Functional urban areas (FUA) have became an important component of polycentric settlement structure of all European countries. FUAs have been defined as labour market basins, composed on large city and its surrounding areas (commuting zones). The very spatial and economic concept formed the foundation of old industrial regions. Old industrialized regions with all the spatial challenges and economic problems could be also perceived as a specific type of functional urban area. In Poland, National Spatial Development Concept 2030 (NSDC 2030 2013) describes restructuring and revitalization of degraded areas and cities in terms of spatial policy measures addressed to the supporting of cohesion in problematic areas. That is why integrated revitalization programs of functional urban areas may become key instrument of regional spatial policy and urban strategies. In response to the problems of degraded land and related land-use conflicts, it can significantly help in establishing valuable solutions, as well as ensuring connections between environmental, social and economic needs in the development of functional urban areas.

The development of linear infrastructure increases the degree of fragmentation of natural areas and has a negative impact on biodiversity and the range of available ecosystem services. The basic competing land use model is expanded to include infrastructure development. The extended model leads to the conclusion that due to the dual impact of the infrastructure (lowering the value of ecosystem services and increasing the private rents to developed land), the size of the natural area in the long-term equilibrium will be lower compared to the basic model. The preservation of nature ceases to be profitable enough. Infrastructure also reduces the marginal costs of conversion and thus increasing the volume of natural land being converted at avery moment along the transition path. If the decisions on optimal management of natural areas and infrastructure development are undertaken together, the result is a lower density of the infrastructure network and a larger ecosystem area in the steady state.

Land cover change (LCC) is important to assess the land use/land cover changes with respect to the development activities like irrigation. The region selected for the study is Vaal Harts Irrigation Scheme (VHS) occupying an area of approximately 36, 325 hectares of irrigated land. The study was carried out using Land sat data of 1991, 2001, 2005 covering the area to assess the changes in land use/land cover for which supervised classification technique has been applied. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) index was also done to assess vegetative change conditions during the period of investigation. By using the remote sensing images and with the support of GIS the spatial pattern of land use change of Vaal Harts Irrigation Scheme for 15 years was extracted and interpreted for the changes of scheme. Results showed that the spatial difference of land use change was obvious. The analysis reveals that 37.86% of additional land area has been brought under fallow land and thus less irrigation area (18.21%). There is an urgent need for management program to control the loss of irrigation land and therefore reclaim the damaged land in order to make the scheme more viable.

To investigate and assess the effects of land use and its changes on concentrations of heavy metals (Pb, Zn, Cd, Cu, Mn, Ni, Fe) in the tributary of drinking water reservoir catchment, soils of different land use types (forest, arable land, meadows and pastures, residential areas), suspended sediment and bottom sediment were collected. Heavy metals were analyzed using atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS). The metal distribution pattern was observed, where Zn and Cd could be considered as main metal contaminants. The variation in the concentration level of Zn and Cd in studied soils showed the impact of pollution from anthropogenic activities. Also some seasonal variations were visible among the suspended sediment and bottom sediment samples which could be associated with land agricultural practices or meteorological conditions. The sediment fingerprints approach used for determining sources of the suspension in the catchment showed (Kruskal-Wallis H test, p<0.05), that only Mn and Ni were not able to be distinguished among the potential sediment sources. A multiple linear regression model described the relationship between suspended sediment and 4 types of soil samples. The results related suspended composition mostly to the samples from the residential land use. Considering the contemporary trend of observed changes in land use resulting in conversion of agricultural areas into residential and service structures these changes can be essential for the contamination of aquatic environment. This situation is a warning sign due to the rapid industrialization, urbanization and intensive agriculture in this region what can significantly affect the drinking water quality.

The development and urban planning affects the general spatial order. Continuously increasing chaos is caused, among other thing, by granting construction permit based on Zoning and Land Use decision. It’s one of the reason why communes do not pass Area Development Plans. Presented research determines the exact reasons this phenomenon. The article also analyses, based on case studies, the unlawful, unsupervised adoption of Zoning and Land Use decisions.

This paper presents results of object-oriented classification of Landsat ETM+ satellite im-age conducted using eCognition software. The classified image was acquired on 7 May 2000. In this particular study, an area of 423 km2 within the borders of Legionowo Community near Warsaw is considered.

Prior to classification, segmentation of the Landsat ETM+ image is performed using panchro-matic channel, fused multispectral and panchromatic data. The applied methods of classification en-abled the identification of 18 land cover and land use classes. After the classification, generalization and raster to vector conversion, verification and accuracy assessment are performed by means of vis-ual interpretation. Overall accuracy of the classification reached 94.6%. The verification and classifi-cation results are combined to form the final database.

This is followed by comparing the object-oriented with traditional pixel-based classification. The latter is performed using the so-called hybrid classification based on both supervised and unsuper-vised classification approaches. The traditional pixel-based approach identified only 8 classes. Com-parison of the pixel-based classification with the database obtained using the object-oriented ap-proach revealed that the former reached 72% and 61% accuracy, according to the applied method.

Climate, land use, and land cover change can propagate alteration to the watershed environment. The interaction be-tween natural and human activities probably accelerates the change, a phenomenon that will generate serious environmental problems. This study aims to evaluate the change in the hydrological regime due to natural and human-induced processes. The study was conducted in Brantas watershed, Indonesia, which is the largest watershed in East Java. This area is populat-ed by more than 8 million inhabitants and is the most urbanized area in the region. An analysis of rainfall time series use to shows the change in natural phenomena. Two land-use maps at different time intervals were used to compare the rapid de-velopment of urbanization, and the discharge from two outlets of the sub-watersheds was employed to assess hydrological changes. The indicator of hydrological alteration (IHA) method was used to perform the analysis. The daily discharge data are from 1996 to 2017. The research results show an increase in flow (monthly, 1-day, 3-day, 7-day, 30-day, and 90-day flows) in the two sub-watersheds (Ploso and Kertosono) from the pre-period (1996–2006) to the post-period (2007–2017).

Aerial thermography is performed from a low−cost aerial vehicle, copter type, for the acquisition of data of medium−size areas, such as neighbourhoods, districts or small villages. Thermographic images are registered in a mosaic subsequently used for the generation of a thermographic digital terrain model (DTM). The thermographic DTM can be used with several purposes, from classification of land uses according to their thermal response to the evaluation of the building prints as a function of their energy performance, land and water management. In the particular case of buildings, apart from their individual evaluation and roof inspection, the availability of thermographic information on a DTM allows for the spatial contextualization of the buildings themselves and the general study of the surrounding area for the detection of global effects such as heat islands.

Perceiving the spatiotemporal relationship of land use changes and groundwater resources is crucial for the effective and sustainable management of the plains. This study aims to investigate the relationship between land use changes and groundwater depth fluctuations in the forbidden plains of northern Hamedan. In the present study, the land use maps for 1989, 1997, 2005, 2013 and 2018 were extracted and categorized from Landsat satellite images and then evaluated for accuracy. In addition, groundwater depth distribution maps were prepared by kriging method for five years from piezometric data. The correlation and relationship between land use changes and groundwater depth fluctuations were determined by REGRESS methods. The findings from kriging method indicated that the intensity of groundwater decline during the last three periods of study (2005, 2013 and 2018) becomes more severe in the study area. Land use change trends indicate a sharp decline in the orchards, pasture lands, barren lands and a relative decline in the irrigated agricultural land, and consequently, increasing in non-irrigation and residential farmland. In addition, the average annual depth of groundwater level during the past 29 years decreased to 1.57 m and 0.87 m in the Kabudrahang and Razan Plains, respectively. The r value of REGRESS method during five study periods was the minimum 0.015 and maximum 0.15 in the Kabudrahang Plain and minimum 0.06 and maximum 0.15 in the Razan Plain, respectively. The results of the study indicated that climate changes cannot be considered as the reason for declining the groundwater in the study area. However, along with the relative impacts of land use changes, the role of managerial factors, the prominent example of which is the non-expert location of the Shahid Mofatteh Hydroelectric Power Station, which supplies underground water to cool the generators, should be considered. The present study can be effective in the management, planning, and policy of groundwater resources, land use location, and spatial planning in the areas facing severe water shortages, especially in the northern plains of Hamedan because this study indicates the importance of underground water in arid and semi-arid regions.