ns 
here 
how 
  
Ochi, Shiro 
persons per ton of C-NPP). The current population was measured from CIESIN population data. The output shows that 
Mekong river basin can support about 13.9 times of the current population in the basin. On the contrary, Yangzhu river 
and Yellow river basin can support about 1.2 and 1.3 times respectively of the current population in the basins. 
5. Conclusions and Further Studies 
In this study, Satellite RS and GIS are used to estimate NPP and Population Capacity in major river basins in Asia. 
Most of the input data can be down loaded through internet or access-free CD-ROM. The procedure can work to other 
regions in the world in any scale from local to global, and can be applied using updated satellite data. The result shows 
that Mekong and Amur River basins have the highest population carrying capacity under the above-mentioned 
assumptions, while Yangzu and Yellow River basins are saturated. In the previous study about global population 
carrying capacity, it was not clear how many, where and how people can survive on the land. The output is very useful 
to understand the future status of the population distribution in he region and to plan the strategy for land 
use/agricultural development. 
There remain some problems to be solved in the procedure. Firstly, in the algorithm to estimate NPP using NDVI and 
PAR, (efficiency parameter ) is set to 1.5 as a global average. Fbwever, the efficiency is considered to vary 
depending on the climate condition and vegetation type. Secondly, it was assumed that per capita productivity for all 
river basins in Asia can attain to the level of Yangzhu river basin in the simulation procedure. However, per capita 
productivity must have unique value depending on the region specified by the climate, cultivation style etc. The 
regional characteristics of per capita productivity should be investigated through further studies. 
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Goward, S.N. and Huemmrich, K.F., Vegetation Canopy PAR Absorptance and the Normalized Difference Vegetation 
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Ochi,S. and Murai, S., , " Analysis of relationship between NPP and Population carrying capacity for major river basins 
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International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B7. Amsterdam 2000. 1057