Land Use Change Information Research Articles

Analysis of regional economic development based on land use and land cover change information derived from Landsat imagery

The monitoring of economic activities is of great significance for understanding regional economic development level and policymaking. As the carrier of economic activities, land resource is an indispensable production factor of economic development, and economic growth leads to increased demand for land as well as changes in land utilization form. As an important means of earth observation, remote-sensing technology can obtain the information of land use and land cover change (LUCC) related to economic activities. This study proposes a method for analysing regional economic situations based on remote-sensing technology, from which LUCC information extraction, sensitivity factor selection, model construction and accuracy evaluation were implemented. This approach was validated with experiments in Zhoushan City, China. The results show that the economic statistical index is most sensitive to the construction land area, and the average correlation coefficient between the actual data and the predicted data is 0.949, and the average of mean relative error is 14.21%. Therefore, this paper suggests that LUCC could be utilised as an explanatory indicator for estimating economic development at the regional level, and the potential applications of remotely-sensed image in economic activity monitoring are worth pursuing.

Monitoring land-cover and land-use dynamics in Fanjingshan National Nature Reserve

Fanjingshan National Nature Reserve (FNNR) in China is a biodiversity hotspot that is part of a larger, multi-use landscape where tourism, farming, grazing, and other land uses occur. Payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs that encourage afforestation on farmlands may be important drivers of land-cover and land-use change in the region that surrounds FNNR. Our objective is to monitor and examine vegetation and land-use changes, including PES-related afforestation, between 1989 and 2017. We utilize several image processing techniques, such as illumination normalization approaches to suppress terrain effects, and multi-seasonal image compositing to minimize persistent cloud cover. Ancillary data were also incorporated to generate reliable vegetation and land-use change information. A random forest machine learning image classification routine is implemented through the cloud-based Google Earth Engine platform and refined using optimal classifier parameter tuning. Land-use transitions are identified and mapped with the implementation of stable training sites, discrete image classification, and logical land-use transition rules. Accuracy assessment results indicate our change detection workflow provides a reliable methodology to remotely monitor long-term forest cover and land-use changes in this mountainous, forested, and cloud prevalent region. We quantify the area of new built development and afforestation land and found that most of the land transitions took place in reserve buffer and its adjacent environs. For example, less than 2 km2 of new built was identified within the reserve boundary compared to 25 km2 for the entire study area between 1995 and 2016. We also shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of using Google Earth Engine for land-cover and land-use change studies. This efficient and open-access technique is important not only for assessing environmental changes and PES efficacy, but also for evaluating other conservation policies elsewhere.

Monitoring and mapping rural urbanization and land use changes using Landsat data in the northeast subtropical region of Vietnam

Rapid land use change has taken place in many neighboring provinces of the capital of Vietnam such as Thai Nguyen province over the past 2 decades due to urbanization and industrialization. Deriving accurate and updated land cover and land-use change information is essential for the environmental monitoring, evaluation and management. In this study, a robust classification algorithm, Random Forest (RF) was employed in R programming to map and monitor temporal and spatial characteristics of urban expansion and land-use change in Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam. The results showed that there has been a substantial and uneven urban growth and a significant loss of forest and cropland between 2000 and 2016. Most of the conversion of agriculture and forest into built-up and mining uses were largely detected in rural regions and suburbs of Thai Nguyen. Further GIS analysis revealed that rapid urban and industrial expansion was spatially occurred in the southern rural portions and central area of the province. This study also demonstrates the potential of Landsat data and combination of R programming language and GIS to provide a timely, accurate and economical means to map and analyze temporal land cover and land use changes for future national and local land development planning.

Land Use and Land Cover Change Detection Using Geospatial Technology

Land use and land cover has a leading role in the part of urbanization. As the rapid urbanization led to various activities in a region and these changes generally takes place in the agricultural land. The satellite imageries LANDSAT TM (1990 and 2010) data are used. The scales are 1: 50, 000. From 1990 to 2010 covering a period of 20 years, the aerial distribution of the land use and land cover changes has been observed. The changes were identified, in which the decrease of Agricultural land, open Scrub and Water bodies and increase of Built-up land, Fallow land and current Fallow land. The land use and land cover maps are prepared by using GIS software to evaluate the changes and it showed strong variation. Image pre-processing and supervised technique analysis will be performed to classify the images into different land use categories. Thus, the information of urban growth, land use and land cover change are very useful to local government, urban and town planners, in order to have a planned city with reduction of congestion, pollution and to achieve a sustainable development of the city.

Climatic and Anthropogenic Impacts on Soil Formation

Soil succession directly records the information of environment and land use change, which is one of the important issues in global climate change research. In this paper, the authors investigated the soil samples and comparing their physical and chemical properties of soil diagnostic horizons. Results indicated that the Cum-ustic Isohumisols and Eum-Orthic Anthrosols had the same profile pattern, Ap-Bc-Bt/A-Bk-C. The characteristic temporal and spatial change of Ap horizon reflected several thousand years of dryland farming history in Weihe valley, but only several hundred years of dryland farming history on loess tableland.

Integrating ecosystem services in terrestrial conservation planning.

The purpose of this study is to estimate the benefits of ecosystem services for prioritization of land use conservation and to highlight the importance of ecosystem services by comparison between ecosystem service value and green GDP accounting. Based on land use pattern and benefit transfer method, this research estimated value of ecosystem services in Taiwan. Scientific information of land use and land cover change is accessed through multi-year satellite imagery moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS), and geographic information system (GIS) technology. Combined with benefit transfer method, this research estimated the ecosystem service valuation of forest, grassland, cropland, wetland, water, and urban for the period of 2000 to 2015 in Taiwan. It is found that forest made the greatest contribution and the significant increasing area of wetland has huge potential benefit for environmental conservation in Taiwan. We recommend placing maintaining wetland ecosystem in Taiwan with higher priority. This research also compared ecosystem service value with natural capital consumption which would essentially facilitate policy makers to understand the relationship between benefits gained from natural capital and the loss from human-made capital.

Land use and land cover changes in the Brazilian Cerrado: A multidisciplinary approach to assess the impacts of agricultural expansion

Expansion of agricultural lands have shaped Brazilian Cerrado landscapes in recent decades; however, the environmental consequences of these transformations are still poorly assessed. This paper presents a multidisciplinary approach used to assess historical land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes and their impacts on the environment in southeast Mato Grosso State, a region where the Cerrado has been intensively converted into agricultural lands. The methodology encompassed three main stages: (1) quantifying LULC changes using remote sensing data, (2) assessing LULC change impacts on vulnerable lands (e.g. erosion prone areas and wetlands), and (3) summarizing preceding information into key environmental indicators, assessed within the Pressure-State-Response framework (PSR) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The results indicated a drastic landscape transformation in the selected area, which evolved from predominantly vegetated to a consolidated agricultural region. Crops expanded at high rates from 1985 to 1995, occupying the majority of the lands suited for agriculture. In the following decade, crops continued to expand and encroached into fragile environments (e.g. wetlands and more erodible soils). As a result, from 1985 to 2005, the area lost approximately 42% of its natural vegetation and erosion risks increased significantly. Our integration of land-use change information with intrinsic environmental vulnerabilities allowed a deeper understanding of LULC changes consequences and provided environmental indicators. This offered a synoptic view of how LULC changes occurred and how they affected the environment at a landscape scale. Furthermore, the assessment of the indicators using the PSR framework, helped to clarify cause–effect relationships thus furnishing key information of value to decision-makers and future comparisons with other areas.

Spatial-temporal-thematic assimilation of Landsat-based and archived historical information for measuring urbanization processes

Measuring urbanization and assessing its impacts require long-term records of land changes, which cannot typically be provided from a single information source. A prerequisite to the creation of a reasonably consistent national information database on urban growth was the development of a robust methodology to assimilate land information from diverse sources. This method was applied to assimilation of two information sources, the Canadian Urban Land Use Survey (CUrLUS) and the Canada Land Use Monitoring Program (CLUMP). CUrLUS consists of a suite of contemporary thematic maps derived from satellite images while CLUMP information was extracted through conventional visual interpretation of aerial photography. In the process of generating integrated temporal series, the compatibility between the two information sets was assessed. The application of the assimilation methodology has led to generation of reasonably consistent urban land-cover and land-use change information for major Canadian urbanized areas spanning a 35-year period.

Ecosystem service values and land use change in the opium poppy cultivation region in Northern Part of Lao PDR

Land use change and land-cover impacts ecosystem services and functions. In this paper according to the study area’s land use characteristic and ecosystem type, the Land use category of the study area was divided into seven categories, including Forest, Grassland, Farmland, Water, Wetlands, Urban land and Barren land. The dynamic information of the forest Land use change during 10 years was calculated by the map algebra in ArcGIS 9.2. Both in 1992 and in 2002, Forest and Grassland were two largest Land use category in the study area. Forest took up 44.7% and 39.4% of the total area, and Grassland was 50.13% and 50.72% of the total area in 1992 and 2002. Finally, we valued change in ecosystem services delivered by each land use category using coefficients published by Costanza et al. [5]. Ecosystem services value of study area, the total ecosystem services value of 10.6 million hectares of this study area decreased by 11.74%. From the coefficient of sensitivity (CS) was less than unity in all case, it indicated that the total ecosystem services values was relatively inelastic and the results suggest that we have to pay attention more on land use change and finally, policy for driving forces of land use change were developed.

Estimation of late twentieth century land-cover change in California

We present the first comprehensive multi-temporal analysis of land-cover change for California across its major ecological regions and primary land-cover types. Recently completed satellite-based estimates of land-cover and land-use change information for large portions of the United States allow for consistent measurement and comparison across heterogeneous landscapes. Landsat data were employed within a pure-panel stratified one-stage cluster sample to estimate and characterize land-cover change for 1973-2000. Results indicate anthropogenic and natural disturbances, such as forest cutting and fire, were the dominant changes, followed by large fluctuations between agriculture and rangelands. Contrary to common perception, agriculture remained relatively stable over the 27-year period with an estimated loss of 1.0% of agricultural land. The largest net declines occurred in the grasslands/shrubs class at 5,131 km2 and forest class at 4,722 km2. Developed lands increased by 37.6%, composing an estimated 4.2% of the state's land cover by 2000.

THE SUBSEQUENT DISPOSAL OF AUTOMATICALLY DETECTED LAND USE CHANGE INFORMATION

The purpose of this study is to improve the precision of land use change information detected automatically on computer, and the method used is the judge templet method. The results obtained indicate that, in comparison with one pixel judging, this technique can raise the precision and improve the effect. This method can thus be applied to dynamic remote sensing monitoring of land use.

Beef Production: Koneswaran and Nierenberg Respond

Avery and Avery, who find comparing conventional Japanese and organic Swedish beef production misleading, propose relying on “comprehensive life cycle analyses” (LCAs) to quantify emissions from conventional U.S. beef production. However, neither study they cite (Johnson et al. 2003; Subak 1999) appears to be a comprehensive LCA, and it is unclear whether these studies considered emissions created by facets of beef production such as feed transport or pesticide manufacturing, as did Ogino et al. (2007). Additionally, contrary to Avery and Avery’s conclusion, Subak (1999) stated that These results indicate that the intensification of beef production systems may be counterproductive because net emissions of carbon dioxide as well as nitrogen and other pollutants would increase. For a more comprehensive analysis, additional production aspects must be considered. Ogino et al. (2007), for example, included the transportation of feed (> 18,000 km, not miles, as stated by Avery and Avery in their letter), which accounted for 8.3% of emissions. A better comparison of conventional versus organic beef production may be an LCA of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from three Irish systems reported by Casey and Holden (2006). Conventional production generated the most GHGs, followed by agri-environmental, with the organic system producing the least GHGs. In contrast to conventional production, organic farming can reduce nitrous oxide emissions by avoiding excessive amounts of manure, as stocking densities are limited to land available for manure application. Organic agriculture typically also uses less fossil-fuel energy, in part because thousands of feed transport miles may be reduced (Kotschi and Muller-Samann 2004). Pasture-based systems require less operational fuel and feed than do conventional systems, and they adeptly sequester GHGs in the soil, tying up 14–21 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and 5.2–7.8 million metric tons of N2O in pasture soil organic matter (Boody et al. 2005; Rayburn 1993). Dourmad et al. (2008) concurred with our conclusion (Koneswaran and Nierenberg 2008) that more research is needed and noted that existing LCAs often omit details such as land-use change information. Many LCAs—and other attempts to quantify GHGs from various systems (Avery and Avery 2007)—also lack data on pesticide use and animal transport from farms or feedlots to slaughter. In our article (Koneswaran and Nierenberg 2008), we not only argued for refinement of agricultural practices but also for a concurrent reduction in animal product consumption in high-income nations, especially because the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has concluded that animal agriculture accounts for more GHGs than transport (Steinfeld et al. 2006). In addition to lowering GHG emissions, reducing animal product consumption could also decrease the incidence of cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and obesity (McMichael et al. 2007). Given the developing global food crisis, it is important to note, as did Baroni et al. (2007) in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, that plant-based diets “could play an important role in preserving environmental resources and in reducing hunger and malnutrition in poorer nations.” Although Avery remains skeptical over the role of anthropogenic GHG emissions in global warming (2008), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007) concluded that Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations. The link between GHG mitigation and organic or extensive animal agriculture systems is well established, as are the other environmental and public health benefits of less-intensive production systems. Understanding the efficacy of less technology-dependent mitigation strategies is critical as the effects of global warming become more evident.

Bird diversity and land use on the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro and the adjacent plains, Tanzania

This study of bird distribution in the main land-use categories of the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, aims at understanding potential impacts of the land-use changes on birds. A land-use map of the study area was derived from a Landsat image, and land-use change information came from an earlier study by the author. Bird data were collected by observations along timed, standardized walks. Shannon (1948) indices of bird diversity for highlands, bushland and lowlands were 3.29, 2.99, and 2.62. The highland category was divided into two subcategories, homegarden and highland garden, as bird populations of the two were distinct. Highland garden had a higher diversity (3.15) than homegarden (3.07). The lower species diversity and number of individuals in homegardens was probably due to lower niche diversity and more human disturbance. Lowland fields had low diversity indices as they are dominated by large flocks of birds. The equitability indices for highlands, bushlands and lowlands were 0.82, 0.80 and 0.65, respectively. Each land-use type had many species that were not seen in the others. As bushland is disappearing, the species currently threatened are the 15 bushland species that are not found in other land-use types. Growing population pressure leading to deagrarianization of the homegarden area is likely to affect homegarden bird populations, though it is not clear whether the very high human population density will prevent it from supporting a highland garden type of a bird population.

Bird diversity and land use on the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro and the adjacent plains, Tanzania

This study of bird distribution in the main land-use categories of the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, aims at understanding potential impacts of the land-use changes on birds. A land-use map of the study area was derived from a Landsat image, and land-use change information came from an earlier study by the author. Bird data were collected by observations along timed, standardized walks. Shannon (1948) indices of bird diversity for highlands, bushland and lowlands were 3.29, 2.99, and 2.62. The highland category was divided into two subcategories, homegarden and highland garden, as bird populations of the two were distinct. Highland garden had a higher diversity (3.15) than homegarden (3.07). The lower species diversity and number of individuals in homegardens was probably due to lower niche diversity and more human disturbance. Lowland fields had low diversity indices as they are dominated by large flocks of birds. The equitability indices for highlands, bushlands and lowlands were 0.82, 0.80 and 0.65, respectively. Each land-use type had many species that were not seen in the others. As bushland is disappearing, the species currently threatened are the 15 bushland species that are not found in other land-use types. Growing population pressure leading to deagrarianization of the homegarden area is likely to affect homegarden bird populations, though it is not clear whether the very high human population density will prevent it from supporting a highland garden type of a bird population.

Study on methods of land use dynamic monitoring at county level

Remote sensing technique has played an important role in land use dynamic monitoring, but as for the land use dynamic monitoring at county level, traditional remote sensing methods such as satellite imagery visual interpretation and computer classification can not meet its demand for accuracy. The result of 1: 10 000 land use investigation map has high accuracy, but this method can not be used to dynamically monitor the land use because of its big expenses, long period and difficulty in updating data. In this paper, the characteristics of physiognomy, climate and the status of land use in Dehui County are taken into consideration and a set of method, which takes use of 3S techniques and applies to Northeast China Plain, is come up with. When the land use type of a land parcel changed as a whole, the date updating can be make by changing its land type ID in the attribute table in a GIS. When the land use type of an irregular area changed, GPS receivers are used to position its border. This set of method is characteristic of high accuracy and low expenses. It gets the information of land use change timely and can be used to dynamically monitor the land use.