Giri Chandra

• Chief at United States Environmental Protection Agency

Mangrove forests in developed and developing countries are experiencing substantial transformations driven by natural and anthropogenic factors. This study focuses on the conterminous United States, including Florida, Texas, and Louisiana, where coastal development, urbanization, hydrological pattern alterations, global warming, sea level rise, and...

Poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of man-made chemicals used or manufactured for the past 60 years. Potential sources of PFAS chemicals in the environment include industries, military installations, airports, landfills, and others. Surface water, ground water, vegetation and soils surrounding these facilities may be affected by...

The South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan) has a staggering 900 million people (~43% of the population) who face food insecurity or severe food insecurity as per United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES). The existing coarse-resolution (≥250-m) cropland maps...

Due to rapid losses of mangrove forests caused by anthropogenic disturbances and climate change, accurate and contemporary maps of mangrove forests are needed to understand how mangrove ecosystems are changing and establish plans for sustainable management. In this study, a new classification algorithm was developed using the biophysical characteri...

World’s First Global Cropland Extent Product @ 30-m resolution (Beta Version) https://croplands.org/app/map https://croplands.org/ I am delighted to release the beta version of the first global 30-m cropland extent product for nominal year 2015. Croplands occupy between 10-12% (1.5 to 1.7 billion hectares) of the total Earth's Land Area (14.83 bi...

Changes in the distribution and abundance of mangrove species within and outside of their historic geographic range can have profound consequences in the provision of ecosystem goods and services they provide. Mangroves in the conterminous United States (CONUS) are believed to be expanding poleward (north) due to decreases in the frequency and seve...

We quantified mangrove disturbance resulting from Super Typhoon Haiyan using a remote sensing approach. Mangrove areas were mapped prior to Haiyan using 30m Landsat imagery and a supervised decision-tree classification. A time sequence of 250m eMODIS data was used to monitor mangrove condition prior to, and following, Haiyan. Based on differences i...

Abstract The precise estimation of the global agricultural cropland-extents, areas, geographic locations, crop types, cropping intensities, and their watering methods (irrigated or rainfed; type of irrigation) provides a critical scientific basis for the development of water and food security policies (Thenkabail et al., 2012, 2011, 2010). By year...

Detailed and accurate land cover and land cover change information is needed for South America because the continent is in constant flux, experiencing some of the highest rates of land cover change and forest loss in the world. The land cover data available for the entire continent are too coarse ( 250 m to 1 km) for resource managers, government a...

Mangrove forests in South Asia occur along the tidal sea edge of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. These forests provide important ecosystem goods and services to the region's dense coastal populations and support important functions of the biosphere. Mangroves are under threat from both natural and anthropogenic stressors; however the cu...

Cavanaugh et al. (1) report conclusive evidence of poleward expansion of mangroves at the northern limit of their historic range on the east coast of Florida and associate the expansion to a reduction in the frequency of extreme cold events. We agree with their assertion that mangrove expansion has occurred in eastern Florida, resulting from a lack...

We have produced the first 30 m resolution global land-cover maps using Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data. We have classified over 6600 scenes of Landsat TM data after 2006, and over 2300 scenes of Landsat TM and ETM+ data before 2006, all selected from the green season. These images cover most of the world'...

Information on the present condition and spatiotemporal dynamics of mangrove forests is needed for land-change studies and integrated natural resources planning and management. Although several national mangrove estimates for the Philippines exist, information is unavailable at sufficient spatial and thematic detail for change analysis. Historical...

Current, accurate, and reliable information on the areal extent and spatial distribution of mangrove forests in the Philippines is limited. Previous estimates of mangrove extent do not illustrate the spatial distribution for the entire country. This study, part of a global assessment of mangrove dynamics, mapped the spatial distribution and areal e...

Information regarding the present condition, historical status, and dynamics of mangrove forests is needed to study the impacts of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and other Stressors affecting mangrove ecosystems. Such information is unavailable for Louisiana at sufficient spatial and thematic detail. We prepared mangrove forest distribution maps of L...

The information on the mangrove forests for the Pacific region is scarce or outdated. A regional assessment based on a consistent methodology and data sources was needed to understand their true extent. Our investigation offers a regionally consistent, high resolution (30 m), and the most comprehensive mapping of mangrove forests on the islands of...

Aim Our scientific understanding of the extent and distribution of mangrove forests of the world is inadequate. The available global mangrove databases, com-piled using disparate geospatial data sources and national statistics, need to be improved. Here, we mapped the status and distributions of global mangroves using recently available Global Land...

Aim Our scientific understanding of the extent and distribution of mangrove forests of the world is inadequate. The available global mangrove databases, compiled using disparate geospatial data sources and national statistics, need to be improved. Here, we mapped the status and distributions of global mangroves using recently available Global Land...

Modern biogeographers recognize that humans are seen as constituents of ecosystems, drivers of significant change, and perhaps, the most invasive species on earth. We found it instructive to model humans as invasive organisms with the same environmental factors. We present a preliminary model of the spread of modern humans in the conterminous Unite...

At the Land Cover Summit meeting held in Washington, DC in September 2006 the North American Land Change Monitoring System (NLCMS) project was initiated between representatives from the US Geological Survey (USGS), the National Institute of Geographic Statistics and Information of Mexico (INEGI) and the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS). The...

The GlobCover project supported by ESA has developed an operational service dedicated to the generation of global land cover maps through an automated classification of MERIS FRS time series. This paper reports the independent accuracy assessment of the global GlobCover product as the first global exercise implemented according to the CEOS Land Pro...

Remote sensing of a natural disaster's damage offers an exciting backup and/or alternative to traditional means of on-site damage assessment. Although necessary for complete assessment of damage areas, ground-based damage surveys conducted in the aftermath of natural hazard passage can sometimes be potentially complicated due to on-site diffic...

Central America is exceptionally rich in biodiversity, but varies widely in the attention its countries devote to conservation. Protected areas, widely considered the cornerstone of conservation, were not always created with the intent of conserving that biodiversity. We assessed how well the protected-area system of Central America includes the re...

Accurate and reliable information on the spatial distribution of mangrove species is needed for a wide variety of applications, including sustainable manage-ment of mangrove forests, conservation and reserve planning, ecological and biogeographical studies, and invasive species management. Remotely sensed data have been used for such purposes with...

Mangrove forests of Madagascar are declining, albeit at a much slower rate than the global average. The forests are declining due to conversion to other land uses and forest degradation. However, accurate and reliable information on their present distribution and their rates, causes, and consequences of change have not been available. Earlier studi...

Remote sensing techniques have been shown effective for large-scale damage surveys after a hazardous event in both near real-time or post-event analyses. The paper aims to compare accuracy of common imaging processing techniques to detect tornado damage tracks from Landsat TM data. We employed the direct change detection approach using two sets of...

Aim We aimed to estimate the present extent of tsunami‐affected mangrove forests and determine the rates and causes of deforestation from 1975 to 2005. Location Our study region covers the tsunami‐affected coastal areas of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka in Asia. Methods We interpreted time‐series Lan...

An introduction to agricultural land from a philosophical perspective, emphasizing the fact that different social groups have different economic and political interests and asking how such conflicts should be resolved.

Mangrove forests in many parts of the world are declining at an alarming rate—possibly even more rapidly than inland tropical forests. The rate and causes of such changes are not known. The forests themselves are dynamic in nature and are undergoing constant changes due to both natural and anthropogenic forces. Our research objective was to monitor...

Aim Our aim was to produce a uniform ‘regional’ land‐cover map of South and Southeast Asia based on ‘sub‐regional’ mapping results generated in the context of the Global Land Cover 2000 project. Location The ‘region’ of tropical and sub‐tropical South and Southeast Asia stretches from the Himalayas and the southern border of China in the north, to...

http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/report/03_land.pdf

A new land cover database of Greater Mesoamerica has been prepared using moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS, 500 m resolution) satellite data. Daily surface reflectance MODIS data and a suite of ancillary data were used in preparing the database by employing a decision tree classification approach. The new land cover data are an i...

The availability and accessibility of global land cover data sets plays an important role in many global change studies. The importance of such science-based information is also reflected in a number of international, regional, and national projects and programs. Recent developments in earth observing satellite technology, information technology, c...

Accurate and up-to-date global land cover data sets are necessary for various global change research studies including climate change, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem assessment, and environmental modeling. In recent years, substantial advancement has been achieved in generating such data products. Yet, we are far from producing geospatially c...

The Land Cover Map of North and Central America for the year 2000 (GLC 2000-NCA), prepared by NRCan/CCRS and USGS/EROS Data Centre (EDC) as a regional component of the Global Land Cover 2000 project, is the subject of this paper. A new mapping approach for transforming satellite observations acquired by the SPOT4/VGTETATION (VGT) sensor into land c...

Land use/land cover change, particularly that of tropical deforestation and forest degradation, has been occurring at an unprecedented rate and scale in Southeast Asia. The rapid rate of economic development, demographics and poverty are believed to be the underlying forces responsible for the change. Accurate and up-to-date information to support...

The sources and origins of forest fires that occurred in the peak fire season of 1998 in the Huay Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary of Thailand were delineated using single date satellite imagery. It was found that the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data is extremely useful for accurate delineation and demarcation of 'burnt areas' that occurred during th...

NOAA AVHRR HRPT data consisting of two time frames i.e., 1985-86 and 1992-93 were analysed to determine the status of major land cover types of Bangladesh and to monitor change. The data were radiometrically corrected to spectral reflectance and mapped to a consistent Plate Car@e projection followed by cloud masking and country masking. The satelli...

The objective of this study is to compare different remote sensing sensors and analysis techniques for the purpose of mangrove mapping. A study area in Southern Thailand of approximately 40×30 km size was selected. A systematic assessment of strengths and limitations of data taken from different sensors, namely Landsat TM, SPOT HRV, MOS MESSR, JERS...

Land use/land cover changes are occurring at an unprecedented rate and scale in Indochina. Accurate and reliable data, however, have not been available in the past. The current study aims at improving this situation. SPOT VEGETATION and NOAA AVHRR data were used to assess the usefulness of the data for accurate delineation and demarcation of major...

Mangrove forest in Phangnga Bay, Southern Thailand were analyzed using SPOT XS and JERS-1 data. Particular emphasis was given to the applicability of remote sensing and GIS for discriminating mangrove and non-mangrove areas and also for the detail classification of mangrove forests based on species and density. Results show that mangrove and non-ma...

Land use/land cover change, particularly that of tropical deforestation, and forest degradation have been occurring at an unprecedented rate and scale in Southeast Asia. The rapid rate of economic development, demographics and poverty are believed to be the underlying forces responsible for the change. Accurate and up-to-date information to support...

Remote sensing has traditionally been the province of Earth scientists and the national security community. Early civilian satellite instruments were designed largely to meet the needs of weather forecasting, earth systems science and natural resource management. Social science applications were, generally speaking, not even considered. However, si...