Satellite images reveal link between urban growth and changing rainfall patterns

For the first time, scientists have used satellite images to demonstrate a link between rapid city growth and rainfall patterns, as well as to assess compliance with an international treaty to protect wetlands. The results have been published in two studies co-authored by Karen Seto, assistant professor of geological and environmental sciences and a fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.

''The exciting thing is really for the first time, using a time series of satellite images, we can monitor Earth in a way that we haven't been able to,'' Seto said. ''It's not just about urban growth or wetlands-it could be about desertification or deforestation-but it's really just this issue of human modification of the Earth.''