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Anticipating omega As Soren Kierkegaard astutely observed, 'life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.' (1) Not only in life, but also in Christian eschatology, his [...]

It is an honor to present this issue of Currents in Theology and Mission as a tribute to the theology and scholarship of our colleague, Ted Peters, who retired this [...]

In urban areas, spectral mixture analysis (SMA) is a common technique for deriving the fractions of land covers within a pixel and information on the distribution of impervious surfaces. This study examined how the selection of endmembers affected the quantification of impervious surfaces using TM and ASTER imagery. Multiple subsets of endmembers derived using (1) extreme pixels from a minimum noise fraction (MNF) transformation, and (2) a manual approach usinga prioriknowledge of the study area were analysed. Two data sets were used to assess accuracy: (1) simulated image data comprising unmixed and mixed pixels of 10 typical and spectrally different urban land covers, and (2) detailed data derived from high-resolution aerial photography. The dimensionality of the imagery limited the number of endmembers, and as a result, unmixed land covers were modelled using multiple endmembers and some cells had abundance values that summed to more than one or were negative. The land covers of red roofs and concrete were the largest contributors to the error in impervious surfaces. The Sequential Maximum Angle Convex Cone (SMACC) endmember model was also used to unmix the images; however, the larger number of endmembers did not resolve the use of multiple endmembers to model the unmixed land covers and the accuracy was similar to that using SMA. The relationship between the pervious fraction estimated using the vegetation endmember and the ground reference data was stronger than that for the impervious fraction, although the fraction was underestimated. The problems in modelling highly variable impervious surfaces with a limited number of endmembers suggest that in urban environments with substantial vegetation, modelling the vegetation component as the inverse of the impervious fraction may lead to improved results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examined an area of woodland that was recovering from severe fire in Royal National Park (NSW, Australia). A non-destructive method of field sampling is required for vulnerable recovering vegetation and therefore classification of digital photographs using linguistic terms was trialled. The linguistic data for three vegetation strata (canopy, shrub and ground) were converted to crisp scores and compared with vegetation index data derived from remotely sensed imagery. All possible subset regression was used to test the proposition that the combined vegetation scores (independent variables) would explain the values of NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and NDMI (Normalized Difference Moisture Index). Vegetation scores for the three strata were also combined using simplified weighting ratios to assess broad relationships between the indices and field data. The combined vegetation scores explained ∼60% of the variation in the vegetation index data and inclusion of variables representing multiple strata explained more of the variation than any single variable. The precise value of the weights used to combine the layers did not affect the strength of the association. A simple ratio is proposed that may be useful to estimate woodland parameters under similar conditions, by inversion of the relationship with vegetation index data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Specific leaf area (SLA) is an important ecological variable becauseof its links with plant ecophysiology and leaf biochemistry. Variations in SLA are associated with variations in leaf optical properties,and these changes in leaf optical properties have been found to result in changes in canopy reflectance. This paper utilizes these changes to explore the potential of estimating SLA using Landsat TM data. Fourteen sites with varying vegetation were sampled on the Lambert Peninsula in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to the north of Sydney, Australia. A sampling strategy that facilitated the calculation of canopy-average surface SLA (SLACS) was developed. The relationship betweenSLACS, reflectance in Landsat TM bands, and a number of vegetation indices, were explored using univariate regression. The observed relationships between SLACS and canopy reflectance are also discussed in terms of trends observed in a pre-existing leaf optical properties dataset (LOPEX 93). Field data indicate that there is a strong correlation between SLACS and red, near-infrared, and the second mid infrared bands of Landsat TM data. A strong correlation between SLACS and the following vegetation indices: Soil and Atmosphere Resistant Vegetation Index (SARVI2), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Ratio Vegetation Index (RVI), suggests that these vegetation indices could be used to estimate SLACS using Landsat TM data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]