Kinds Of Land Research Articles

Land‐use change and cropland loss in the Zhejiang coastal region of China

Land‐use change is emerging as one of the most critical environmental issues. As one of the most economically developed coastal regions in China, Zhejiang province has undergone substantial changes in land use over the last 2 decades. With rapid urban expansion and modernisation, sustainable land use on limited land resources has become a critical issue for local environment and socioeconomic development. The objectives of this study were to quantify land use/cover (LULC) changes and to attempt to identify socioeconomic drivers. Land‐sat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) images taken in 1985, 1993 and 2001 were used to map land use/cover changes. A stratified unsupervised classification technique was implemented in conjunction with visual interpretation. Using a modified Anderson's I/II/III‐level classification scheme, an overall classification accuracy of 90% in level I was achieved. A LULC conversion matrix was produced for 2 decades to explore and explain LULC changes. All kinds of land uses have undergone varying degrees of change, among which are a notable loss of cropland and urban growth is the outstanding land‐use change type. Urban sprawl is the main reason for the decrease in cropland. Spatially, the cropland loss has been uneven in different parts of the costal region in Zhejiang province. Temporally, land‐use development has not stabilised and the two study periods, 1985–93 and 1993–2001, have different transition styles.

Characteristics and driving factors of marsh changes in Zhalong wetland of China

Zhalong National Nature Reserve in the northeast of China is a large wetland and a habitat of hundreds species of fauna and flora. The rare red-crowned crane is one kind of endangered birds in it. Recently, Zhalong wetland is shrinking and it encounters many problems including occasional fires, bad water quality, human activities, etc. In order to find out a proper way to protect and restore the wetland, this study, using a geographic information system, the global positioning system and remote sensing techniques, analyses the spatial characteristics of the changes in marsh landscape pattern and examines the driving factors for these changes. Data sources include 8 Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite images of Zhalong area in the period of 1986-2002 and the investigation information on site. Based on the analysis of changes of marsh area and annual precipitation during the 16 years, it is found that there is a close correlation between annual precipitation and marsh area. It means that climate is one of driving factors of marsh pattern changes. To understand influences of other kinds of land uses on marsh spatial distribution in Zhalong wetland, this paper analyses the relationship between marsh and different kinds of land uses, such as water surface, residential area, farm land, salina land and grass land, respectively. According to the patch analysis theory, a fragmental index and a fractal dimension of the marsh are calculated with perimeter-area method. The results indicate that the marsh pattern is affected by human activities significantly. In addition, the location alteration of marsh centroid point over the 16 years is studied. The movement trace of marsh centroid point is concerned with different hydrological situation in different areas of the wetland. In summary the characteristics of the marsh landscape pattern evolution during the 16 years are affected by multiple driving factors. The main driving factors are climate, human activities, distribution of other kinds of land uses and hydrological situation in different areas.

THE ROLE OF LAND USE CHANGES ON DESERTIFICATION IN IMAM KHOMEINI AIRPORT REGION-IRAN FROM 1956 TO 2003

The kind of land use and intensity of its change is considered as important desertification indices in different models. Land use change is one of the main anthropogenic factors in the desertification. The current research was carried out around Imam Khomeini airport, with an area of 32000 km2, in order to evaluate mentioned area's land use changes effects during 1955-2003 on desertification. To study the changes, aerial photos of 1955 (1:55000) and 2003 (1:40000), in addition to IRS (Pan and LISS III) and ETM images of 2003 were used. Boundaries of different land uses were determined based on aerial photos and satellite images. In the next stage, boundaries were controlled in the field. Five kinds of land uses including agricultural land, abandoned agricultural lands, rangelands, industrial regions and complex, were distinguished in the study area. The extent of land uses areas, except to complex, has been changed during the 48 years. Rangeland has least change (1.5%), while 14% of agricultural areas have been changed into abandoned and industrial areas. This research showed that biomass has been decreased to 24355.6 ton during the last 48 years. This leads to the decrease of organic matter and decline of soil quality, which in turn causes a 32.9% increase of area regions with severe and very severe desertification intensities.

Conservation Biology and Law: Only a Start

Conservation BiologyVolume 20, Issue 3 p. 679-680 Conservation Biology and Law: Only a Start ERIC T. FREYFOGLE, ERIC T. FREYFOGLE College of Law, University of Illinois, 504 E. Pennsylvania Avenue, Champaign, IL 61820, U.S.A., email efreyfog@law.uiuc.eduSearch for more papers by this author ERIC T. FREYFOGLE, ERIC T. FREYFOGLE College of Law, University of Illinois, 504 E. Pennsylvania Avenue, Champaign, IL 61820, U.S.A., email efreyfog@law.uiuc.eduSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 June 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00433.xCitations: 6Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume20, Issue3June 2006Pages 679-680 RelatedInformation

Multi‐temporal remote sensing change detection based on independent component analysis

A change detection approach based on independence component analysis (ICA) was proposed in this letter. Traditional multivariate change detection schemes such as principal component analysis (PCA) were based on 2nd‐order statistics to remove the correlation among multi‐temporal images. However, for the regions where data did not fit a normal distribution, PCA might not be effective. In this letter, ICA was used to separate change information in independent components by reducing the 2nd‐order and higher order dependences in multi‐temporal images. Firstly, the number of images was expanded to the number of land classes by nonlinear band generation. Then, independent component images were obtained based on ICA. The obtained independent component images corresponded to some kind of land or land variation. At last, different kinds of land variation are located by applying maximum likelihood classification (MLC). The experimental results in synthetic and real multi‐temporal images show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Experiential relationship between the farming rate of riverside land and flood concentration time factor

In order to prove a reduction function concerning flood damage according to land use, we have to compare evaluation indices, such as flood concentration times. These can be derived from the calculation of the outflows from two basins where rainfall, geology, geographical conditions, etc. are the same and only the land use is different. However, it is very difficult to obtain comparable data from large basins under the above mentioned conditions. An elaborate observation for a long period is required to obtain such data. In this paper, we aim to establish a calculation process that offers consideration factors from a viewpoint that is different from a conventional research where elaborate observation is essential. Therefore, first we use easily obtainable data of many basins, such as the information on the Internet, or data from official documents or the like, which are difficult to deal with in hydrology. Then, we obtain several evaluation indices, which are coefficients close to the flood concentration times in this paper, on each basin in which various kinds of land uses are mixed. We then perform the statistical analysis with a land use ratio. In order to use various data on several basins, we evaluate the difference in the land use ratio in the basin by using of a length of a riverside instead of an area in the basin. Moreover, since a river-mouth is at the end of the riverside and a water stage observation point is not at the river-mouth, an error arises. Although there are several problems in accuracy as mentioned above, the evaluation of the reduction function concerning the flood damage according to land use will be feasible, automatically and efficiently, if the calculation process is established.

QUANTIFICATION OF <I>ESCHERICHIA COLI</I> AND ENTEROCOCCI LEVELS IN WET WEATHER AND DRY WEATHER FLOWS

Forty percent of rivers, 45% of lakes and 50% of estuaries assessed by the National Water Quality Inventory (2000) were not clean enough to support designate d fishing and swimming uses. Pathogens were found to be one of the leading causes of impairments in these waters. Urban runoff is recognized as a leading source of organisms potentially indicating the presence of pathogens. Urban runoff can be defined as any discharge from a separate storm drainage system. Urban runoff traditionally had been defined to in clude precipitation and wash off from lawns and other landscaped areas, buildings, roadways and parking lots. However, other flows may enter the storm drainage system from such sources a s infiltrating groundwater, leaking domestic water supplies and sewage, washwaters, and other inappropriate entries to the storm drainage system. This research was conducted to quantify th e levels of indicator bacteria, and their sources, in urban areas. The main objective of t his research was to identify possible sources of E. coli and enterococci bacteria in dry and wet-weather flows in storm drainage systems. An urban area consists of many different kinds of land uses such as residential, institutional, commercial, industrial open spaces, etc. Each type of la nd use consists of various types of source areas, such as roofs, parking lots, landscaped areas, play grounds, driveways, undeveloped areas, sidewalks. Four representative source area types were sa mpled during this research; including rooftops, parking lots, open spaces, and streets. Two paralle l sites were sampled for each source area type; one affected by birds and other animals, and an other set with less influence from birds and other animals. A section of Cribbs Mill Creek in Tusc aloosa, Alabama, was also selected for dry weather sampling at outfalls. The section of the cr eek was selected such that the drainage areas contributing to outfalls had either commercial or residential land uses. Potential inappropriate discharge water samples were also obtained, including influent samples from the Tuscaloosa sewage treatment plant, local springs, irrigati on runoff water, domestic water taps, car wash, and laundry water. Overall, total coliforms, E. coli and enterococci bacterial analyses were conducted on 202 wet weather and 278 dry weather flow water samples. All samples were analyzed using IDEXX Quantitray enumeration procedures. E. coli and enterococci levels larger than 2,400 and 24,000 MPN/100 mL, r espectively, were observed in wet weather samples collected from various source areas which could not possibly be contaminated with sanitary sewage. The levels of ind icator bacteria present in the urban runoff source area samples exceeded the EPA 1986 single sa mple maximum value water quality criteria in 31% of the samples for E. coli and in 74% of the samples for enterococci. The geometric mean criteria were exceeded in 100% of the source area samples. Since both the indicator organisms studied ( E. coli. and enterococci) only originate in intestines of warm

Nitrogen export by runoff and sediment under different types of land use in West Tiaoxi catchment

Five typical land covers in West Tiaoxi catchment of China, including mulberry garden, bamboo forest, pinery, vegetable plot and paddy field, were studied on nitrogen loss in artificial rainstorm runoff and sediment. Triple duplication experiments have been carried out under the artificial rain condition with an intensity of 2 mm.mm−1 and lasting 32 minutes in 3 m2 field. Export of various species of nitrogen in runoff and sediment were investigated. The results show that nitrogen loss amount and rate are quite different among five kinds of land covers. The loss of total nitrogen in runoff of mulberry is the largest and that of paddy field is the smallest. Particle nitrogen accounts for 70–90% of total nitrogen in runoff of various kinds of land covers. Loss of dissolved nitrogen in pinery is much higher than in other kinds of land covers, which are similar among them. More detailed species of dissolved nitrogen show their respective features among various land covers. Total amounts of nitrogen loss from the top 10 cm layer of 5 kinds of soils are estimated as high as 4.66–9.40 g.m−2, of which nitrogen loss through sediment of runoff accounts for more than 90%. The rate of total nitrogen losses are ranged in 2.68–14.48 mg.m−2.min−1 in runoff, which is much lower than that of 100.01–172.67 mg.m−2.min−1 in sediment of runoff.

Exploring suitability for tropical crop cultivation in Hainan Island by SOTAL methodology

A SOTER-based automatic procedure for qualitative land evaluation is developed. This procedure was created in the automated land evaluation system (ALES). The objective was to design a procedure that allows for a quick separation of potentially suitable from non-suitable SOTER units for the intended land use, indicating constraints to different kinds of land use. Different kinds of land are unequally suited to various uses, land evaluation is the assessment of the suitability of a tract of land for a specified kind of land use. In practice this implicates the comparison (matching) between the requirements of a specified land use and the properties of the land. Land evaluation concepts and definitions are treated in the paper. The ALES is a computer program that allows land evaluators to build their own knowledge-based system with which they can compute the physical and economical suitability of map units in accordance with FAO framework for land evaluation. The ALES program works with so-called decision trees, being hierarchical multiway keys in which the leaves are results (e.g., severity levels of land qualities), and the interior nodes of the tree are decision criteria (e.g., land characteristic values). These trees are traversed by the program to compute an evaluation using actual land data for each map unit. SOTAL is a SOTER-based qualitative model developed in ALES for physical land evaluation in which presently three land utilization types (LUTs) are distinguished, i.e., cultivated banana, coffee and rubber under different input and technological conditions. These LUTs are characterized by 11 landuse requirements and evaluated by matching the land use requirements with the corresponding land qualities. The paper elaborates on the criteria used in SOTAL for land quality assessment and how a final suitability rating is achieved on the basis of the rated land qualities. Results are visualized through G1S-generated maps as products in response to the specific information and data needs of decision and policy makers.

Land suitability assessment in the Namoi Valley of Australia, using a continuous model

In an agricultural context, land evaluation is assessment for a specified kind of land utilisation. The final result of agricultural evaluation is a map, which partitions the landscapes into suitable and unsuitable areas for a particular land-use of interest. However, this approach may not represent the continuity of land. Land suitability could be better expressed by a fuzzy approach. In this paper a fuzzy methodology is used to evaluate land suitability in the Edgeroi district for various crops including barley, dryland cotton, oats, pasture, soybean, sorghum, sunflower, and wheat. This is achieved using a membership function to derive a land-suitability membership score ranging from non-suitable (i.e. 0) to suitable (i.e. 1). We express this as continuous land suitability maps using punctual kriging. An expression for overall land suitability (i.e. its versatility) and its capacity with respect to suitability to particular rotations is introduced to highlight the most productive units of soil.

Blue node concept: a regional water management strategy

Water scarcity is, in general, not a problem in the Netherlands. Scarcity is caused by pollution and especially non-point pollution. For the water manager the central task is the supply of water with good quality at the right time at the right place. This task depends on the demand of the different kinds of land uses, the stock of water in the area during the year, and the possibilities to separate parts of the water system with bad water quality from parts with good water quality. To do so the blue node strategy has been developed and is illustrated in this article.

Using linear programming to optimize rehabilitation and restoration of injured land: an application to US army training sites

Rehabilitating damaged lands is often necessary to repair environmental damage from natural and man-induced activities. Damage and its rehabilitation present a trade-off in cost where increasing rehabilitation costs reduce the cost of damage. To manage this trade-off a Linear Program (LP) was formulated to minimize the cost of rehabilitation plus damage. The cost minimization techniques were applied to the Fort Carson Military Reservation in Colorado. This fort sustains heavy military training activity and is characterized by diverse terrain and complex vegetation. Data were obtained from site assessments and interviews with land managers, rehabilitation cost information was used to arrive at five treatment alternatives available for each acre identified as needing rehabilitation. The program identified the optimal treatment schedule given limited resources including budget and three kinds of land; grassland, shrubland and woodland. The results suggest that such LP formulations can provide an important tool for military land managers seeking cost-effective rehabilitation of their sites. The LP application provided an insightful and convenient way to optimize the schedule of treatments that would minimize total cost across the different cover types while producing ancillary output on the value of additional budget and land. The process has potentially broader appeal as a tool to guide land managers in the optimal allocation of rehabilitation resources.1998 Academic Press Limited

The impact of commons registration: a Norfolk study

ABSTRACT This paper explores the purpose, process, and legacy of commons registration, the result of which was the creation of the county registers routinely used by historians as an index to surviving commons. In so doing, this research attempts to assess the degree of continuity between what is recorded in the registers and historic common land. The study begins with a brief review of the history of common land with an emphasis on the legal and perceptual changes that have occurred since enclosure. From the mid-nineteenth century most people came to consider common land less an agricultural appurtenance and more as areas of open space to which everyone had common access. At the same time, legal definitions shifted away from using common rights to define common land and towards other criteria that encompassed open, neglected or uncommitted sites. As it was this category of land at which the Commons Registration Act was aimed, it is not surprising that the already loosening legal definitions relaxed still further, which, together with a registration procedure so streamlined that very little existed by way of a screen against unsuitable nominations, meant that any kind of land could conceivably become common. Norfolk's commons registers record the existence of 346 commons and 146 village greens, now the only land legally common in the county. A careful look reveals that this list includes many poor allotments (charity land usually dating from enclosure), public pits, traffic islands, and other open land of questionable origin. In fact, less than 25 per cent of Norfolk's registered common land would have satisfied that definition before 1965. Nevertheless, despite their being of limited value as a guide to the survival of historic commons, the registers do put forward a special variety of landscape set apart by the mere accident of registration. As such, statutory common land presents new challenges for both historians and conservationists.

Towards sustainable land-use in the hills of Central Himalaya, India

SUMMARY Over-population in relation to poor land productivity and cultivation in less fertile lands is resulting in land degradation and deforestation in UP hills. Growing demand of more food production and increasing need for more cash in hand have forced the hill people to cultivate all kinds of land, resulting in the denudation of land resources and soil erosion. These changes resulted in out migration of the area's human resource. A new management system for the revival of natural resources and the sustainable utilization of the area's human population and livestock has been proposed, involving active local participation in order to change the existing land-use to a system based on the soil fertility scale.

Modelling production potentials of tef (Eragrostis tef) in the central highlands of Ethiopia

A quantitative estimate of the production potential of major crops enables a better comparison of the productivity of different kinds of land and to make a selection of suitable alternative uses. This potential can be estimated by the FAO-AEZ crop growth simulation model (FAO, 1978: Report on the agro-ecological zones project. vol. 1, Methodology and Results for Africa. World Soils Resources Report No. 48, FAO, Rome). Although model outputs can not fully reproduce the actual situation, their application provides opportunities to formulate quantitative yield estimates and to identify growth constraints. The simulated potential dry matter yields of tef in the study area are high, with radiation-limited yields of over 6500 kg·ha−1 and rainfed yields ranging from 3600 kg·ha−1 to 4500 kg·ha−1. Compared to the radiation-limited yield potentials, the rainfed yields are relatively low, emphasizing strong influence of moisture stress (about 40–50%) on yield. Expercted yields range from 1500 kg·ha−1 to 2200 kg·ha−1. Comparison of simulated expected yields with effectively observed yield data in central Ethiopia has shown that the model can be used to estimate production potentials reasonably well.

Population growth and land subdivision in rural Pennsylvania, 1950–1982

Summary The purpose of this study was to examine the subdivision of rural land from 1950 to 1982 under differing rates of population growth. Data from nine townships in rural Pennsylvania, reflecting a diversity of rural land uses, provided information on the extent to which land had been subdivided, the size of the new subdivisions, ownership characteristics, land values, and the kind of land from which the new parcels were subdivided. Time series data since 1950 related population growth to the extent of land subdivision. Implications are drawn about the future of our rural land resources, particularly for agricultural uses and aesthetic purposes. Rural landowners need a strong land conservation ethic; otherwise, the continual chipping away of the land resource through the uncontrolled development process as recorded by the data in this study will ultimately lead to its irreversible loss.

The Change of Agricultural Land Use in the Village of Nauheim in the Limburg Basin in Southwest Germany

This study deals with the change of agricultural land use after World War II, including its areal patterns, in a peasant village in the Southwest Germany. In the Limburg Basin there had been three field system (zelgensystem) until the end of 1950's (Fig. 3). This traditional field pattern and the land use have changed greatly in the 1960's and the 1970's. The major change and the characteristics of land use today are summerized in the following : 1. the disappearance of three field system and the increase of difference in the land use composition (or crop rotation) among farmers, 2. the extension of cereal producing area and the reduction of root crops, potatoes, and feed crops, 3. the extension of pasture or meadow land on steep slopes and the land use change from pasture or meadow to arable land in the alluvial land along broocklet, 4. the inexistence of social fallow (Fig. 5).The disappearance of three field system are explained, first of all, by the land consolidation in 1960. But more basically, the specialization of farms enlarged the difference in the land use composition. It resulted in the disappearance of the traditional crop rotation, or three field system. In this village there was only one type of farming, mixed farming. This type of farming has changed into three types of farming Type A : traditional mixed farming, Type B : type of hog raising with cereal production, Type C : crop growing without live-stocks (Fig. 9). Thus, the land use of each peasant farm became different, reflecting the farm management.The inclease in cereal producing area is explained by the enlargement of farm size in the 1960's (Table 3, Fig. 7, 8), the specialization to farming Types B and C in the 1970's, and the mechanization of farming in the 1960's and 70's.The mechanization and the specialization have resulted in the extension of pasture or meadow land on steep slopes, on the one hand, and the land use change from pasture to arable land on the other hand.The inexistence of social fallow, which is seen in peasant area in the Southwest Germany, is explained by the smooth processes of land transfer from the peasant, who would reduce farm size, to the farmers, who would enlarge farm size.In the age of traditional land use, each peasant held the different kinds of land in a similar composition with the other. Consequently, they could use the lands in the similar way and adopt a similar mixed farming. At a village level, the patterns of land use, which peasants made with the same norm, reflected physical conditions and distance from the village (Fig. 3). At a farm level, however, land use composition and crop rotation today are different among peasants, because of the differentiation of farming purposes. Consequently, the land use patterns at a village level reflect less the physical conditions and distance from the village. In other words, actual patterns of land use have become less coincided with the potential in the village as a whole (Fig. 10).

Sounds audible to migrating birds

We have measured sound levels from frog choruses in eastern New York State at altitudes of up to several hundred metres. Rana pipiens choruses from small ponds often could be recorded by a radio microphone up to 500 m, and on an especially favourable night with light winds they were clearly audible even at 965 m at about 20 dB SPL in the 1·5 to 2·5 2·5 kHz frequency band. Sound travels upward much farther and more predictably than along the surface. Many natural sounds, including those from frogs, insects, whitecaps, and perhaps wind-blown vegetation, arise from large areas and therefore act as extended sources. The intensities of such sounds decrease with altitude more slowly than expected from the inverse square law. Natural sound fields provide migrating birds with a potential source of information about the kind of land or water below them, and their progress over acoustic landmarks could inform them about wind velocity. Because atmospheric absorption increases with frequency, several hundred metres of air act as a low-pass filter, so that altitude could be estimated from the relative reduction of higher frequencies in a familiar sound.

Analysis of price differences of agricultural land in Northwestern Europe

Summary Information about the prices paid for agricultural land has to be obtained from the land-price statistics executed and published by national statistical offices. In these statistics mostly the average price of all areas and average prices of areas with some specific characteristic, e.g., with or without building, are given. These average prices have a large margin, as can be observed from the substantial variance in prices paid for land belonging to the same category of land according to the statistics. For this reason a difference in the published prices between two kinds (categories) of land does not imply a significant distinction between the prices paid for the two kinds of land. For this reason the Statistical Office (Directorate Agriculture) of the European Communities posed the question if, by means of more accurate and relevant definitions of the properties of the objects sold, a more precise statistical information about prices of agricultural land could be obtained. This should be done by executing an enquiry of a sample of transactions of land in which a large number of properties of the object sold and of the parties concerned would be registered. Such studies have been executed in Belgium, the Netherlands and Western Germany, while also a study for these countries together was made. This article is a review and evaluation of the results of the various studies, while also some conclusions about the ‘market’ of agricultural land are drawn, and suggestions for further research are made.

Scientific Principles for an Agro-Production Classification of Lands

AbstractThe author describes a methodology for determining the best use, in terms of fertility, workability and production costs, that can be made of various kinds of land within the territory of a collective or state farm. He finds existing soil maps to be inadequate for the purpose and suggests the compilation of so-called agro-production maps of farm territories.