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The synergy of solar radiation, plant biomass, and humidity as an indicator of ecological functions of the landscape: A case study from Central Europe
Author(s) -
Hesslerová Petra,
Pokorný Jan
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
integrated environmental assessment and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.665
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1551-3793
pISSN - 1551-3777
DOI - 10.1897/ieam_2009-058.1
Subject(s) - environmental science , evapotranspiration , land cover , biomass (ecology) , latent heat , cloud cover , solar energy , multispectral image , physical geography , atmospheric sciences , hydrology (agriculture) , land use , remote sensing , meteorology , geography , ecology , cloud computing , geology , computer science , biology , operating system , geotechnical engineering
Monitoring the dissipation of the daily pulse of solar energy is one of the ways to assess functionality in landscapes. The temperature of the land cover indicates both balances among fluxes of solar energy (reflection, latent, and sensible heat) and conditions for matter retention in the landscape. Temperature is distributed across landscape depending on the type and structure of land cover, qualitative parameters (contents of chlorophyll and water), and the related process of evapotranspiration. The present study explains a method used for objectively diagnosing the ecological functions of the landscape, drawing theoretically from the Energy‐Transport‐Reaction model and using Landsat multispectral satellite data. The method is applied to 3 images taken in the northwest of the Czech Republic and in Saxony (Germany), in 1986, 1995, and 2004. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2010;6:249–259. © 2009 SETAC