Impact Of Land Cover Change Research Articles

EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT USING GEOSPATIAL TECHNOLOGIES IN BHUBANESWAR, INDIA

Abstract. Fast population growth is a significant contributor to worldwide land scarcity and has a long-term impact on the environment and climate. Rapid urbanisation along with industrialisation contributed to land transformation across the globe. Understanding, monitoring, and mitigating the environmental impacts of urbanisation are critical for sustainable development. Also, Rapid urbanisation has contributed significantly to regional and global temperature. Land surface temperature (LST) has long been regarded as a critical physical metric for analysing regional and global climate change and its effects on many ecosystems. Remote sensing is an effective method for monitoring and quantifying urbanisation and assessing its impact on regional heating. This paper examines the combined impact of land use and land cover (LULC) change and climatic variability in Bhubaneswar city using remote sensing, geographic information system and google earth engine. Images from the Landsat were utilised to prepare the LULC, LST and NDVI layer for 2001, 2010 and 2020. The random forest method of supervised classification was employed to estimate the LULC. According to this study, the impact of urbanisation shows that the built-up areas in Bhubaneswar City have increased by over 70% at the cost of agricultural land and vegetation cover. The finding also indicates the urban area has been expanded around 12 percent where LST has increased by 4°C in the last two decades. As a result, continuous monitoring of LULC dynamics is required to guide sustainable land-use decisions that promote environmental protection and economic development in this region. A multi-temporal environmental analysis of the region is critical for future environmental planning, such as the restoration of damaged areas, to be more effective and efficient. This study, thus, would be helpful for the administrators, urban planners, and policymakers for proper planning and sustainable development of Bhubaneswar City.

Impact of Land Cover Change on a Typical Mining Region and Its Ecological Environment Quality Evaluation Using Remote Sensing Based Ecological Index (RSEI)

Ecological environment in mining cities has become an important part of ecological construction. This paper takes Tongling, a mining city, as the research area, and uses Landsat series remote sensing images from 2000 to 2020 as data sources. Using the principal component analysis method and the Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI) integrated with four indexes of greenness, humidity, dryness, and heat, the ecological disturbance of the mining area was evaluated and studied. Meanwhile, the land cover spatiotemporal classification of Tongling city was extracted by the maximum likelihood method. Furthermore, landscape metrics were used, based on the information on open-pit mining areas, to quantitatively analyze the ecological environment quality and its change characteristics in the study area. The results show that (1) RSEI can better characterize the ecological quality of Tongling city, greenness and humidity are positively correlated with it, dryness and heat are negatively correlated with it, and dryness and RSEI have the highest correlation coefficient, indicating that urban expansion will cause ecological environment deterioration to a certain extent. (2) The ecological environment quality of the research area showed a “decline-rising” trend, and the mean value of RSEI decreased from 0.706 to 0.644. Spatially, the areas with poor RSEI are mainly distributed in the central urban area and the open-pit mining area in the south. (3) Land cover change leads to changes in landscape metrics, and most landscape-level metrics are positively or negatively correlated with RSEI. The more concentrated the land cover type distribution is, the smaller the change is, and the more regional RSEI can be improved. (4) The mean value of RESI of the ten open-pit mining areas in Tongling city decreased significantly, with a maximum decrease of 52.73%. Among them, the RESI decline rate in the area around the no.1 open pit mine is 0.034/year. The ecological degradation in Tongling city is attributed to the rapid expansion of built-up areas and the development of the mining industry. The research results can provide a scientific basis for protecting the ecological environment of mining cities.

Impact of Spatiotemporal Land Use Land Cover Change on Land under Maize Production in Likuyani Sub-County, Kakamega County, Kenya

Due to its large-scale production of maize seeds, Likuyani Sub-County is regularly known as Kenya's bread basket. The favorable soil and weather conditions are good for agricultural production and, more explicitly, maize, which is Kenya's staple food. Therefore, this study sought to understand the impact of land use land cover changes on land under maize production in Likuyani Sub-County, Kenya, between 1997 and 2017. Landsat 7 ETM+, Landsat 8 OLI/ TIRS, and Sentinel 2A satellite images for the years 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017 were analyzed using pixel-oriented supervised image classification technique to produce LULC maps and detect the associated changes. Analysis of remote sensing data on the six categories revealed that land under maize cultivation was reduced by 8.92%, which translated to an annual reduction rate of 0.45%, while land under buildings increased by 10.87%, an annual rate of 0.54% between 1997 and 2017. Grass/Shrub category cover had an annual decrease rate of 0.31%. Forest and swamps were the least affected during the study period. Through the use of statistical package for social science (SPSS version 25) software, data were analyzed using descriptive statistics like percentages, frequencies, and means. Quantitative data were summarized to determine the strength of the connection between the variables; the researcher conducted a regression analysis to establish the relationship between independent and dependent variables. The results were presented in tables, graphs, and pie charts. It was established that land change influenced maize production negatively. Fluctuating market prices (2%), population increase (30%), land subdivision (52%), and introduction of sugarcane farming were the main drivers of land use change. The findings from the research suggest that spatiotemporal land use land cover change had reduced the area of land under maize cultivation, thus negatively impacting the production of maize. The study recommends that there is a need to identify and implement best management practices to sustainably manage land in Likuyani Sub-County. This ought to include all key partners remembering nearby networks for recognizing, planning, and executing supportable methodologies for landing the executives.

Impact of land cover changes on water quality: an application to the Guájaro reservoir, Colombia

Impact of land cover changes on water quality: an application to the Guájaro reservoir, Colombia

Assessment of the natural flow regime and its variability in a tributary of Ganga River: Impact of land use and land cover change

Accurate assessment of hydrological processes in a catchment including the estimation of virgin or natural flow regime of the rivers is critical to maintaining healthy river ecosystems, particularly in the developing nations that currently face the challenges of limited quantity and poor quality of available water. In this work, we aim to estimate the natural river flow and its variability due to land use and land cover (LULC) alterations over a period of ∼43 years (1970–2013–14) in the Ramganga River Basin (RRB), a sub-basin of the most fertile and densely populated basin in the world i.e., the Ganga River Basin. Hydrological modeling of the RRB was performed using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and its performance was evaluated by performing statistical analysis (e.g. coefficient of determination and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiencies). The simulated flows exhibited good agreement with the observed flows at the three flow monitoring stations in the RRB - Katghar, Chaubari, and Dabri. Upon achieving a good model performance, the natural flows for the 2013-14 LULC scenario were estimated by removing all existing flow interventions (e.g. dams and barrages) and irrigation usage. Average annual natural flows were observed to be higher by at least ∼40% than the average annual existing flows (i.e., flows estimated with current managed conditions) for the three stations. Historical LULC information for the basin was obtained from the object-based image classification of CORONA satellite images (1970). The annual average natural flows for the 1970 scenario were observed to be lower (3–12%) than the 2013-14 scenario which could be attributed to a significant increase in urban settlements and a reduction in the area coverage by barren land and shrubs and bushes. Overall, our work provides valuable insights into the natural flow regime and its variability due to anthropogenic activities and long-term LULC alterations in the RRB which may inform future strategies for sustainable water resources management in the basin.

Impact of Land Cover Change on Mountain Circulation over the Hainan Island, China

Focusing on the complex underlying surface area in central–southern Hainan Island, this study uses the Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecasting Model (Version 4.0) to simulate a typical mountain circulation case without obvious weather system forcing, and tries to reveal the impacts of land cover changes on the mountain circulation. One control experiment (CNTL) and three sensitivity experiments, in which the current land cover is taken as areas of uniform evergreen broadleaf forest (FOREST), grassland (GRASS), and bare soil (DESERT) coverage, are conducted. The results show that the near-surface wind speed increases with decreasing surface roughness, and DESERT shows the most obvious change as compared with the CNTL. In the vertical direction, FOREST shows the strongest valley breeze circulation, with the largest horizontal and vertical extents of circulation, as well as the highest vertical extent of the updraft. DESERT shows the weakest valley breeze circulation with the longest duration. GRASS shows the slightest change from the CNTL. The possible impact mechanism is that the land cover changes could affect the surface energy partitioning, leading to a variation in the temperature distribution (i.e., the horizontal potential temperature gradient and boundary layer stability), in turn affecting the structure and evolution characteristics of the mountain circulation.

Impact of urban land use and land cover change on urban heat island and urban thermal comfort level: a case study of Addis Ababa City, Ethiopia.

The increase in the urban heat island is caused by the replacement of vegetation cover by impervious surfaces. As the population of Addis Ababa City has increased dramatically, the vegetation cover and other land cover classes have been converted into built-up areas. This study attempted to examine the relationship between urban heat islands and urban thermal comfort (UTCL) and land use and land cover (LULC) change using geospatial technologies in Addis Ababa City, Ethiopia. Landsat TM 1991, Landsat ETM + 2005, and Landsat OLI/TIRS 2021 data were used in this study. During the study period, LULC change, land surface temperature (LST), and urban heat island were calculated using the multispectral and thermal infrared bands (1991-2021). Results revealed that the built-up area in 1991 was 96.6 km2 (18.3%), and increased to 165.4 km2 (31.4%) and 277.2 km2 (52.6%) by 2005 and 2021, respectively. In contrast, agriculture and vegetation land cover classes were declined by 66.8 km2 and 25.7 km2, respectively between 1991 and 2021. Rapid conversion of LULC change increases the mean LST of Addis Ababa City by 8.3°C over the last three decades. According to the results, a high LST was recorded over built-up regions and areas with little vegetative cover. Furthermore, the central areas of the study area suffered a greater UHI effect than the surrounding areas. The results of the urban thermal field variance index (UTFVI) revealed that the UHI varies greatly across the city. Strong, stronger, and strongest urban heat islands dominated the central, southwestern, and southeastern suburbans of the study area, respectively. The excellent comfort level has declined from 16.3 km2 (3.1%) in 1991 to 12.1 km2 (2.3%) in 2021. The study proposed that local community awareness needs to be raised for environmental conservation through the establishment of urban green spaces that reduce UHI and increase comfort in Addis Ababa City.

Evaluating Impact of Land Use and Land Cover Change Under Climate Change on the Lake Marmara System

Evaluating Impact of Land Use and Land Cover Change Under Climate Change on the Lake Marmara System

Assessing the impact of drought-land cover change on global vegetation greenness and productivity

Drought–land cover change (D-LCC) is considered to be an important stress factor that affects vegetation greenness and productivity (VG&P) in global terrestrial ecosystems. Understanding the effects of D-LCC on VG&P benefits the development of terrestrial ecosystem models and the prediction of ecosystem evolution. However, till today, the mechanism remains underexploited. In this study, based on the Theil-Sen median estimator and Mann-Kendall test, Hurst exponent evaluation and rescaled range analysis (R/S), Pearson and Partial correlation coefficient analyses, we explore the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics and future trends of Leaf area index (LAI), Net primary productivity (NPP), Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), Standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), Soil moisture (SM), Land cover type (LC), and the impact mechanism of D-LCC on global VG&P. Our results provide four major insights. First, three independent satellite observations consistently indicate that the world is experiencing an increasing trend of VG&P: LAI (17.69 %), NPP (20.32 %) and SIF (16.46 %). Nonetheless, productivity-reducing trends are unfolding in some tropical regions, notably the Amazon rainforest and the Congo basin. Second, from 2001 to 2020, the frequency, severity, duration, and scope of global droughts have been increasing. Third, the impact of land cover change on global VG&P is region-dependent. Finally, our results indicate that the continuous growth of VG&P in the global vegetation area is likely to become more difficult to maintain.

Modeling the impact of land cover changes on water balance in the Vea catchment of Ghana, 1985–2040

Modeling the impact of land cover changes on water balance in the Vea catchment of Ghana, 1985–2040

Predicting spatial and temporal changes in surface urban heat islands using multi-temporal satellite imagery: A case study of Tehran metropolis

Nowadays, predicting spatial and temporal changes of surface urban heat islands (SUHIs) is both a demanding challenge and a subject of interest for researchers working on urban thermal environments. This study aimed to predict the spatial-temporal changes of SUHI in Tehran city. The research data consisted of Landsat multi-temporal images, MODIS-derived water vapor and land surface temperature (LST) products, as well as climatic data. The cellular automata (CA)-Markov model was used for predicting the spatial and temporal land cover changes. Afterward, based on the statistical and spatial information of the impact of land cover changes on LST changes, maps of the LST and SUHII were procured for future years. The results showed that the area of built-up lands increased by 88% from 1985 to 2019. The built-up lands area is expected to increase to 446.3, 463.9, and 480.1 km2 by 2026, 2032, and 2038, respectively. The mean LST of Tehran city in 1985, 1992, 2000, 2009, and 2019 was 36.45, 41.95, 43.15, 44.95, and 47.25 °C, respectively. By 2026, 2032, and 2038, the mean LST may reach 48.65, 49.95, and 51.15 °C, respectively. Analysis of the SUHI ratio index in Tehran showed an increase from 0.01 in 1985 to 0.34 in 2019, and is expected to reach 0.38, 0.45, and 0.51 by 2026, 2032, and 2038, respectively.

Temporally-Consistent Annual Land Cover from Landsat Time Series in the Southern Cone of South America

The impact of land cover change across the planet continues to necessitate accurate methods to detect and monitor evolving processes from satellite imagery. In this context, regional and global land cover mapping over time has largely treated time as independent and addressed temporal map consistency as a post-classification endeavor. However, we argue that time can be better modeled as codependent during the model classification stage to produce more consistent land cover estimates over long time periods and gradual change events. To produce temporally-dependent land cover estimates—meaning land cover is predicted over time in connected sequences as opposed to predictions made for a given time period without consideration of past land cover—we use structured learning with conditional random fields (CRFs), coupled with a land cover augmentation method to produce time series training data and bi-weekly Landsat imagery over 20 years (1999–2018) across the Southern Cone region of South America. A CRF accounts for the natural dependencies of land change processes. As a result, it is able to produce land cover estimates over time that better reflect real change and stability by reducing pixel-level annual noise. Using CRF, we produced a twenty-year dataset of land cover over the region, depicting key change processes such as cropland expansion and tree cover loss at the Landsat scale. The augmentation and CRF approach introduced here provides a more temporally consistent land cover product over traditional mapping methods.

The Effect of Land Use and Land Cover Changes on Flood Occurrence in Teunom Watershed, Aceh Jaya

The change in land use and land cover in upstream watersheds will change the features of drainage systems such that they will impact surface overflow and affect the infiltration capacity of a land surface, which is one of the factors that contributes to flooding. The key objective of this study is to identify vulnerable areas of flooding and to assess the causes of flooding using ground-based measurement, remote sensing data, and GIS-based flood risk mapping approaches for the flood hazard mapping of the Teunom watershed. The purposes of this investigation were to: (1) examine the level and characteristics of land use and land cover changes that occurred in the area between 2009 and 2019; (2) determine the impact of land use and land cover changes on the water overflow and infiltration capacity; and (3) produce flood risk maps for the Teunom sub-district. Landsat imagery of 2009, 2013, and 2019; slope maps; and field measurement soil characteristics data were utilized for this study. The results show a significant increase in the use of residential land, open land, rice fields, and wetlands (water bodies) and different infiltration rates that contribute to the variation of flood zone hazards. The Teunom watershed has a high and very high risk of ~11.98% of the total area, a moderate risk of 56.24%, and a low and very low risk of ~31.79%. The Teunom watershed generally has a high flood risk, with a total of ~68% of the area (moderate to very high risk). There was a substantial reduction in forest land, agricultural land, and shrubs from 2009 to 2019. Therefore, the segmentation of flood-risk zones is essential for preparation in the region. The study offers basic information about flood hazard areas for central governments, local governments, NGOs, and communities to intervene in preparedness, responses, and flood mitigation and recovery processes, respectively.

Impacts of combined and separate land cover and climate changes on hydrologic responses of Dhidhessa River basin, Ethiopia

ABSTRACT The combined effects of climate and land cover changes influence hydrologic responses of a basin in an offsetting or synergistic manner depending on the nature and severity of the changes. As such, estimating the impacts of these environmental changes on hydrologic responses is crucial for planning water resources management. However, such a comprehensive study is missing in most basins of Ethiopia, particularly in the Dhidhessa River basin (DRB). The aim of this study is, therefore, to quantify the combined and separate impacts of land cover and climate changes on multiple hydrologic variables for the DRB. The Calibrated Soil and Water Analysis Tool (SWAT) model and statistical techniques were integrated for this study. Quantifying the separate and combined effects of land cover and climate changes on multiple hydrologic responses at a local scale, and determining the relative contribution of the changes are the strength of this study. The result indicated better performance of the SWAT model in simulating water balance components for the DRB. Significant changes in hydrologic responses were observed in response to the land cover changes, and the increasing trends of temperature and rainfall observed during the last 30 years in DRB. The result showed increasing actual evapotranspiration (AET), streamflow, and surface runoff while decreasing groundwater recharge. Surface runoff was more affected by land cover change than by climate change, whereas streamflow and AET were more affected by climate change than land cover change during the last 30 years in the basin. The combined effects of land cover and climate changes played an offsetting effect on groundwater recharge and AET. Overall, the simulated hydrologic responses will have negative effects on water resource availability and agricultural production in the basin and the surroundings. Therefore, implementing integrated watershed management strategies, such as soil and water conservation and afforestation, could minimize the negative impact.

Linking Pattern to Process: Intensity Analysis of Land-Change Dynamics in Ghana as Correlated to Past Socioeconomic and Policy Contexts

Spatio-temporal analysis of transitions in land cover is critical to understanding many ecological challenges, especially in environmentally vulnerable regions. For instance, in Sub-Saharan Africa, large-scale cropland expansion is expected due to the increasing demand for fuel, food, and fibre. Clearing land for cropland expansion is a driving factor in the degradation of natural ecosystems. We present a spatio-temporal analysis of land-cover change in Ghana’s Northern, Upper East, and Upper West provinces using Intensity Analysis on the periods from 1992 to 2003 and 2003 to 2015. The objectives of this study were to determine whether the intensity of land-use and land-cover (LULC) change is consistent between the two periods and to investigate the direction and extent of change for different LULC categories in northern Ghana. The methodology measures land-cover changes at the interval, category, and transition levels. The results suggest that the annual rate of land change was higher between 1992 and 2003 compared to that between 2003 and 2015. Furthermore, the category-level analysis reveals that the gains in the arable land and tree/forest-cover classes during both time intervals were higher than the uniform intensity. The transition-level analysis results indicate that most of the gains in arable land and tree/forest-cover came at the cost of semi-arid shrublands during both periods. There is also evidence of local increases in forest-cover, likely linked to afforestation policies established by the Ghanian government; however, overall, there has been a loss of natural habitat. The study provides data to improve our understanding of the magnitude and direction of land-cover change, essential for the development of policies designed to mitigate the impact of land-cover change on the livelihoods of local people and the environment at the national and sub-national levels.

Impacts of Land Cover Change Caused by Urbanization on the Flood Regime of Msimbazi Catchment in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

The hydrological processes of a catchment are the function of climate, land use and land cover. Changes in either climate or land use or land cover can result in alteration of the catchment’s hydrological processes. In the recent past, Msimbazi catchment in Dar es Salaam has undergone drastic land cover changes mainly due to urbanisation. These land cover changes caused changes in the behaviour of river flow resulting in frequent floods. Therefore, this study analyses the impacts of the changes in land cover due to urbanisation specifically with the changes in river flow, surface run-off and base-flows. Previously generated land cover maps of Msimbazi catchment and a combination of spatial and meteorological climate datasets were used to parameterise the hydrological model (SWAT). The model was calibrated and validated using the Sequential Uncertainty Fitting algorithm (SUFI-2) on a monthly resolution. The results show that there is an increase in surface run-off, mean river flow and the reduction of base-flow with the increase in urbanisation within the catchment. These increase in river flows, surface run-off and reduction of base-flow indicates the likelihood of an increase in flooding events in the catchment.

Assessing the impact of land use land cover change on regulatory ecosystem services of subtropical scrub forest, Soan Valley Pakistan

This study investigated the effect of land use land cover (LULC) changes on carbon sequestration in the Hayat-ul-Mir subtropical scrub reserve forest, Pakistan. Supervised maximum likelihood classification of Landsat satellite imagery was done to assess spatio-temporal changes in LULC during 2007, 2013 and 2019. The CA–Markov model was used to simulate LULC of 2030. Spatial LULC data and carbon pools data was processed in Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) carbon model to investigate the effect of LULC on future carbon dynamics. The analysis revealed increase in cover of A. modesta and O. ferruginea and decrease in agriculture, built up and barren area of forest during 2007–2019 and 2030. The analysis also showed that the forest would additionally sequester 111 Mg C with an overall Net Present Value of $4112.05 in year 2030. The analysis revealed LULC changes on 25% area with increase and decrease in the value of ecosystem service (at some location) from carbon storage and loss as CO2 emissions respectively depending on the type of LULC converted. The study is helpful in identifying areas of potential carbon sequestration to maximize net benefits from management interventions.

Land cover change impact analysis: an integration of remote sensing, GIS and DPSIR framework to deal with degraded land in Lepan Watershed, North Sumatra, Indonesia

Abstract. Rahmawaty, Rauf, A, Harahap MM, Kurniwan H. 2022. Land cover change impact analysis: an integration of remote sensing, GIS and DPSIR framework to deal with degraded land in Lepan Watershed, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 23: 3000-3011. The Lepan Watershed is located in North Sumatra Province, Indonesia. The types of land cover in the Lepan Watershed were examined to analyze the impact of changes in land cover over periods of five years and ten years (2009-2014-2019). This study used three analyses: analysis of land cover type, land cover change, causes and impacts of those changes, and government responses to those changes. Analysis of land cover types and changes was conducted using geographic information system (GIS). The land cover change impacts were analyzed using the driving forces, pressure, state, impact, and response (DPSIR) approach. Twelve land cover types were identified, i.e., water body, dryland forest, industry, mixed garden, open land, mangrove, rubber plantation, oil palm plantation, settlement, paddy field, shrub, and pond. For five years, changes in land cover occurred in the Lepan Watershed. During ten years (2009-2019), the mixed garden, oil palm plantation, and settlement increased, while dryland forest, mangrove, rubber plantation, paddy field, shrub, and pond decreased. The water body and industry land cover types did not undergo extensive changes over the past five and ten years. Changes in land cover resulted in the following impacts: decreasing biodiversity, increasing the risk of floods, increasing damage to mangroves, and decreasing rice production. The prevention of land-use change to maintain environmental sustainability is a shared responsibility of all stakeholders.

Simulating land use and land cover change under contrasting levels of policy enforcement and its spatially-explicit impact on tropical forest landscapes in Ecuador

This study simulates the future impact of land use and land cover (LULC) change and the enforcement of policy bundles on the multi-functionality of tropical forest landscapes. It focusses on the Northern Ecuadorian Amazonas (NEA) which is characterised by high biodiversity and endemism but at the same time is threatened by deforestation and unsustainable land use practices. Scenario simulations mimic LULC change during 2016–2030 at canton-level (area: 2,146 km²) combining explorative with policy-screening components. Scenarios NATIONAL(+)POLICY, NATIONAL(-)POLICY, REGIONAL(+)POLICY, and REGIONAL(-)POLICY are contrasted by varying deforestation trends (high regional demand for agricultural products vs. national-level structural transformations) and the enforcement/ non-enforcement of policy bundles on forest protection, reforestation and restoration. An indicator-based impact assessment analysed in a spatially-explicit fashion for each scenario in 2030 (i) the evolution of agricultural and forestry-related LULC change trajectories, (ii) future hotspots of deforestation, (iii) remaining forest core zones (FCZ) as key element of habitat integrity, and (iv) the provisioning of long-term carbon sinks. Key findings reveal that only NATIONAL(+)POLICY, as the combination of enforced policy bundles and simulated national LULC change trend extrapolating the long-term reference period 1990–2016, lead to an expansion of forest areas and a 2% carbon stock gain in 2030 compared to 2016. When assuming a linear continuation of this trend, it requires 96 years to reach a similar carbon stock level compared to the reference year 1990. Farm area expansion will continue to affect protected forests in case of scenarios NATIONAL(-)POLICY and REGIONAL(-)POLICY but will be avoided in NATIONAL(+)POLICY and REGIONAL(+)POLICY. The simulated persistence of many farming areas reveals that the likelihood to reforest existing agricultural patches will be rather low. Against expectations, scenario NATIONAL(+)POLICY which assumes net zero deforestation by 2030 led to a high level of FCZ fragmentation contrasting its carbon sink potential (27,971 Mio. Mg ha−1) which performed best among all scenarios. Our study depicts a mismatch of future LULC change realities compared to the anticipated future achievements of the Ecuadorian land use policy framework. The simulated variability of forest change patterns (deforestation, reforestation) and farming trajectories (diversification, intensification, rotation) further suggests to foster more cross-sectoral policy approaches that acknowledges the hybrid role of local stakeholders who can be farmers and forest users at the same time. Our study shows that focusing on preserving carbon stocks and their long-term climate mitigation potential only while neglecting other important ecosystem functions or biodiversity can be a short-sighted policy goal if not accompanied by rural development programmes. We further conclude that scenario-based assessments should become an integral part of multi-stakeholder interactions across relevant levels of decision-making. This can support long-term sustainable land use management which is not only relevant for the case of the Northern Ecuadorian Amazons region but for many other landscapes in transition.

Impact of Land Cover Changes on the Wetland Ecosystem Water Environment Using Soft Computing Methods

Economic growth is accelerating in the entire world due to new inventions and advancements in the field of science and technology. The technology is progressing at a rapid pace and resulting in the infrastructure and technical progression of each nation. The utilization rate of land in the world has also increased substantially where the cultivated land is used for the development of industries and buildings. This land occupancy is alarming for the environment, and it is impacting the ecosystem of the earth in many adverse ways. In this study, the impact of land cover changes on the wetland ecosystem water environment has been studied in depth using soft computing techniques. The water environment data of the wetland ecosystem are obtained from real-world scenario and are mined using a particle swarm K-means clustering approach based on chaos search. The water environment assessment approach is used to analyze the influence of land cover changes on the water environment of the wetland ecosystem. The findings of this research work reveal that the cultivated land in the wetland is steadily decreasing, and the fertile forestland is steadily decreasing in the early stages and gradually increasing in the latter stages. The wetland water quality is gradually degrading over the period of time. The outcomes of the study demonstrate that a nonpoint source of pollution produced by land-use changes is the most important factor, which is affecting water quality. The analytical results’ accuracy is as high as 0.98 when compared to the real-world circumstances.