The total length of the two mainstreams and the branches is 501.4 km, and the watershed truly area is 1,685 km2 [26-27].The city of Foshan is the third most populous city in the Pearl River Delta region, and it is now Ixazomib purchase an emerging metropolitan covering an area of 3,813 km2. Administratively, Foshan consits of five districts: Chancheng, Shunde, Nanhai, Sanshui, and Gaoming (Figure1). In the end of 2005 the GDP per capita was 41,031 RMB Yuan (equivalent to $5,007), and the number of permanent residents in Foshan was 5.80 million [23].Figure 1.Location of the study area.3.?Methodology3.1. Maps processingTwo remotely sensed images were selected for this study. One is a Landsat Thematic Mapper data (TM-5) dated December 17, 1988 and another is a Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus data (ETM+) dated December 28, 2003.

Both of the images were clear and nearly free of Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries clouds. Accordingly, the study period covered about 15 years. Due to lack of available land use maps prior to the 1990s, alternatively a GIS-based topographical Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries map (1:50,000 scale) acquired in 1996 and a land use map (1:100,000 Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries scale) acquired in 2003 were used Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries as reference data and for accuracy assessment. Prior to interpretation, the images were geometrically rectified according to the Krasovsky 1940 spheroid and a common UTM coordinate system (Beijing 1954 system). The images were resampled to 30 meters using the nearest Neighbor algorithm to keep the unchanged original brightness values of pixels, and the RMSE were both found within 1 pixel.

The image processing and data Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries manipulation were conducted using algorithms supplied with the GEOSTAR? image processing software.

Furthermore, ESRI ARCGIS? was used for spatial Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries analyses.Land use and land Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries cover patterns for 1988 and 2003 were mapped by the use of Landsat TM data and Landsat ETM+ respectively. According to a predetermined classification scheme of seven categories Cilengitide of land covers present within the study area and their image characteristics, bands 5, 4, and Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries 3 for Batimastat Landsat TM/ ETM+ images were combined to produce visually images. These covers include urban or built-up land, farmland, forest, shrub, water (mainly rivers, streams and reservoirs), bare land, and dike-pond land.

Herein, never the classification scheme of the study area was modified on the basis of the land use classification system by China National Committee of Agricultural Divisions [34].

3.2. Accuracy AssessmentTwo maps of seven covers were produced from the respective satellite images. Based on the reference data of digitalized land use map, for each image 100 training sites were chosen to ensure that all spectral classes covering each land use and land cover category were adequately represented in the training statistics. The overall accuracy of the land use/cover selleck compound maps for 1988 and 2003 was determined to be 87.63 % and 86.98 %, respectively (Tables 1 and and2).2).