USGCRP
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4. Land Use and Land Cover Change
Land-cover and land-use change affect the global climate system directly through biogeochemical and biogeophysical processes. Biogeochemical processes of land-cover and land-use change affect global climate by changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. Deforestation, for example, is a major source of atmospheric CO2 resulting from the oxidation and decomposition of tree biomass, because the vegetation that replaces forests frequently contains less carbon than the forests they replace. Biogeophysical processes of land-cover and land-use change affect the absorption and disposition of energy at the Earth’s surface. The albedo (reflectivity) of the Earth’s surface determines how much of the Sun’s energy is absorbed, hence available at the surface in the form of heat. Vegetation transpiration and surface hydrology determine how the energy received at the surface of the Earth is partitioned into latent and sensible heat fluxes. Vegetation structure determines surface roughness, which in turn is directly related to momentum and heat transport. A global modeling study has shown that the effects of projected changes in land cover lead to significantly different regional climatic conditions in 2100 as compared with climatic conditions resulting from atmospheric greenhouse gas forcings alone. For example, agricultural expansion produced significant additional warming over the Amazon Basin and a cooling of the upper air column and nearby oceans, as well as cooling and decreases in the mean daily temperature range over many mid-latitude areas. In another regional study, a CCSP collaborative research project used numerical modeling to evaluate the impact of anthropogenic land-cover change on the regional climate of south Florida. Simulations of regional climate using the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System compared climate patterns under modern and pre-development land cover reconstructed from paleoecological and historical records. Spatial patterns of surface sensible and latent heat flux differed significantly under the different land-cover schemes, and model results indicate that land-cover changes increased summertime maximum temperatures and decreased warm season convective rainfall by 10 to 12%. Refer to chapter references 4, 6, and 7 for detail regarding these illustrative findings. Highlights of Recent ResearchGlobal Geographically Registered Landsat Data Set [11]
A global land data set having high spatial accuracy has been developed using Landsat Multi-Spectral Scanner, Thematic Mapper, and Enhanced Thematic Mapperdata from the 1970s, circa 1990, and circa 2000, respectively, to support a variety of scientific studies and educational purposes. This is the first time a geodetically accurate global compendium of multi-epoch digital satellite data at the 30- to 80-m spatial scale spanning 30 years has been produced for use by the international scientific and educational communities. These data are being distributed from multiple locations and are currently being used for land-use and land-cover change research (see Figure 21). Understanding environmental or land-cover dynamics represents an important challenge in the study of the global environment, since many land-cover changes take place at fine scales of resolution, requiring Landsat-type imagery for accurate measurement. Uses for such data range from biodiversity and habitat mapping for localized areas to specifying parameters for large-scale numerical models simulating biogeochemical cycling, hydrologic processes, and ecosystem functioning. Recent work has stressed the importance of the effects of land-cover change on climate.
Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System: A North American Forest Disturbance Record from Landsat [8]
Landsat Thematic Mapper and Enhanced Thematic Mapper data have been corrected for atmospheric obscuration using algorithms and processing approaches derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on the Terra and Aqua satellites. To date, some 2,200 Landsat images covering North America have been corrected, and can be downloaded from the LEDAPS web site. Disturbance and recovery are being mapped using a multi-spectral “Disturbance Index” algorithm. By late-2006, scientists will be able to download maps of forest change for the interval 1990 to 2000, both at full resolution (30 m) and coarse resolution suitable for carbon modeling (500 m and 0.05 degree). Later releases will cover the period 1975 to 1990. Funded by NASA, the LEDAPS project includes researchers from NASA, the U.S. Forest Service, and the University of Maryland.
Mapping 50 Years of Forest Conversion in Madagascar with Satellite DataThe Ortho-rectified Landsat Global Data were used to quantitatively determine the tropical moist forest, tropical deciduous forest, and spiny woodland of Madagascar for the 1970s, 1990, and 2000. The satellite data were analyzed and field verifications were performed by low-altitude aerial reconnaissance, errors in the analysis were corrected, and a more accurate classification for the entire island (590,000 km2)produced. The satellite data were combined with aerial photographs to extend the work back to the 1950s. Madagascar’s forest cover decreased substantially over the 50-year period, from 27% of the island in the 1950s to only 16% circa 2000 (see Figure 23). Taking the fragmentation of forests into consideration, the decrease was even more drastic. From the 1950s to circa 2000, the area of “high-quality,” or interior forest more than 1 km from a non-forest edge, decreased from 90,000 km2 to less than 20,000 km2, and the area in patches of greater than 100 km2 decreased by more than half. Deforestation rates slowed in the 1990s for the tropical humid and dry forests, but not for the spiny forest. However, the clearing rates are still of concern among all forest types, considering the small portion of remaining habitat. The results emphasize the need for more effective forest conservation in Madagascar. The researchers suggest goals of halting further primary forest clearance as soon as possible, and initiating strategically located forest restoration efforts. Given the lag time of species extinction after habitat destruction, it is probable that many species are living on borrowed time; forest restoration could partially mitigate this dynamic.
Land Cover, Land-Use Change, Human Dimensions, and Wildlife Conservation in Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania [1]The Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania has a dense population of African wildlife that coexists with an expanding human population of Maasai agro-pastoralists and non-Maasai agriculturalists. The expanding human population has started to encroach upon the savanna areas that the wildlife and the domestic animals of the Maasai agro-pastoralists use in common. To complicate matters further, the savanna areas within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area are climatically variable and strongly influenced by El Niño and La Niña events: droughts are experienced under El Niño conditions and excessive rain occurs under La Niña conditions. Landsat satellite data were used to map the conversion of pastoral areas to cultivation. By 2000, cultivation had increased to 40 km2 of the 8,300-km2 Ngorongoro Conservation Area. While this was a miniscule amount of cultivation as of 2000, the potential for future increases in population and associated cultivation were modeled to assess impacts on the livelihoods of the population and on the various wildlife populations. Analysis of demographic and satellite data determined a linear relationship between population and area of cultivation. These results were extended into the future using the SAVANNA ecosystem simulation model. The study found that a doubling of the human population would lead to a doubling of the area of cultivation, to approximately 80 km2 or 1% of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which would not have a negative effect on wildlife populations or on the Maasai agro-pastoralists. The work was jointly funded by USAID and NSF. Fire Information for Resource Management System [3]Until recently, protected area managers who wanted to use satellite-derived information to monitor fires burning within their area of jurisdiction faced considerable challenges—particularly those working in remote locations and with limited access to the Internet. Protected area managers usually want to know the locations of active fires within relatively small areas, generally their park and its surroundings. They also want this information delivered with minimal file sizes that can be accessed quickly and easily over the Internet. The CCSP Fire Information for Resource Management System is being developed to meet these requirements in three ways: by providing MODIS active fire information via an interactive web mapping interface; by providing true-color MODIS images, or subsets that show fires burning within specific conservation areas; and by delivering fire alerts through emails and cell phone text messages. Figure 24 provides an example of the interactive web depiction produced by this system.
Rural Sprawl an Important Land-Use Change [2]
Evidence of Climate Change Due to Historical Practices in Land-Use and Land-Cover Change [9]The consequences of the land-use and land-cover practices of the ancient Mayans in sustaining a dense population in Central America might be instructive to our survival in a world with shrinking space and resources. They lived in present-day Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala, and maintained a population density of 700 to 800 people per km2. Recently published research indicates that by AD 800, the Mayans had cut down or deforested all the tropical forests in the surrounding area. They used the wood for buildings, cooking, and manufacturing lime to pave great plazas and roads. The massive deforestation altered the pattern of rainfall, producing or exacerbating periods of drought. Mayan civilization was already in drastic decline when the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century. The present-day tropical forest in this area, once believed to be primeval, is actually only about 600 years old. This is one example of historical land-use and land-cover changes that have affected many previous cultures and contributed to their collapse. Satellite and aircraft remote-sensing techniques were used in this study to find abandoned Mayan cities (see Figure 26), water storage areas, and agricultural fields to document the extent of Mayan occupation of their Central American landscape. The same satellite remote-sensing techniques that are widely used to study present day land-use and land-cover change also play a key role in understanding historical land-use and land-cover change, such as that of the Mayan culture.
Urbanization, Land-Use and Land-Cover Change, and the Carbon Cycle: Consequences for Net Primary Productivity in the United States [5]
Most of the urbanization in the United States has taken place on the lands with higher rates of net primary production. The estimated overall reduction of net primary production due to urban land transformation in the United States relative to total pre-urban production is 1.6% per year. The reduction of net primary production from agricultural lands is equivalent to food products capable of satisfying the caloric needs of 16.5 million people or about 6% of the U.S. population.
Highlights of FY 2007 PlansCreation of a 2005-2007 Landsat Data Set [10]
CCSP proposes to address this by redirecting existing agency resources in order to acquire a global collection of 2005 to 2007 data from Landsat 5 holdings of International Cooperator ground receiving stations and the U.S. archive; Landsat 7 image pairs from the U.S. archive (wherein the 25% of missing pixels in one scene are filled in from one or more subsequent scenes of the same site); the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER); Earth Observing-1’s Advanced Land Imager (EO-1’s ALI); and satellites now operated by foreign countries. This CCSP priority item will also be extremely important for scientific studies of the cryosphere, ecosystems, the carbon cycle, and the International Polar Year; thus, it will address multiple CCSP requirements and contribute to improved decision support. NASA and USGS, the two major users of Landsat data, will organize the project, with advice from and participation by other interested Federal agencies. This activity will address CCSP Goals 1 and 2 and Question 6.1 of the CCSP Strategic Plan. National Land Cover Data Set 2001
This activity will address CCSP Goals 1 and 2 and Question 6.2 of the CCSP Strategic Plan. Assessment of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change Numerical Models: A Request for a National Academy of Sciences Study Land-use and land-cover change are important processes that influence, and are influenced by, the Earth’s Attempts to couple land-use change models with models of biogeochemical, water, and ecological processes face a number of challenges. The spatial and temporal scales of land-use change models need to be compatible with both the driving processes of land-use change and models of environmental systems. The land-use and land-cover change models must also share specific semantic, ontological, and technical specifications in order to allow inter-model communication and coupling. Thus, although there has been much research that contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of land-use and land-cover change from an observational or empirical basis, a suite of models of land-use and land-cover changes at spatial scales from local to global, and temporal scales from short (<5 years) to long (>50 years), must be developed. These models must be compatible with environmental models relevant for Federal, State, and local management and policy development. This activity will address CCSP Goals 1 and 2 and Question 6.3 of the CCSP Strategic Plan. References1) Boone, R.B., K.A. Galvin, P.K. Thornton, D.M. Swift, and M.B. Coughenour, 2006: Cultivation and conservation in Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. Human Ecology (in press).
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