Replacing winter rice in non-traditional areas by strawberry reduces arsenic bioaccumulation, and improves water productivity and profitability.

Use of huge amount (1450-1650 mm) of arsenic contaminated (14.0-24.5 mg l) ground water to irrigate winter rice resulted in high deposition of arsenic (As) in the topsoil and in rice grains, posing a serious threat to soil and human health of the Bengal basin.

Global validation of the collection 6 MODIS burned area product.

This paper presents a Stage 3 validation of the recently released Collection 6 NASA MCD64A1 500 m global burned area product. The product is validated by comparison with Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) image pairs acquired 16 days apart that were visually interpreted. These independent reference data were selected using a stratified random sampling approach that allows for probability sampling of Landsat data in both time and in space.

Evaluation of Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2A aerosol optical depth retrievals across Chinese cities and implications for medium spatial resolution urban aerosol monitoring.

In urban environments, aerosol distributions may change rapidly due to building and transport infrastructure and human population density variations. The recent availability of medium resolution Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 satellite data provide the opportunity for aerosol optical depth (AOD) estimation at higher spatial resolution than provided by other satellites. A year of 30 m Landsat-8 and 10 m Sentinel-2A AOD data retrieved using the Land Surface Reflectance Code (LaSRC) were compared with coincident ground-based Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) Version 3 AOD data for 20 Chinese cities.

The Collection 6 MODIS burned area mapping algorithm and product.

The two Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on-board NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites have provided nearly two decades of global fire data. Here, we describe refinements made to the 500-m global burned area mapping algorithm that were implemented in late 2016 as part of the MODIS Collection 6 (C6) land-product reprocessing. The updated algorithm improves upon the heritage Collection 5.

A stratified random sampling design in space and time for regional to global scale burned area product validation.

The potential research, policy and management applications of global burned area products place a high priority on rigorous, quantitative assessment of their accuracy. Such an assessment can be achieved by implementing validation methods employing design-based inference in which the independent reference data are selected via a probability sampling design. The majority of global burned area validation exercises use Landsat data to derive the independent reference data.

Characterization of Landsat-7 to Landsat-8 reflective wavelength and normalized difference vegetation index continuity.

At over 40 years, the Landsat satellites provide the longest temporal record of space-based land surface observations, and the successful 2013 launch of the Landsat-8 is continuing this legacy. Ideally, the Landsat data record should be consistent over the Landsat sensor series. The Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) has improved calibration, signal to noise characteristics, higher 12-bit radiometric resolution, and spectrally narrower wavebands than the previous Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+).

A contemporary decennial examination of changing agricultural field sizes using Landsat time series data.

Field size distributions and their changes have not been studied over large areas as field size change datasets are not available. This study quantifies agricultural field size changes in a consistent manner using Landsat satellite data that also provide geographic context for the observed decadal scale changes. Growing season cloud-free Landsat 30 m resolution images acquired from 9 to 25 years apart were used to extract field object classifications at seven sites located by examination of a global agricultural yield map, agricultural production statistics, literature review, and analysis of the imagery in the US Landsat archive.

A study of rural Senegalese attitudes and perceptions of their behavior to changes in the climate.

Semi-structured focus group discussions were employed to capture rural Senegalese attitudes and perceptions of their behavior to changes in the climate and their land use and livelihood strategies. Seven focus groups stratified by gender, ethnicity (Wolof and Peulh) and dominant production system (cultivators and pastoralists) in five villages in semi-arid northern Senegal revealed seven main themes. Rural livelihoods remain predominantly based on rainfall dependant practices, and although cultivators and pastoralists had a clear appreciation of changes in natural resources compared to a perceived more favorable past, few adaptive coping strategies beyond established ones were advocated.

Large seasonal swings in leaf area of Amazon rainforests.

Despite early speculation to the contrary, all tropical forests studied to date display seasonal variations in the presence of new leaves, flowers, and fruits. Past studies were focused on the timing of phenological events and their cues but not on the accompanying changes in leaf area that regulate vegetation-atmosphere exchanges of energy, momentum, and mass. Here we report, from analysis of 5 years of recent satellite data, seasonal swings in green leaf area of approximately 25% in a majority of the Amazon rainforests.

A focus group study of factors that promote and constrain the use of satellite-derived fire products by resource managers in southern Africa.

Semi-structured focus group interviews were employed to examine factors that affect the likelihood that resource managers in southern Africa will use information on vegetation fires provided by two satellite-derived products: an active fire product and a burned area product. The two products are updated regularly and aim to deliver the state-of-the-art in the global monitoring of fires from satellite remote-sensing. Both products are derived from data transmitted by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors carried onboard NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites.