There is gradual recognition that cultural ecosystem services are critical building blocks for human well-being. Cultural and provisioning services are often intertwined, difficult to separate, and play salient roles in maintaining local identities. However, multiple studies assume links between cultural ecosystem services and human well-being, without quantifying relationships. We surveyed a representative

The quantification of kelp forest distribution across space and time is critical to support decision-makers responsible for habitat management and conservation. Spatial data such as aerial photos and satellite imagery are key for deriving kelp distribution; however, they have only become available at an adequate quality within the 20th and 21st centuries. In this study, British Admiralty (BA) charts

Brightness of nighttime lights (NTL) collected by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is compatible across different times of images thanks to the on-board calibration system. However, the NTL radiance observed by the S-NPP VIIRS shows clear seasonality corresponding to the seasonal changes in the albedo of land surface. Additionally

Land urbanization caused by human activities is increasingly converting natural land surfaces to artificial ones and modifying land surface parameters. This can lead to changes in weather conditions and further effects on air pollutants. This study examines the influence of land urbanization on meteorology and air quality in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) by simulating the impacts of land-use/land cover

While several studies have explored geographic relationships within the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), results have been mixed. Findings have revealed an imbalanced SNAP participation rate among eligible populations in both suburban and rural areas. Studies on SNAP accessibility have often focused on store locations, but few have examined issues of traveling to SNAP offices. In this

Forest covers 40% of the European Alpine region and contributes to the protection of human beings and infrastructures against natural hazards such as rockfalls. However, despite the recognition of this ecosystem service, most mountain territories do not have a map of protection forests. When a map exists, it generally depends on data restricted to a limited extent, which prevents any replication or

Landscapes carrying remnants of military activity gain greater attention in many fields of research due to intrinsic cultural and natural values as well as hazard of unexploded ordnance (UXO). Identification of military remnants is currently facilitated by the use of high precision LiDAR-derived digital terrain models. Contribution of these models to identification of military remnants is unfortunately

Between January 1 and February 10, 2017, the central southern area of Chile faced several mega-fires events that were considered the second largest of the history, 518,174 ha were affected. The devastating consequences of this fire also include the loss of 12 human lives, as well as an enormous financial cost in the fight against fires. Due to the increase in global mega-fires and the increase in industrial

Biogeographical studies are considered effective for investigations on macroecology and evolution, as well as for delineating patterns of endemism and identifying the key drivers influencing the historical distribution of species. Clustering techniques, based on environmental datasets and distribution of endemic species, have been largely used in biogeography and for the definition of endemic-rich

By introducing an improved potential model and using the Internet map navigation service and GIS spatial analysis technology platform, this paper studies the spatial accessibility and equity of the medical treatment of residential buildings in the main urban area of Zhengzhou. The findings show that, overall, the spatial accessibility of medical treatment in the study area extends in the northeast

Climate change studies in recent decades have been based on Global Climate Models (GCMs), and the changes in the distribution of climatic regions over time extracted from these models can be represented using the Köppen climatic classification system, which predicts the global distribution of biomes based on monthly precipitation and average temperatures. In this study, the Köppen classification is

Tree crops like cocoa and oil palm have ecological and socio-economic significance in tropical landscapes. However, their expansion in tropical landscapes leaves footprints on ecosystem-based livelihoods, forests, and land for food. While policy and research have focused on productivity, markets and land-use transitions, the structural effects of expanding tree crops on landscapes have rarely been

Angola has been labelled a “petro-state”, since independence, due to its oil-wealth and the country's economic dependence on its revenues. Considering that oil availability and price could be a factor reducing deforestation and forest degradation through accelerating energy-transition, our objective was to study the energy consumption patterns and the role of woody biomass as a source of income of

Ever since colonial times, the rural inhabitants of Guinea-Bissau have been blamed for lighting uncontrolled fires all over the country. Based on in-depth ethnographic research in two regions, a country-level rapid rural appraisal, and analysis of satellite active fire data, this essay shows how burning practices are, however, diversified according to cultural, socio-economic, demographic and agro-ecological

Analysis of movement patterns at fine temporal scales may suggest how animals interact with their surrounding habitat. This is particularly useful in determining not only where animals may spend their time, but when and how likely they may be to interact with or utilize specific habitat resources. While previous studies demonstrate various methods seeking to address this concern, most apply for a single

The application of ecosystem services (ES) models that rely on primary biophysical data is considered as most promising to generate accurate maps for decision making. However, to effectively apply these modelling approaches for ES mapping, representative functional spatial units with distinct socio-ecological characteristics are needed, which allow the upscaling of measured variables from the plot

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019, and is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). COVID-19 is a pandemic with an estimated death rate between 1% and 5%; and an estimated R0 between 2.2 and 6.7 according to various sources. As of March 28th, 2020, there were over 649,000 confirmed cases and 30,249 total deaths, globally

Across a broad spectrum of U.S. cities, central urban neighborhoods have undergone significant demographic and socio-economic change over the last few decades, with many having experienced gentrification-induced displacement. Rather than aiming to identify and track neighborhood change across a diverse set of individual neighborhoods, this investigation focuses foremost on unpacking the concept of

To reduce drowning fatalities and health damage during recreational activities in coastal waters, this paper proposes a dynamic risk management system. Based on the operational definition of risk management, potential risks of coastal recreational activities are first identified as surfzone hydrodynamic and water quality. The safety criteria for each factor are discussed accordingly. The depth-velocity

Although climate change influences the distribution of invasive plant species, there is limited knowledge regarding its potential effects on Lantana camara distributions, especially in southern African savanna ecosystems. In this study, we predict the potential effects of climate change on the future distribution of Lantana camara as well as determine the ecosystems at risk from Lantana camara invasion

The causes and consequences of severe fires must be understood to strategically manage forest resources, including timber and fuelwood. Floods and resulting infrastructure damages are intensified due to soil erosion and debris exhumed by recently-burned catchments. A mixed Ponderosa and Piñon-Juniper forest managed by a rural New Mexico community burned in 2016, destroying harvestable fuelwood and

Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) is a growing concern for local communities living in the vicinity of protected areas. These conflicts commonly take place as attack by wild animals and crop-raiding events, among other forms. We studied crop-raiding patterns by non-human primates in forest–agricultural landscape mosaic in the Taita Hills, southeast Kenya. The study applies both qualitative and quantitative

With rapid urbanization and industrialization, a substantial amount of rural land has been converted to urban land. Land urbanization has great socioeconomic benefits but also leads to imbalances in regional cities. In this work, an urban strip way to study the relationship between the land urbanization and socioeconomic benefits of cities is introduced. The research object includes 21 cities connected

The high population density and rapid urban expansion in China's coastal areas have significantly changed the land-use structure and regional landscape pattern, causing a series of ecological and environmental problems. The quality of urban human settlements has been seriously affected. Elucidating the spatiotemporal variations in coastal urbanization and ecological risk can help us better manage cities

Excess mortality can be caused by extreme hot weather events, which are increasing in severity and frequency in Canada due to climate change. Individual and social vulnerability factors influence the mortality risk associated with a given heat exposure. We constructed heat vulnerability indices using census data from 2006 and 2011 in Canada, developed a novel design to compare spatiotemporal changes

The recent increase in user-generated content and social media adoption in developing countries offers an unprecedented opportunity to better understand the accessibility and spatial distribution of financial services in sub-Saharan Africa. Financial inclusion has been identified as a priority by multiple agencies in the region and on-the-ground efforts are currently underway to identify previously

The purpose of this study was to investigate the utility of exploratory analytical techniques using publically available data in informing interventions in case of infectious diseases outbreaks. More exactly spatiotemporal and multivariate methods were used to characterize the dynamics of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic in West Africa, and propose plausible relationships with demographic/social

The current U.S. demographic shift toward an older population and the importance of intervening before conditions become severe warrant a concerted effort to ease the burden of access to healthcare for older adults. With regard to oral healthcare, more integrated services for older adults are needed to effectively serve their complex medical and dental needs. Using an agent-based simulation model,

Despite the increasing recognition of household food insecurity as a policy issue, there is currently no routine measurement of food insecurity in the UK. There is nothing to suggest that Government will address this in the near future for all parts of the UK. In which case, policy makers and campaigners might instead seek out consistent and robust measures of the population-level factors which are

Increased lifespans and population growth have resulted in an older U.S. society that must reckon with the complex oral health needs that arise as adults age. Understanding accessibility to screening and treatment facilities for older adults is necessary in order to provide them with preventive and restorative services. This study uses an agent-based model to examine the accessibility of screening

Two areas still need further examination in the ecological study of inequality and mortality. First, the evidence for the relationship between income inequality and mortality remains inconclusive, particularly when the analytic unit is small (e.g., county in the U.S.). Second, most previous studies are cross-sectional and are unable to address the recent diverging patterns whereby mortality has decreased

Proper allocation of limited healthcare resources is a challenging task for policymakers in developing countries. Allocation of and access to these resources typically varies based on how need is defined, thus determining how individuals access and acquire healthcare. Using the introduction of antiretroviral therapy in southern Mozambique as an example, we examine alternative definitions of need for

OBJECTIVES Using publicly available, geotagged Twitter data, we created neighborhood indicators for happiness, food and physical activity for three large counties: Salt Lake, San Francisco and New York. METHODS We utilize 2.8 million tweets collected between February-August 2015 in our analysis. Geo-coordinates of where tweets were sent allow us to spatially join them to 2010 census tract locations

Environmental inequality scholarship has paid little attention to the disproportional exposure of immigrants in the United States (U.S.) to unfavorable environmental conditions. This study investigates whether new international migrants in the U.S. are exposed to environmental hazards and how this pattern varies among immigrant subpopulations (e.g., Hispanics, Asian, European). We combine sociodemographic

Predicting the spatial distribution of animals is an important and widely used tool with applications in wildlife management, conservation, and population health. Wildlife telemetry technology coupled with the availability of spatial data and GIS software have facilitated advancements in species distribution modeling. There are also challenges related to these advancements including the accurate and

Childhood vaccination data are made available at a school level in some U.S. states. These data can be geocoded and may be considered as having a high spatial resolution. However, a school only represents the destination location for the set of students that actually reside and interact within some larger areal region, creating a spatial mismatch. Public school districts are often used to represent

Choice of neighborhood scale affects associations between environmental attributes and health-related outcomes. This phenomenon, a part of the modifiable areal unit problem, has been described fully in geography but not as it relates to food environment research. Using two administrative-based geographic boundaries (census tracts and block groups), supermarket geographic measures (density, cumulative

Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) is a mosquito-borne viral disease that is often fatal to humans and horses. Some species including white-tailed deer and passerine birds can survive infection with the EEE virus (EEEV) and develop antibodies that can be detected using laboratory techniques. In this way, collected serum samples from free ranging white-tailed deer can be used to monitor the presence

This study assessed spatial context and the local impacts of putative factors on the proportion of prostate cancer diagnosed at late-stages in Florida during the period 2001-2007. A logistic regression was performed aspatially and by geographically-weighted regression (GWR) at the nodes of a 5 km spacing grid overlaid over Florida and using all the cancer cases within a radius of 125 km of each node

Based on the data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) in 2007, 2009 and 2011 in Utah, this research uses multilevel modeling (MLM) to examine the associations between neighborhood built environments and individual odds of overweight and obesity after controlling for individual risk factors. The BRFSS data include information on 21,961 individuals geocoded to zip code areas.

Accurate pesticide exposure estimation is integral to epidemiologic studies elucidating the role of pesticides in human health. Humans can be exposed to pesticides via residential proximity to agricultural pesticide applications (drift). We present an improved geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing method, the Landsat method, to estimate agricultural pesticide exposure through matching

Public media such as TV or newspapers, paired with crime statistics from the authority, raise awareness of crimes within society. However, in today's digital society, other sources rapidly gain importance as well. The Internet and social networks act heavily as information distribution platforms. Therefore, this paper aims at exploring the influence of the social Web service Twitter as an information

In 2010 the American Community Survey (ACS) replaced the long form of the United States decennial census. The ACS is now the principal source of high-resolution geographic information about the U.S. population. The margins of error on ACS census tract-level data are on average 75 percent larger than those of the corresponding 2000 long-form estimate. The practical implications of this increase is that

Understanding distribution patterns of hosts implicated in the transmission of zoonotic disease remains a key goal of parasitology. Here, random forests are employed to model spatial patterns of the presence of the plateau pika (Ochotona spp.) small mammal intermediate host for the parasitic tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis which is responsible for a significant burden of human zoonoses in western

Livability has risen, alongside sustainability, as a guiding principle for planning and policy. Promoted as the more tangible of the two concepts, livability shapes public perception and infrastructure investments in cities, as well as competition among cities for the attention of the public, investment communities, and potentially fickle and mobile human capital. This paper takes stock of the current

Historic rates of habitat change and growing exploitation of natural resources threaten avian biodiversity in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, a global biodiversity hotspot. We implemented a twostage framework for conservation planning in the Atlantic Forest. First, we used ecological niche modeling to predict the distributions of 23 endemic bird species using 19 climatic metrics and 12 spectral and

The population of Africa is predicted to double over the next 40 years, driving exceptionally high urban expansion rates that will induce significant socio-economic, environmental and health changes. In order to prepare for these changes, it is important to better understand urban growth dynamics in Africa and better predict the spatial pattern of rural-urban conversions. Previous work on urban expansion

The effects of extended climatic variability on agricultural land use were explored for the type of system found in villages of northeastern Thailand. An agent based model developed for the Nang Rong district was used to simulate land allotted to jasmine rice, heavy rice, cassava, and sugar cane. The land use choices in the model depended on likely economic outcomes, but included elements of bounded

Malaria elimination remains a major public health challenge in many tropical regions, including large areas of northern South America. In this study, we present a new high spatial resolution (90 × 90 m) risk map for Colombia and surrounding areas based on environmental and human population data. The map was created through a participatory multi-criteria decision analysis in which expert opinion was

A GIS-based risk index model was developed to quantify EEEV transmission risk to horses in the State of Florida. EEEV is a highly pathogenic arbovirus that is endemic along the east coast of the United States, and it is generally fatal to both horses and humans. The model evaluates EEEV transmission risk at individual raster cells in map on a continuous scale of 0 to 1. The risk index is derived based

Several spatial measures of community food access identifying so called "food deserts" have been developed based on geospatial information and commercially-available, secondary data listings of food retail outlets. It is not known how data inaccuracies influence the designation of Census tracts as areas of low access. This study replicated the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service

Agricultural production fulfills economic, ecological and structural functions. Despite technological advances, agricultural production remains sensitive to climate variations. In central Europe, climate change is predicted to bring more rainfall in winter, less rainfall in summer, and increased drought risk among other effects. Grassland agriculture, which is the dominant land use in Alpine regions

The design of an Agent-Based Model (ABM) is described that integrates Social and Land Use Modules to examine population-environment interactions in a former agricultural frontier in Northeastern Thailand. The ABM is used to assess household income and wealth derived from agricultural production of lowland, rain-fed paddy rice and upland field crops in Nang Rong District as well as remittances returned

Street connectivity, defined as the number of (3-way or more) intersections per area unit, is an important index of built environments as a proxy for walkability in a neighborhood. This paper examines its geographic variations across the rural-urban continuum (urbanicity), major racial-ethnic groups and various poverty levels. The population-adjusted street connectivity index is proposed as a better

What happens to the land cover within the hinterland's altitudinal belts while Central Andean cities are undergoing globalization and urban restructuring? What conclusions can be drawn about changes in human land use? By incorporating a regional altitudinal zonation model, direct field observations and GIS analyses of remotely sensed long term data, the present study examines these questions using

Migration-environment models tend to be aspatial within chosen study regions, although associations between temporary outmigration and environmental explanatory variables likely vary across the study space. This research extends current approaches by developing migration models considering spatial non-stationarity and temporal variation - through examination of the migration-environment association