Use of Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) observations to support Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) change products: the case of the pacific coast of Ecuador

• Multi-decal well data from the regional coastal aquifer in a semi-arid area was utilized to follow the trend in groundwater temperature. • Groundwater temperatures under a densely urban area indicated a 0.13 °C per year increase in groundwater temperature. • Rural environments showed a similar groundwater temperature increase as the land surface temperature. The rise in groundwater temperature is a growing concern, primarily driven by urbanization and increasing global temperatures. While long-term trends of groundwater warming have been documented in temperate regions, these trends are rarely studied in semi-arid areas. This study aims to quantify three decades of groundwater temperature changes in an Eastern Mediterranean Coastal Aquifer, a critical freshwater resource affected by hydroclimatic variations and rapid urban expansion. Utilizing temperature records from over 1,000 wells and satellite-derived land surface temperatures (LST), the study reconstructs the spatial and temporal patterns of groundwater warming in both urban and rural areas. The results indicate notable changes in both absolute temperatures and spatial structure. In urban areas of the central part of the coastal aquifer, groundwater temperatures have increased significantly by 0.13 °C per year, which is much higher than regional air temperature trends and global groundwater warming rates. In contrast, the rural northern and southern regions exhibit groundwater warming rates similar to those of LST trends, ranging from approximately 0.02 to 0.07 °C per year. Correlation analyses reveal a shift from natural factors, such as vadose-zone thickness, latitude, and proximity to the sea, to human-induced factors, including declining rural land cover and changes in soil properties associated with urban development. These findings highlight that subsurface warming in semi-arid coastal aquifers is greatly intensified by urbanization, which may have significant implications for groundwater quality.

Understanding what and who shapes urban growth and how it unfolds in the Global South is critical to ensure theories and predictive models of urban expansion and, consequently, global environmental change, are salient to contemporary contexts. Much of the urban expansion in the Global South occurs in informal settlements where urbanization is not officially permitted and residents often lack access to basic services and infrastructure. As a result, formalizing settlements becomes an asset for political transactions where politicians provide titles and improve conditions in exchange for residents' votes. Yet the cumulative effect of these political transactions on land change remains unknown, rendering electoral dynamics absent from land system science models of urbanization. Here we use panel regression to examine the influence of electoral cycles and voting patterns on urban expansion and formalization of property titles from 1997-2015 in Mexico City. We find the distribution of land titles to residents increases in the months leading up to local elections, and more titles are given to core voting neighborhoods of the historically dominant party. Furthermore, urban built-up area increases in districts with higher electoral competition. These results demonstrate that electoral politics influence when and where the legal city boundary expands, who can access secure tenure, and potentially which settlements grow. These results imply sociopolitical dynamics shape urban sustainability. Incorporating quantified links between political dynamics and urban expansion could improve models of future urban growth and identify relevant levers to improve urban sustainability.

• Map errors in land cover time series manifest as Switching and Multi-transitions. • Post-Classification Comparison (PCC) cannot detect Switching and Multi-transitions. • Pixel Time Series (PTS) can isolate potential errors from these trajectories. • Error propagation amplified through PCC can be prevented through PTS. • Wider adoption of PTS needed to better analyse and validate land cover time series. As land cover data continue to be produced at higher resolutions and over longer time series, methods of quantifying land change that can account for potential errors from misclassification are increasingly needed. Using a case study of 30-m annual forest change across 3,937,655 km 2 of Southeast Asia, we compared analytical outcomes from two techniques: Post-Classification Comparison (PCC), the pairwise differencing of land cover maps, and Pixel Time Series (PTS), wherein the entire collection of transitions across a time series is simultaneously assessed. We found that PTS isolated two time series phenomena—switching (oscillations between two land cover classes) and multi-transitions (≥ 2 transitions over ≥ 3 classes)—of which 92.3% were erroneous. By contrast, those errors remained undetected through PCC and were instead directly propagated into analysis, leading to considerable overestimation of gross and net forest change. Thus, incorporation of PTS will readily benefit a variety of higher-order spatial applications, including within the Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) domain. A paradigm shift away from PCC towards a PTS-based mode of geographical analysis is needed to more accurately leverage the increasingly dense spatiotemporal information provided from new land cover time series databases.

The Western Santa Catarina region underwent significant changes due to the 20th-century colonization, which led to landscape fragmentation and Atlantic Forest decline. The present study is an analysis of historical land-use change dynamics observed from 1985 to 2023, besides predicting future changes expected to happen up to 2050. It was done by using MapBiomas Collection 9 reclassified into 12 categories. Land use changes were modeled with TerrSet Land Change Modeler based on the Weighted Normalized Likelihood to model transition potentials; furthermore, the Markov chain approach was applied to model future scenarios. Model validation was performed through computing accuracy and agreement/disagreement statistics to compare a predicted map for 2023 data to a 2023 ground truth map, which proved highly accurate (0.936). Results recorded for the 2023–2050-time frame have shown that soybean areas are projected to increase by 38% and planted forests by 37.3%; therefore, they remain as key land use drivers. Native forest remnants will decline due to Mixed Ombrophilous Forest loss by 37.2% in addition to the 25% loss recorded from 1985 to 2023, and to increasing landscape fragmentation. The model accurately mapped the 2050 landscape and highlighted future regional challenges, according to which, soybeans and forest plantations will be the major change drivers in the region. This progress will have consequences for the remaining native forests. Result scopes are essential to help better understanding future impacts of land use change on ecosystems and communities and consequently, to lay the foundation for informed decision-making, as well as to guide conservation and landscape management.

Constructing a regional ecological security pattern (ESP) is essential for maintaining ecosystem health and enhancing ecosystem service functions. However, most existing ESP studies focus only on future scenarios and lack an integrated analysis of historical and future conditions. The selection of resistance factors usually depends on expert experience, which is often constrained by insufficient basic data. This study takes northeastern Chongqing as the study area and innovatively combines the geographical detector model with the patch-level land use simulation model, morphological spatial pattern analysis model, and circuit theory to establish a cross-temporal ESP from 2000 to 2030, integrating historical retrospective analysis and future scenario prediction. The geographical detector model was used to quantitatively identify the core driving factors of the comprehensive ecosystem service index (CESI), avoiding subjective factor selection and providing a scientific method for ESP construction in data-scarce regions. Coupling multi-scenario land-use simulation with ecosystem service assessment enables dynamic identification of ecological sources and objective construction of resistance surfaces, filling the research gap of integrated past–future ESP analysis. The results show that changes in forest land from 2000 to 2030 are concentrated in the central and northeastern parts, reflecting the trade-off between ecological protection and urbanization in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area. Temperature, digital elevation model, land use, and railroads are the dominant drivers of CESI, revealing the combined effects of natural and human activities. The northeast has complex ecological corridors and pinch points with high connectivity, while the southwest suffers from serious ecosystem fragmentation. This study provides a reproducible technical framework for ESP research in ecologically sensitive areas with limited data.

Introduction Land use and land cover (LULC) changes, and consumptive water uses are widely recognized as key drivers of alterations in basin hydrology, potentially reducing ecosystem services and threatening water security. However, the magnitude of the impacts varies strongly among basins, and many times are hidden by climate variability. In this context, this study aims to analyze the impacts that LULC changes combined with water consumption have on water availability of the Paraopeba River Basin, a strategic water supply basin of Brazil, through a scenario-based hydrological modeling framework that enables the explicit attribution of hydrological changes to anthropogenic drivers. Methods Differences in water yield were calculated through hydrological modeling considering two different scenarios: The current scenario (CS), based on LULC changes over the period 1985–2018 and averaged water consumption over the period 1985–2018; and the hypothetical scenario S1, which assumes no changes in land uses and human consumption since 1985. Results and discussion Results indicate that the S1 scenario presents higher minimum streamflows, with increases of up to 33% compared to the CS scenario. The difference in the flow-duration-curves signatures indicates that the streamflow regime has been modified because of the increase in urban and silviculture areas and human water consumption. In general, larger native vegetation areas are associated with higher evapotranspiration and canopy interception losses. Given the intense and increasing water use in the basin, current trends are likely to intensify water conflicts, threaten water security for a large population, and generate downstream impacts, including on basins that supply water to Brazil’s semiarid regions.

Indonesia, as the country with the highest number of active volcanoes worldwide, faces significant challenges from volcanic hazards. Mount Merapi, one of the most active volcanoes, is surrounded by intensive tourism and residential development, which increase the region’s vulnerability. This study integrates DEMNAS-based topographic analysis and the Land Change Modeler (LCM) with the Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP)–Markov Chain algorithm to examine land-use dynamics and risks to tourism in the Opak Oyo Watershed. Multi-temporal Landsat imagery (2004, 2014, 2024) was classified using the CART algorithm, achieving an overall accuracy of 94.5% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.928. The results show that between 2014 and 2024, the area of built-up land increased by 47.12 km², while that of forests declined by 127.76 km², indicating strong anthropogenic pressure. The validated LCM model projected that by 2034 built-up land will expand to 228.13 km², increasing by 46.04 km² (3.53%) compared to 2024, while agricultural land is predicted to decrease by 100.14 km² (–7.67%). Forest areas are projected to increase by 90.75 km² (6.95%), reflecting ecological rehabilitation scenarios. Tourism risk analysis shows that a significant number of tourism sites are located within KRB III (a high-risk zone), where projected building expansion overlaps with areas exposed to pyroclastic flows and lahar hazards. The findings highlight that integrating topographic constraints with predictive land-use modeling provides a robust spatial framework for sustainable tourism development in volcanic regions. The approach supports risk-informed zoning, environmentally sensitive land allocation, and long-term spatial planning strategies in Mount Merapi and other hazard-prone landscapes.

Under the development of competitive sports, acute ankle sprain has become one of the most commonly seen injury types in basketball and rugby, with a high incidence rate. This type of injury will not only lead to absence in short-term training and matches, but its high recurrence rate will also lead to chronic ankle instability. This research aims to compare and analyze the causes and risk factors of injuries in basketball and rugby. Previous studies have shown that ankle injuries in basketball belong to non-contact injuries, mostly happen during jump landing and direction change; in contrast, rugby injuries mostly happen because of strong physical collision and forced rotation. The two sports share common internal risk factors including previous injury, weak muscle strengthening, poor balance and worse proprioception, while differing in injury mechanism, field environment and movement patterns. Effective prevention includes 12-week progressive neuromuscular training, various external support such as ankle braces and tape, and equipment optimization based on environmental factors. This study provides scientific evidence for reducing injury risk and has significant meaning in extending athletes' professional longevity.

This research explores the ecological crisis in Indonesia caused by uncontrolled land conversion, such as deforestation for housing, industry, mining, and palm oil plantations. Every five seconds, the world loses a forest area equivalent to a football pitch, with Indonesia recording the second largest loss of primary tropical forest globally. This phenomenon not only leads to climate instability and natural disasters but also triggers economic shifts and a human spiritual crisis. The urgency of this research lies in the lack of Islamic discourse specifically addressing land conversion as a theological issue that touches on ethical and practical aspects. The aim of this study is to examine the concept of isti’mar (prospering the earth) in the Qur’an as a theological mandate for humanity to restore environmental balance. This qualitative research employs a thematic interpretation approach, integrating Aldo Leopold's land ethic environmental theory and Paul W. Taylor's biocentrism. The findings indicate that isti’mar demands a paradigm shift from human dominance to a partnership relationship with nature. This study proposes an Ecological Restoration Movement through two approaches: renaturalisation, which involves restoring land to its natural condition, and ecological adaptation as compensation for irretrievable land changes. In conclusion, isti’mar serves as a theological foundation for ecological restoration, guiding humanity in fulfilling its role as a steward of the earth through moral and ethical land management.

Al-Refaie district in Dhi Qar Governorate has witnessed a remarkable development in land use over the years, as it has been affected by the various economic and social transformations in the region. The study used Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 8 OLI images and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques to analyze changes in Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) and calculate the Normalized Difference Vegetation-Index (NDVI) and the Normalized Difference Water-Index (NDWI) indices for 1990, 2000, 2013, and 2024. Based on the principles of urban planning and sustainable city expansion, this data is examined and its function in planning and designing residential areas and communities in the Al-Refaie district is examined. According to the findings, Al-Refaie's urban areas grew dramatically between 1990 and 2024, growing from roughly 21 km² to 65 km². In contrast, changes in LULC and human activity had a detrimental impact on agricultural land and water resources, causing agricultural lands to decrease from 540 km² in 1990 to 343 km² in 2024 and water to shrink from 304 km² in 1990 to 73 km² in 2024. Water and agricultural regions have decreased in favor of urban areas due to ongoing urban expansion. Land usage in Al-Refaie has been greatly impacted by demographic shifts, as is visible in both urban and residential regions. Decision-makers can effectively examine future patterns of urban expansion in keeping with the anticipated population growth in Iraq in the upcoming years by using long-term urban planning, which is based on land use and cost analysis.

Introduction Much public discourse and literature on the South African land question revolves around the slow pace of land reform, weak tenure security, failed land reform projects, expropriation debates and other matters. However, fewer studies have assessed how access to land, land use and the power of traditional leaders have changed the status quo. Methodology The study draws evidence from the broader national project commissioned by the South African government to understand current farming practices, land access, and governance in seven provinces, to inform the norms and standards that will guide land subdivision and change. The research project was meant to inform the Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Act (Act 39 of 2024; PDALA), which President Cyril Ramaphosa signed in January 2025. Using the Agrarian Political Economy as a guiding framework, this study was concerned with the dynamics of land-allocation power, the various class differences, the role of the state, and the shifting conceptions of land toward commodification. Results This qualitative study found that colonial and apartheid legacies still shape land access and that accessing land has become a challenge because of the limited availability of vacant land. Plot sizes issued to households are increasingly becoming much smaller than those issued 30 years ago. Land access remains harder for the poor, and, in some villages, it is contingent on having the means to develop the land, although women can access land, albeit in dire straits. While rural households have, in general, left arable field cultivation, they continue to cultivate gardens adjacent to homesteads and keep livestock. This paper holds that traditional leaders still wield disproportionate political power over communities, in a paternalistic way, even though there is a general feeling among local communities that their tenure is relatively secure.

Abstract Uncertainties in terrestrial ecosystem models limit their predictive power. Efforts to reduce projection error have rarely focused on constraining uncertainty in the initial state of the ecosystem, however, despite evidence that matching model initial conditions to real-world observations reduces overall model bias. Here we use an integrated land change and carbon gain-loss model to evaluate the influence of initial condition uncertainty on simulations of California wildland ecosystems during the years 1985–2020. We generated 36 initial conditions scenarios by varying the source data used to initialize state variables and then ran simulations based on each of these scenarios under a constant set of historical conditions. We found that discrepancies in initial forest extent and initial forest age among scenarios generated wide uncertainty ranges in model estimates of terrestrial ecosystem carbon stocks and flux rates at the outset of the simulation period, but differences in initial forest composition had no impact. Over time, forest age became more homogeneous across model scenarios leading to exponential rates of decline in the uncertainty ranges of live biomass and dead wood carbon but little to no impact on uncertainties in litter and soil organic carbon. Uncertainties in individual carbon flux rates were consistent with uncertainties in their source pools. In contrast, model estimates of ecosystem carbon balance demonstrated a shift in system behavior not apparent in trends for individual carbon stocks and fluxes. Specifically, estimates of ecosystem carbon balance converged across scenarios for the first 20 years of the simulation period but then began to diverge at an accelerating rate, possibly due to weakened resilience to the increased frequency and severity of climate-driven disturbances. Our results demonstrate that uncertainty in the initial state of the system can have large and persistent impacts on the predictability of ecosystem carbon dynamics, and that ongoing shifts in external forcing by climate and climate-driven disturbances can exacerbate these impacts.

ABSTRACT This article presents a nationwide, commune-level comparison of two national flood hazard mapping cycles in Poland, Cycle I (2010–2015) and Cycle II (2016–2021), and examines changes in built-up land within mapped flood-prone areas. The analysis combines official flood hazard map layers provided by State Water Management ‘Polish Waters’ with commune-level administrative and land-use data from the Polish Topographic Objects Database (BDOT10k). For each commune and scenario, it quantifies changes in flood-prone area and built-up area within flood-prone zones across seven official flood scenarios using spatial overlay analysis, descriptive statistics, entropy measures, cluster analysis, and non-negative matrix factorisation. The results show that increases in flood-prone area and built-up exposure are more frequent than decreases, especially along the Vistula and Oder systems. Szczecin records the largest absolute increase in the 1% flood extent, while Węgorzyno shows the largest relative increase; under the levee-failure scenario, Warsaw records the largest absolute increase and Wisznica Mała the largest relative increase. Built-up exposure is more sensitive than hazard extent, as many communes intensified development within flood-prone zones even where mapped extents remained stable. These findings support more anticipatory and scenario-specific spatial planning and flood risk management.

Abstract Soil degradation threatens food security and environmental sustainability, yet future projections of it are rare. Using projections from 18 global climate models under two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5) and land-use projections from the Land Use and Climate Across Scales Land Use Change (LUCAS LUC) dataset, we assess future soil vulnerability to degradation by linking a Soil Degradation Proxy (SDP) to climate, land-use, soil characteristics, and socio-economic factors at 7433 observation sites across Europe. We project that by 2071–2100, ~59% of sites may become more vulnerable under the high-emission scenario. Cold forest regions in northern Europe are projected to face increased degradation pressure by ~+0.04SDP. However, some European croplands may improve locally through conversion to secondary lands, reduced human pressures, and natural recovery processes. These regionally specific trends highlight that, while soil degradation remains a major threat, proactive land management can mitigate soil vulnerability under future climate trajectories.

ABSTRACT Around the globe, changing landscapes and habitat transformation are major factors affecting wildlife. In recent years, South Africa has experienced significant population growth and migration, leading to the transformation and expansion of both rural and urban areas, with the loss of natural areas. We used locality records to determine whether southern African pythons ( Python natalensis ) persist despite ongoing land transformation in South Africa, assess the threats they face and identify vegetation types in which they occur. We retrieved locality records of southern African pythons from literature, institutions and citizen science sources, both before and after 2015, to determine occurrence, and we used geographic information system software to map their distribution. Pythons showed an association with the forest biome, followed by the Indian Ocean Coastal belt, with slightly more records from protected areas than from non‐protected areas. We substantiated anthropogenic threats, including road mortality, electric fencing and fires. We documented 16 species of animals feeding on pythons, as well as three species that killed them without consuming them. Considering the important ecological niche that these snakes fill, as both predators and prey, it is vital that they receive as much protection as can be afforded to them. We suggest mitigation strategies for some of the anthropogenic threats southern African pythons face.

A modeling framework for disentangling the impacts of changing climate and land uses on terrestrial water-carbon balance under SSP-RCP scenarios

Multiple parameters associated with the land, atmosphere, and ocean were analyzed to study short-term and immediate pre-earthquake changes associated with the 28 March 2025 Myanmar earthquake (Mw 7.7). Anomalous clear-sky outgoing longwave radiation (ClrOLR) and trace gases (CH₄, CO, and O₃) were detected within two months prior to the mainshock. Vertical changes at different pressure levels suggest a possible underground source. High-temporal-resolution observations of the infrared brightness temperature and surface air pressure revealed short-lived fluctuations shortly before the earthquake, which may reflect localized stress adjustments and surface latent heat flux release during the final stage of earthquake preparation. In the oceanic region along the seismogenic fault, vertical variations at depths in chlorophyll-a concentration, sea potential temperature, and salinity indicate possible near-coseismic responses. Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis of sea surface chlorophyll-a, suspended particulate matter, sea surface temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and buoy data was conducted to improve the understanding of earthquake-related changes in oceanic parameters. Our findings reveal notable multigeosphere phenomena associated with major earthquakes and highlight the necessity of further integrated observations to deepen our understanding of strong coupling among Earth systems.

The coastal mid-Atlantic region of the United States is increasingly vulnerable to soil salinization, primarily driven by sea-level rise and powerful coastal storms, posing a threat to farmland productivity, and ecological stability. However, the spatially heterogeneous nature of salinization across different land covers makes it challenging to monitor their interactions across large areas and longer time periods. To address this gap, we combined remote sensing-based land cover classification with modeled soil salinity data to assess landscape-scale dynamics across the Delmarva Peninsula from 2000 to 2016. Using a Random Forest classifier trained on Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC)-derived synthetic Landsat surface reflectance, we generated gridded land cover datasets for five years (2000, 2002, 2005, 2009, and 2016) to match and compare with the existing Global Soil Salinity Maps. Overall, forests and other vegetation expanded, whereas farmland and bare soil declined. Salinization trend across these land covers is neither uniformly optimistic nor categorically alarming. Our results showed that over 75% of Delmarva remained in the non-saline category in those 5 years, increasing by 1,138km², and extremely saline zones declined by 833km². More than 83% of land cover transitions occurred without changing salinity categories, while 7-11% moved to a lower salinity category. Our findings based on these temporal snapshots reveal fluctuations in salinity across different land covers, underscoring the value of multi-temporal remote sensing for continuous monitoring of salinity-driven land changes.

Understanding soil water availability is critical for sustainable land management in tropical agricultural systems, particularly in Inceptisols that often exhibit inherent physical constraints. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of soil physical properties and organic matter on available water under different land uses. The study was conducted in a representative Inceptisol landscape in Beji District, Pasuruan, Indonesia. Soil samples were collected from four land use types at two depths (0–30 cm and 30–60 cm), and key properties including bulk density, porosity, texture, and soil organic matter were analyzed along with soil water retention characteristics. The results showed that available water content was consistently low across all land uses, with values generally below 10%, and no significant differences were observed among land use types (p > 0.05). In contrast, soil properties exhibited significant relationships with available water. Soil organic matter and porosity were positively associated with water availability, whereas bulk density showed a negative relationship. Multiple regression analysis indicated that these variables jointly explained a substantial proportion of the variation in available water. These findings suggest that intrinsic soil properties, particularly soil physical characteristics and organic matter, play a more dominant role than land use in regulating water availability in Inceptisols. Improving soil organic matter may be more effective for enhancing soil water availability than changing land use.