, and remote sensing data. The comparison of LU/LC in 1976 and 2003 derived from toposheet and satellite imagery interpretation indicates that there is a significant increase in built-up area, open forest, plantation, and other lands. It is also noted that substantial amount of agriculture land, water spread area, and dense forest area vanished during the period of study which may be due to rapid urbanization of the study area. No mining activities were found in the study area in 1976, but a small addition of mining land was found in 2003.

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Analysis of land use/land cover changes using remote sensing data and GIS at an urban area, Tirupati, India.

Many studies are based on the assumption that an area and its surrounding (buffer) area present similar environmental conditions and can be compared. For example, in order to assess the effectiveness of a protected area, the land use/cover changes are compared inside the park with its surroundings. However, the heterogeneity in spatial variables can bias this assessment: we have shown that most of the protected areas in Mexico present significant environmental differences between their interior and their surroundings. Therefore, a comparison that aims at assessing the effectiveness of conservation strategies, must be cautioned. In this paper, a simple method which allows the generation of a buffer area that presents similar conditions with respect to a set of environmental variables is presented. The method was used in order to assess the effectiveness of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, a protected area located in the south-eastern part of Mexico. The annual rate of deforestation inside the protected area, the standard buffer area (based upon distance from the protected area only) and the similar buffer area (taking into account distance along with some environmental variables) were 0.3, 1.3 and 0.6%, respectively. These results showed that the protected area was effective in preventing land clearing, but that the comparison with the standard buffer area gave an over-optimistic vision of its effectiveness.

Assessing protected area effectiveness using surrounding (buffer) areas environmentally similar to the target area

This paper analyzes the urban-rural land-use change of Chongqing and its policy dimensional driving forces from 1995 to 2006, using high-resolution Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper) data of 1995, 2000 and 2006, and socio-economic data from both research institutes and government departments. The outcomes indicated that urban-rural land-use change in Chongqing can be characterized by two major trends: First, the non-agricultural land increased substantially from 1995 to 2006, thus causing agricultural land especially farmland to decrease continuously. Second, the aggregation index of urban settlements and rural settlements shows that local urban-rural development experienced a process of changing from aggregation (1995-2000) to decentralization (2000-2006). Chongqing is a special area getting immersed in many important policies, which include the establishment of the municipality directly under the Central Government, the building of Three Gorges Dam Project, the Western China Development Program and the Grain-for-Green Programme, and bring about tremendous influences on its land-use change. By analyzing Chongqing's land-use change and its policy driving forces, some implications for its new policy of ‘Urban-rural Integrated Reform’ are obtained. That is more attentions need to be paid to curbing excessive and idle rural housing and consolidating rural construction land, and to laying out a scientific land-use plan for its rural areas taking such rural land-use issues as farmland occupation and rural housing land management into accounts, so as to coordinate and balance the urban-rural development.

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Analysis of Urban-Rural Land-Use Change during 1995-2006 and Its Policy Dimensional Driving Forces in Chongqing, China

The Ibirite watershed is subject to several forms of environmental degradation such as the presence of a petroleum refinery industry, urbanization of its surrounding landscape, and non treated domestic sewage from over 135,000 inhabitants. Benthic macroinvertebrates represent a useful tool in the evaluation of environmental quality through studies of the structure of communities and their relationship to anthropic activities within the watersheds. The objective of this study was to evaluate the environmental impact to the Ibirite reservoir caused by the petroleum refinery industry, urbanization, and sulphatation. Degradation of the watershed was measured by using the richness, diversity, evenness, and density of benthic macroinvertebrates. Twelve sampling stations were established as follows: five stations on Pintados and Ibirite streams (upstream from the reservoir), six in the reservoir and one station downstream from the reservoir. From 2002 to 2003, during both the dry and rainy seasons (in the tributaries) and the stratified and non-stratified periods (in the reservoir) were evaluated. A total of 289,777 organisms were collected and the most abundant organisms found in the streams were Oligochaeta (60%), Chironomidae (Chironomus, Goeldichironomus, Dicrotendipes, Cryptochironomus, Polypedilum, Parachironomus, Tanytarsus, Tribelos, Tanypus, Ablabesmyia, Cricotopus, Oliveriella) (38%) and Gastropoda (Biomphalaria straminea, Physa sp., Melanoides tuberculatus, Pomacea haustrum) (2%). In the reservoir, the most abundant specimens were Chaoboridae (46%) and Chironomidae larvae (Chironomus, Goeldichironomus, Tanypus, Coleotanypus, Labrundinia) (17%), in addition to Oligochaeta (24%) and Gastropoda (Melanoides tuberculatus) (13%). Evaluation of the structure and distribution of benthic communities showed a rapid environmental degradation process within the studied aquatic systems, in which low values of richness and diversity and high densities of tolerant organisms were observed. This environmental degradation is a result of the intense discharge of domestic sewage into the streams, reducing water quality and contributing to rapid artificial eutrophication.

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Benthic macroinvertebrates in the watershed of an urban reservoir in southeastern Brazil

To visualize the water quality of the Lower Cape Fear River basin a Decision Support System (DSS) web site was developed which incorporates dynamic graphing and Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Together, these two software packages enable users to interact with water quality variables in order to investigate the spatial and temporal complexity of the data. The result of this research is that graphing and GIS technology are capable of being implemented over the Internet and that complex water quality data can be successfully disseminated using this medium. However, there remains a need to seamlessly link the graphing and GIS software which will make the visualization tools much more successful at communicating the complex spatial and temporal data.

River run: an interactive GIS and dynamic graphing website for decision support and exploratory data analysis of water quality parameters of the lower Cape Fear river

Unplanned urban expansion of the new urban cluster of Rosetta City, Egypt is reaching a critical stage. This unplanned expansion of slum areas threatens the land on which the high quality palm trees, by which Rosetta region is known, are cultivated. This research is concerned with studying the manner, rate, extent and impact of the expansion of the urban cluster of Rosetta City. A multi-temporal analysis of mainly the limits of the built up urban areas and their surrounding land cover is the main evaluation technique. By using Geographic Information Systems, it was possible to study the geographic base of the concerned area. An increase in area of the urban clusters of about 0.1 km2 occurred from 1917–1945, and a second increase of over 0.07 km2 occurred from 1945–1963. Just after the end of the Second World War, an abrupt increase took place in 1963–1993 that reached 1.7 km2. The majority of all the urban expansion was unplanned. By studying the topographic map of Rosetta city and the urban clusters on the western bank of the river Nile, it was found that most of the urban conglomeration of the city is located on relatively elevated land. The western part of the urban area is of an elevation varying around 5.0 m, and inclining with moderate slope towards the eastern edge of the city adjacent to the river Nile. The urban expansion on inclined land has caused severe problems with the sanitary drainage, as the city lacks any sanitary drainage systems. Sanitary drainage currently operates through precipitation trenches. Sanitary sewage gather beneath the ground forming continuos streams which reach the basements of many of the monuments present.

P. Gal

Papers

GIS for Environmental Assessment of the Impacts of Urban Encroachment on Rosetta Region, Egypt