Abstract
Abstract. Indonesia is currently one of the regions with the highest transformation rate of land surface worldwide related to the expansion of oil palm plantations and other cash crops replacing forests on large scales. Land cover changes, which modify land surface properties, have a direct effect on the land surface temperature (LST), a key driver for many ecological functions. Despite the large historic land transformation in Indonesia toward oil palm and other cash crops and governmental plans for future expansion, this is the first study so far to quantify the impacts of land transformation on the LST in Indonesia. We analyze LST from the thermal band of a Landsat image and produce a high-resolution surface temperature map (30 m) for the lowlands of the Jambi province in Sumatra (Indonesia), a region which suffered large land transformation towards oil palm and other cash crops over the past decades. The comparison of LST, albedo, normalized differenced vegetation index (NDVI) and evapotranspiration (ET) between seven different land cover types (forest, urban areas, clear-cut land, young and mature oil palm plantations, acacia and rubber plantations) shows that forests have lower surface temperatures than the other land cover types, indicating a local warming effect after forest conversion. LST differences were up to 10.1 ± 2.6 °C (mean ± SD) between forest and clear-cut land. The differences in surface temperatures are explained by an evaporative cooling effect, which offsets the albedo warming effect. Our analysis of the LST trend of the past 16 years based on MODIS data shows that the average daytime surface temperature in the Jambi province increased by 1.05 °C, which followed the trend of observed land cover changes and exceeded the effects of climate warming. This study provides evidence that the expansion of oil palm plantations and other cash crops leads to changes in biophysical variables, warming the land surface and thus enhancing the increase of the air temperature because of climate change.
Highlights
Indonesia is one of the regions where the expansion of cash crop monocultures such as acacia, rubber, oil palm plantations and smallholder agriculture has drastically reduced the area of primary forest in the last 2.5 decades (Bridhikitti and Overcamp, 2012; Drescher et al, 2016; Marlier et al, 2015; Miettinen et al, 2012; Verstraeten et al, 2005)
We focus on the Jambi province as it experienced large land transformation towards oil palm and other cash crops such as rubber plantations in the past, and it may serve as an example of future changes in other regions
3.1 Landsat land surface temperature (LST) compared to Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) LST
Summary
Indonesia is one of the regions where the expansion of cash crop monocultures such as acacia (timber plantations), rubber, oil palm plantations and smallholder agriculture has drastically reduced the area of primary forest in the last 2.5 decades (Bridhikitti and Overcamp, 2012; Drescher et al, 2016; Marlier et al, 2015; Miettinen et al, 2012; Verstraeten et al, 2005) This large-scale conversion of rainforest for agricultural use has been observed on the island of Sumatra, which has experienced the highest primary rainforest cover loss in all of Indonesia (Drescher et al, 2016; Margono et al, 2012; Miettinen et al, 2011). Sabajo et al.: Surface temperature in the Jambi province in Indonesia nen et al, 2012) These large-scale transformations, observed as land cover change, and land use intensification have led to substantial losses in animal and plant diversity, ecosystem functions and changed microclimatic conditions (Clough et al, 2016; Dislich et al, 2016; Drescher et al, 2016). These changes directly alter vegetation cover and structure and land surface properties such as albedo, emissivity and surface roughness, which affect gas and energy exchange processes between the land surface and the atmosphere (Bright et al, 2015)
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