Environmental Systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Environmental Systems - Essay Example as the key determinants of economic growth and thus have a direct though complex effect on how the other natural resources such as water, forests, pasture and biodiversity have been made use of from time to time. In spite of the negative general relation that is present between poverty and the environment, the focus for the better part has remained on the current development policy whilst keeping in mind peoples strengths. Even though natural resources and access to the land have remained as a main source of rural income, the two need to be seen in the wider scheme of things. The positive effects of diversification have been seen as being on the higher side as compared to the negative ones. The same have included the reduction of risk as well as vulnerability through spreading assets, in essence a generalized and elaborate use of family and household labor, cash generation for the purpose of investment in human and physical capital and in improvement of the environment due to minimal pressure courtesy the natural resources. Primary Gross and Net Productivity is mapped with the additive approach in an area that is marked with intensively managed agricultural land especially in the Midwest United States. To produce the required land cover map, a Landsat ETMz image dating from 29 July 1999 was acquired from the MODIS Land Team. Therefore, care was taken to locate the positional accuracy of the image and the same was measured by direct comparison with USGS digital orthophoto quadrangles concerned with the study area. Moving further ahead, land cover mapping was performed in such a manner that used unsupervised clustering of the six ETMz reflectance bands. After the same had taken place, clusters were assigned to five different classes which included water, urban and built, barren and sparsely vegetated, corn and last but not the least, soybean. This was performed with reference to the DOQs, air photographs, interpreter knowledge as well as the spectral