Role Of Land Research Articles

Over-reliance on land for carbon dioxide removal in net-zero climate pledges

Achieving net-zero climate targets requires some level of carbon dioxide removal. Current assessments focus on tonnes of CO2 removed, without specifying what form these removals will take. Here, we show that countries’ climate pledges require approximately 1 (0.9–1.1) billion ha of land for removals. For over 40% of this area, the pledges envisage the conversion of existing land uses to forests, while the remaining area restores existing ecosystems and land uses. We analyse how this demand for land is distributed geographically and over time. The results are concerning, both in terms of the aggregate area of land, but also the rate and extent of land use change. Our findings demonstrate a gap between governments’ expected reliance on land and the role that land can realistically play in climate mitigation. This adds another layer to the observed shortcomings of national climate pledges and indicates a need for more transparency around the role of land in national climate mitigation plans.

Improved water use efficiency of vegetation due to carbon fertilization not translating to increased soil moisture in India

Soil moisture (SM) plays a critical role in land–atmosphere interaction. Literature shows that the CO2 fertilization effect (CFE) governs vegetation dynamics and its interactions with the atmosphere. However, the impacts of changing vegetation properties due to CFE, on SM, specifically in India, remains unexplored. Comparing Land-hist (observed CO2 concentration) and Land-cCO2 (constant preindustrial CO2 concentration) simulations with the same meteorological forcings from the Land Use Model Inter-comparison Project (LUMIP), we found that changing vegetation due to CFE impacts SM following two pathways. Enhanced water use efficiency (WUE) due to CFE seeks to ameliorate SM by regulating transpiration. Conversely, elevated CO2 increases leaf area index and plant water use, ultimately leading to a decrease in SM due to the combined impacts of CFE in India. This reduction is most prominent in arid regions, where we observe a decline in SM particularly during dry periods. Our study highlights the need to consider plant physiology in land surface modeling under increased CO2 concentration.

The Significance of a Feminist Geopolitical Analysis in Mahasweta Devi’s The Hunt and Douloti the Bountiful

In the inspiration of bringing alternatives to Critical Geopolitics and Subaltern Geopolitics, Feminist Geopolitics has been employed in this paper. Feminist geopolitics traverses upon the discriminated, marginalized community’s lives and events as well as it connects their exploitation with power production. This feminist geopolitics’ analytical approach demonstrates connections of geopolitics power production with everyday life of Indian tribal people. While reading Indian Tribal community as a subaltern in the works of Mahasweta Devi, through feminist geopolitics we have analyzed violence, displacement, and resistance of tribal women. In geographical imaginaries, the land of tribal protects and strengthens women; simultaneously the tribal land displaces and destroys. The article investigates two questions, 1. What is the role of land in the lives of tribal women? 2. What is the need of mother land for tribal women? It also focuses on two women, whom the dominant geopolitics had marginalized once, but then, the research gap states, how one (woman) could survive through epitomic influence on geography and another could not survive due to displacement. Moreover, the gap insists on how the power relation operates inside and outside the tribal border as well as the interest, knowledge and power of elite’s invades the tribal community after the independence. The qualitative method (textual analysis) is used for research analysis, and Arya (2020) defines that “textual analysis is a type of qualitative analysis that focuses on the underlying ideological and cultural assumptions of a text” (Arya, 2020, p. 173). Hence, this method utilizes the theoretical approaches of the feminist geopolitics theory for the study of the two short stories of Mahasweta Devi. In this article, Imaginary Maps (1995) a collection of short stories by Mahasweta Devi, translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak from which The Hunt (1995) and Douloti the Bountiful (1995) (two stories) have been analyzed for discussion.

Machine learning feature importance selection for predicting aboveground biomass in African savannah with landsat 8 and ALOS PALSAR data

In remote sensing, multiple input bands are derived from various sensors covering different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Each spectral band plays a unique role in land use/land cover characterization. For example, while integrating multiple sensors for predicting aboveground biomass (AGB) is important for achieving high accuracy, reducing the dataset size by eliminating redundant and irrelevant spectral features is essential for enhancing the performance of machine learning algorithms. This accelerates the learning process, thereby developing simpler and more efficient models. Our results indicate that compared individual sensor datasets, the random forest (RF) classification approach using recursive feature elimination (RFE) increased the accuracy based on F score by 82.86 % and 26.19 respectively. The mutual information regression (MIR) method shows a slight increase in accuracy when considering individual sensor datasets, but its accuracy decreases when all features are taken into account for all models. Overall, the combination of features from the Landsat 8, ALOS PALSAR backscatter, and elevation data selected based on RFE provided the best AGB estimation for the RF and XGBoost models. In contrast to the k-nearest neighbors (KNN) and support vector machines (SVM), no significant improvement in AGB estimation was detected even when RFE and MIR were used. The effect of parameter optimization was found to be more significant for RF than for all the other methods. The AGB maps show patterns of AGB estimates consistent with those of the reference dataset. This study shows how prediction errors can be minimized based on feature selection using different ML classifiers.

A re-conceptualisation of the Batwa's right to recognition as a minority and indigenous people in Rwanda: A human rights-based approach

There have been divergent views by various human rights scholars and actors on how to address the question of vulnerability among indigenous and minority groups in Rwanda. Even though factors influencing vulnerability among these groups have received increasing scholarly attention, findings from these studies fall short of reflecting on the role of identity and discrimination. Whereas the government in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide sought to enhance unity and reconciliation by outlawing all ethnic identities, and instead conflating all vulnerable groups into a nomenclature namely, a Historically Marginalised People (HMP), a divergent group of scholars, human rights activists, the United Nations and African Union's instruments of human rights describe this approach as antithetical to the promotion and protection of the rights of indigenous and minority groups. Using the human rights-based approach, this paper critically interrogates the issue of identity and how it has affected the enjoyment of the rights among the minority and indigenous Batwa people in Rwanda.The study employed a qualitative research design with data collected through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) as well as in-depth interviews (IDIs). Respondents included members of the Batwa community, officials of selected public institutions, leaders in Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and cooperative societies working towards the promotion of rights of the HMP. Data analysis involved the process of transcription and coding of data and the eventual reflexive thematic analysis.The findings show that the rights of the Batwa community to recognition and self-identity have varied meanings and implications to different members of the community as well as officials from public institutions and other relevant actors. To the existing research, the study affirms that the inconsistencies surrounding the Batwa's identity have accentuated their vulnerability.In terms of policy, the study suggests that in the short run, the Batwa community may require enhanced special temporary social protection measures in order to ameliorate their conundrum arising from identity ambiguity without compromising Rwanda's national unity. Further studies, should consider the role of land, forest and culture in further marginalising the Batwa, as well as quantitative methodology for inferential analysis.

PROBLEMS OF LAND RESOURCES USE

The article is devoted to the problems of land protection and rational use. In the study, we analyse the factors leading to degradation and loss of soil fertility. We determined that the negative impact on land is mainly related to the anthropogenic factor. The author points out the role of land as the core national wealth, which, according to the Constitution of Ukraine, is under the special protection of the state. Agricultural lands make up the largest area, but their condition, as well as the condition of other lands, is a matter of concern. We note that the struggle of world powers for economic leadership hinders the environmental problems solution. The article determines that the problems of the use of land resources in Ukraine have only worsened in recent years. Achievements in the agricultural sphere are due to the intensive use and depletion of soils. Intentional and unintentional impact on the earth worsens its condition. The impossibility of adequately calculating the probability of unintended effects on the environment exacerbates the problem. The anthropogenic factor is the main reason for the negative dynamics of the surrounding environment, particularly land resources. Close cooperation of all parties is required to remedy the current situation: land users/land owners, on the one hand, and the state and international organisations, on the other. Scientists and their ideas should be intermediaries between land users/land owners, the state, and international organisations. We propose to strengthen the role of the government in solving problems related to the state of land and their cooperation with international organisations in the fight against desertification and to achieve a zero level of land degradation. We also propose measures to reduce the level of land degradation to reach a neutral level of degradation. At the international level, the ‘United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa’ was adopted. We suggest considering international standards in the effective management of land resources and the experience in forming and implementing land management systems. Keywords: degradation, desertification, land, soil, concept, convention, fertility.

Future Trade-Off for Water Resource Allocation: The Role of Land Cover/Land Use Change

Global croplands, pastures, and human settlements have expanded in recent decades. This is accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity. In sub-Saharan Africa, policies are implemented without critical consideration; e.g., agricultural expansions impair ecosystem services. We studied land use/cover and the associated rate of change for four time epochs, i.e., 1991, 2001, 2011, and 2021. This employed remote sensing and GIS techniques for analysis, while future projections were modeled using cellular automata and the Markov chain. The kappa coefficient statistics were used to assess the accuracy of the final classified image, while reference images for accuracy assessment were developed based on ground truthing. Overall change between 1991 and 2021 showed that major percentage losses were experienced by water, forest, woodland, and wetland, which decreased by 8222 Ha (44.11%), 426,161 Ha (35.72%), 399,584 Ha (35.01%), and 105,186 Ha (34.82%), respectively. On the other hand, a percentage increase during the same period was experienced in cultivated land, built-up areas, and grasslands, which increased by 659,346 Ha (205.28%), 11,894 Ha (159.93%), and 33,547 Ha (98.47%), respectively. However, this expansion of thirsty sectors has not reversed the increasing amount of water discharged out of the Kilombero River catchment. We recommend the promotion of agroforests along with participatory law enforcement and capacity building of local communities’ institutions.

Will Government-driven Urbanization Exacerbate Urbanization Imbalances?

As a major form of administrative division adjustment in China since the reform and opening up, abolishing county and establishing district policy has reshaped the regional administrative power structure, which in turn has had a profound impact on regional economic and social development. Based on data from population census and land survey, this paper uses the general OLS method to estimate the effect of abolishing county and establishing city-administered district reform on the imbalance of urbanization development in prefecture-level cities. The study finds that the reform of abolishing counties and setting up districts softens the constraint of construction land targets and creates favorable conditions for local governments to "seek development through land use", but the larger supply of construction land eventually exacerbates the imbalance between population urbanization and land urbanization, and this finding still holds for cities where the initial relationship between people and land is not tense. By region, the effect of urbanization imbalance exacerbated by abolishing county and establishing district policy is significant in the eastern region but not in the central and western regions; moreover, the effect of urbanization imbalance exacerbated by county revocation is weakened in cities with higher degree of financial deepening. The rapid urbanization with land as the core has supported China's rapid economic growth for a long time in the past, but the role of land as an economic engine is declining. Promoting a new type of people-oriented urbanization and making efforts to improve the quality of urbanization construction is the right way to transform China's economic development mode and promote high-quality development in the future.

Prior Semantic Information Guided Change Detection Method for Bi-temporal High-Resolution Remote Sensing Images

High-resolution remote sensing image change detection technology compares and analyzes bi-temporal or multitemporal high-resolution remote sensing images to determine the change areas. It plays an important role in land cover/use monitoring, natural disaster monitoring, illegal building investigation, military target strike effect analysis, and land and resource investigation. The change detection of high-resolution remote sensing images has developed rapidly from data accumulation to algorithm models because of the rapid development of technologies such as deep learning and earth observation in recent years. However, the current deep learning-based change detection methods are strongly dependent on large sample data, and the training model has insufficient cross-domain generalization ability. As a result, a prior semantic information-guided change detection framework (PSI-CD), which alleviates the change detection model’s dependence on datasets by making full use of prior semantic information, is proposed in this paper. The proposed method mainly includes two parts: one is a prior semantic information generation network that uses the semantic segmentation dataset to extract robust and reliable prior semantic information; the other is the prior semantic information guided change detection network that makes full use of prior semantic information to reduce the sample size of the change detection. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, we produced pixel-level semantic labels for the bi-temporal images of the public change detection dataset (LEVIR-CD). Then, we performed extensive experiments on the WHU and LEVIR-CD datasets, including comparisons with existing methods, experiments with different amounts of data, and ablation study, to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. Compared with other existing methods, our method has the highest IoU for all training samples and different amounts of training samples on WHU and LEVIR-CD, reaching a maximum of 83.25% and 83.80%, respectively.

Spatial-temporal variability pattern of multi-depth soil moisture jointly driven by climatic and human factors in China

Soil moisture (SM), which plays a critical role in land–atmosphere hydrological cycles, acts as the dominant water resource for vegetation growth. In China, the spatial–temporal variation in multi-depth SM patterns caused by the combined influence of climatic and human factors remains unclear. In this study, we systematically investigated the trends of SM as well as the relationship between SM and the multiple factors affecting it. Our results indicated that variability in SM in China was quite unbalanced during the 1950–2020 period. Mainly, the region covering North China and central Northeastern China underwent significant drying and exhibited a remarkable warming trend. By contrast, the wetting region, characterized by decreasing soil temperature in the summer, was concentrated in the area encompassing the Kunlun and Tianshan Mountains. As the depth increased, the drought level in the drying region steadily intensified, while the dampness degree in the wetting region gradually shrank. Such a consistently intensifying SM deficit inevitably threatens crop yield and food security. Correlation and Granger causality analyses indicated that precipitation and evaporation may act as dominant climatic factors that drive the variability of multi-depth SM, this driving force gradually declining with increasing depth, due to buffering by upper soil layers. By contrast, the correlation between human water withdrawal and SM grew continuously with increasing depth, except when irrigation was involved, implying that deep layer SM is susceptible to water intake. These findings are expected to boost the understanding of patterns of SM in China and provide a reference for future exploration, usage, and management of SM as well.

The role of land as the central piece to sustainable food systems: Lessons learned from Portugal national food-related policies

This paper discusses to what extent land is considered in food-related policies from a systemic perspective. Based on existing literature and international agendas priorities, we argue that access to and preservation of land for food along the food chain play a major role in sustainable food systems. To further explore this argument, we address the following question: Where does land stand in sectorial and national food-related policies? The multiple dimensions and implications of food systems and the international agenda’s priorities namely the “Right to adequate Food”, “Food Sovereignty” and the “Right to Land”, were used as our conceptual framework. To work out how land is being considered in food sectorial policies, both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied to examine ten Portuguese national food-related policies. Results are showing a lack of consideration for land access and land preservation, needed all along the food chain to build a national sustainable food system. On the other hand, there is a gap between current grassroots priorities international agendas and food-related national policies. Such a situation strongly suggests that building a sustainable food system needs a clear food territorial perspective, still neglected, and shifting from sectorial policies towards a more integrated food system approach, that will include land as a central piece.

Have Water Conservancy Project Resettlers in Contemporary China Really Been Lifted Out of Poverty? Re-Measurement Based on Relative Poverty and Consumption Poverty

Those who have been forced to resettle by water conservancy projects (WCP) have always been a group that is characterised by high poverty and livelihood vulnerability, mainly due to insufficient compensation and the fragmentation of their social networks. In 2020, the Chinese government announced that China had achieved comprehensive poverty alleviation, implying that all WCP-induced resettlers, have been lifted out of poverty. However, China’s current poverty line is based on the minimum subsistence standard, namely the absolute poverty line, which fails to objectively reflect China’s uneven development and individuals’ actual consumption needs. Therefore, in order to comprehensively analyse the poverty status of WCP-induced resettlers in contemporary China, this paper reassessed the poverty status of contemporary WCP-induced resettlers from the perspective of development-based poverty and consumption-based poverty. Based on survey data from over 1000 households who were forced to resettle due to China’s ‘Yangtze River to Huai River Inter-basin Water Diversion’ project, this paper concludes that: (1) China’s current absolute poverty line is outdated for contemporary WCP-induced resettlers, due to the fact they had basically been lifted out of absolute poverty by 2018, and those who remain poor need to be addressed through the bottom line guarantee of local governments; (2) the role of land as a form of basic insurance can alleviate income inequality and mitigate the risk of force majeure. Therefore, those resettled from rural areas have stronger income stability and greater resilience to risks; (3) the poverty status of contemporary WCP-induced resettlers is mainly consumption-based, and it is worse for resettlers from urban areas. Based on these conclusions, we suggest that the government should try to avoid large-scale relocation of WCP-induced resettlers to urban areas, and try to provide more insurances to them, such as providing arable land and sharing the benefits of water conservancy projects with the resettlers.

Partitioning of Sensible and Latent Heat Fluxes in Different Vegetation Types and Their Spatiotemporal Variations Based on 203 FLUXNET Sites

AbstractBowen ratio reflects the partitioning between sensible and latent heat fluxes and plays a crucial role in land–atmosphere interaction. In this study, the spatiotemporal variations of Bowen ratio among 12 vegetation types were analyzed using observations from 203 FLUXNET sites and compared against Community Land Model (CLM) simulations. Results showed that the annual mean Bowen ratio across all sites was 1.48 ± 1.20 (mean ± SD). Sites with Bowen ratios less than 1 were found across all continents, and the ones with a higher Bowen ratio appeared in dry and warm areas. Open shrublands showed the highest Bowen ratio (3.04 ± 0.58), whereas wetlands showed the lowest (0.74 ± 0.09). In terms of seasonality, Bowen ratio generally showed lower values in local summer and higher in spring and autumn in the northern hemisphere; the opposite occurred in the southern hemisphere. The spatiotemporal variations in Bowen ratio can be explained by climatic, geographical, and biological factors, with climate factors having the greatest impact. The spatial correlation analyses suggested Bowen ratio increased under higher VPD (R = 0.45, p < 0.001) and hotter (R = 0.14, p < 0.05) conditions and decreased with higher precipitation (R = −0.34, p < 0.001), albedo (R = −0.16, p > 0.05), and leaf area index (R = −0.25, p < 0.001). Compared to FLUXNET observations, CLM well reproduced the global annual mean Bowen ratio (1.48 for CLM vs. 1.56 for FLUXNET) but showed larger differences for certain vegetation types. Our results could enhance our understanding of biotic and environmental controls on land surface energy fluxes and help improve the land surface and climate models.

Carbon fluxes from land 2000–2020: bringing clarity to countries' reporting

Abstract. Despite an increasing attention on the role of land in meeting countries' climate pledges under the Paris Agreement, the range of estimates of carbon fluxes from land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) in available databases is very large. A good understanding of the LULUCF data reported by countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – and of the differences with other datasets based on country-reported data – is crucial to increase confidence in land-based climate change mitigation efforts. Here we present a new data compilation of LULUCF fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) on managed land, aiming at providing a consolidated view on the subject. Our database builds on a detailed analysis of data from national greenhouse gas inventories (NGHGIs) communicated via a range of country reports to the UNFCCC, which report anthropogenic emissions and removals based on the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) methodology. Specifically, for Annex I countries, data are sourced from annual GHG inventories. For non-Annex I countries, we compiled the most recent and complete information from different sources, including national communications, biennial update reports, submissions to the REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) framework, and nationally determined contributions. The data are disaggregated into fluxes from forest land, deforestation, organic soils, and other sources (including non-forest land uses). The CO2 flux database is complemented by information on managed and unmanaged forest area as available in NGHGIs. To ensure completeness of time series, we filled the gaps without altering the levels and trends of the country reported data. Expert judgement was applied in a few cases when data inconsistencies existed. Results indicate a mean net global sink of −1.6 Gt CO2 yr−1 over the period 2000–2020, largely determined by a sink on forest land (−6.4 Gt CO2 yr−1), followed by source from deforestation (+4.4 Gt CO2 yr−1), with smaller fluxes from organic soils (+0.9 Gt CO2 yr−1) and other land uses (−0.6 Gt CO2 yr−1). Furthermore, we compare our NGHGI database with two other sets of country-based data: those included in the UNFCCC GHG data interface, and those based on forest resources data reported by countries to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and used as inputs into estimates of GHG emissions in FAOSTAT. The first dataset, once gap filled as in our study, results in a net global LULUCF sink of −5.4 Gt CO2 yr−1. The difference with the NGHGI database is in this case mostly explained by more updated and comprehensive data in our compilation for non-Annex I countries. The FAOSTAT GHG dataset instead estimates a net global LULUCF source of +1.1 Gt CO2 yr−1. In this case, most of the difference to our results is due to a much greater forest sink for non-Annex I countries in the NGHGI database than in FAOSTAT. The difference between these datasets can be mostly explained by a more complete coverage in the NGHGI database, including for non-biomass carbon pools and non-forest land uses, and by different underlying data on forest land. The latter reflects the different scopes of the country reporting to FAO, which focuses on area and biomass, and to UNFCCC, which explicitly focuses on carbon fluxes. Bearing in mind the respective strengths and weaknesses, both our NGHGI database and FAO offer a fundamental, yet incomplete, source of information on carbon-related variables for the scientific and policy communities, including under the Global stocktake. Overall, while the quality and quantity of the LULUCF data submitted by countries to the UNFCCC significantly improved in recent years, important gaps still remain. Most developing countries still do not explicitly separate managed vs. unmanaged forest land, a few report implausibly high forest sinks, and several report incomplete estimates. With these limits in mind, the NGHGI database presented here represents the most up-to-date and complete compilation of LULUCF data based on country submissions to UNFCCC. Data from this study are openly available via the Zenodo portal (Grassi et al., 2022), at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7190601.

Стале управління ґрунтами як основа продовольчої безпеки: глобальні тренди й національні виклики

Goal. Identify global trends, national challenges, and prospects of sustainable soil management as a basis for food security. Methods. Economic and statistical, and monographic — to analyze food security and the role of lands and soils in its formation; correlation analysis and regression modeling — to identify the closeness of the relationship between the Global Food Security Index, its components, indicators, and sub-indicators of the state of land resources in the countries of the world, and to develop dependence models; abstract-logical — to theoretically generalize and analyze research results. Data on the Global Index of Food Security for 113 countries of the world, which were processed using the STATISTICA program, were used as an information basis. Results. In 2021, Ukraine’s food security significantly worsened and remains low, especially compared to the TOP-10 leading countries. The weak points of Ukraine’s land resources from the point of view of food security include the low content of organic matter in the soil and land degradation, the importance of which increases significantly under conditions of armed aggression. A system of correlation relationships between the Global Food Security Index, its components, indicators, and sub-indicators of the state of land resources in the countries of the world was identified. It was established that an increase in the sub-indicator of the content of organic matter in the soil by 1 point contributed to an increase in the Global Food Security Index by 0.215 points. Conclusions. The application of sustainable soil management practices will contribute to improving food security at various levels of management. The priority areas of scientific support for sustainable soil management as the foundation of food security in the conditions of martial law and post-war recovery of the agrarian sector of the economy are proposed.

A framework for inland cities to prevent marine debris: A case study from Durham, North Carolina

Land-based sources of litter are increasingly recognized as significant contributors to marine debris, and rivers can carry debris to the coast from far-inland sources. In this paper, we demonstrate the important role inland cities can play in the marine debris crisis by reducing their own marine debris contributions. Given this role, we provide a framework for inland cities to prevent plastic pollution along with the lessons learned from introducing these strategies in Durham, North Carolina, a mid-sized, inland city that drains to the ocean through the Cape Fear and Neuse River watersheds. This framework guides city officials, resource managers, and community partners on how to characterize the plastic pollution problem in their city by collecting baseline data on plastic waste and litter. This framework also provides practical and equitable solutions for inland cities to address plastic pollution. We recommend that inland cities prioritize policy solutions that reduce waste at the source – to the extent that their state constitutions allow – and to also use authorities for stormwater controls to capture and remove debris as long as litter persists. Replicating this framework in other inland cities opens vast opportunities to manage and reduce marine debris from an often-overlooked source.

Land–atmosphere interactions in sub-polar and alpine climates in the CORDEX flagship pilot study Land Use and Climate Across Scales (LUCAS) models – Part 1: Evaluation of the snow-albedo effect

Abstract. Seasonal snow cover plays a major role in the climate system of the Northern Hemisphere via its effect on land surface albedo and fluxes. In climate models the parameterization of interactions between snow and atmosphere remains a source of uncertainty and biases in the representation of local and global climate. Here, we evaluate the ability of an ensemble of regional climate models (RCMs) coupled with different land surface models to simulate snow–atmosphere interactions over Europe in winter and spring. We use a previously defined index, the snow-albedo sensitivity index (SASI), to quantify the radiative forcing associated with snow cover anomalies. By comparing RCM-derived SASI values with SASI calculated from reanalyses and satellite retrievals, we show that an accurate simulation of snow cover is essential for correctly reproducing the observed forcing over middle and high latitudes in Europe. The choice of parameterizations, and primarily the choice of the land surface model, strongly influences the representation of SASI as it affects the ability of climate models to simulate snow cover accurately. The degree of agreement between the datasets differs between the accumulation and ablation periods, with the latter one presenting the greatest challenge for the RCMs. Given the dominant role of land surface processes in the simulation of snow cover during the ablation period, the results suggest that, during this time period, the choice of the land surface model is more critical for the representation of SASI than the atmospheric model.

The role of land use/cover type in influencing hydrological component of a watershed in Chancho and Sorga Sub-watersheds, East Wollega Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

Watershed hydrology can be influenced by land use/cover types of the study areas. The activities of humans exert more pressure in influencing the natural dynamism of the watersheds and hydrology through continuous and steep slope cultivation of land. The objective of this study was to assess the influences of land use/cover types and slope gradient on hydrological component of a watershed. The hydrological component of a watershed was simulated by SWAT model with arc-GIS where land use/cover map, slope map and hydrological response unit were used as an input. Farmland land has produced more surface runoff and water yield as compared to the other land use types followed by urban land, while Forest and grassland produced less surface runoff and water yield but higher in evapotranspiration, percolation, ground and lateral flow of water than cultivated and urban land. Area of farmland land is more responsive to the change of surface runoff and water yield than others land use/cover types. As farmland land size increases both surface runoff and water yield tends to decrease and had a negative correlation, whereas, other hydrological variables were less responsive to the change in land size. Slope gradient of land use/covers type contributes to the water imbalance of the watersheds. As slope increases surface runoff and water yield also decreases in farmland, grass, and forest land, whereas, increases in urban land as slope increased. The influences of land use/cover types and slope gradient on the watershed hydrology were more observed where human action is high in terms of continuous and steep slope cultivation and urban built-up expansion and appropriate land use and watershed management is paramount important for water balance in the watershed.

The Impact of Geohazards on Sustainable Development of Rural Mountain Areas in the Upper Reaches of the Min River

There is a coupling mechanism among geohazards, rural settlements, and cultivated land in mountainous areas in the upper reaches of the Min River by analyzing geohazards data, settlements data and cultivated land data. Geohazards change the landform and provide material basis and space for the occurrence and development of cultivated land and settlements. However, human production and life are not only stressed by geohazards, but also one of the main factors inducing geohazards. The Settlements in the upper reaches of the Min River can be categorized into production-stressed settlements and life-stressed settlements. With the transformation of the social economy and society’s attention to the ecological function of the region, geohazards risk management of life-stressed settlements is of more importance. The “two-wheel-drive” strategy of new urbanization and rural revitalization provides opportunities for rural development in mountainous areas and also changes the role of land in human-land relationships. To fully consider natural capital in the sustainable livelihoods of farmers, it is necessary to evaluate the risk degree of geohazards in settlements at the small catchment scale and improving the external connectivity of the settlements, which is the key for promoting the optimization of natural environmental assets in these mountain settlements.

The Effect of Water Vapor Originating from Land on the 2018 Drought Development in Europe

The 2018 summer drought in Europe was particularly extreme in terms of intensity and impact due to the combination of low rainfall and high temperatures. However, it remains unclear how this drought developed in time and space in such an extreme way. In this study we aimed to get a better understanding of the role of land–atmosphere interactions. More specifically, we investigated whether there was a change in water vapor originating from land, if that caused a reduction in rainfall, and by this mechanism possibly the propagation and intensification of the drought in Europe. Our first step was to use remote sensing products for soil moisture content (SMC) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to see where the 2018 drought started and how it developed in time and space. Our SMC and NDVI analysis showed that the 2018 drought started to impact the soil and vegetation state in June in Scandinavia and the British Isles. After that it moved towards the west of Europe where it intensified in July and August. In September, it started to decay. In October, drought was observed in Southeast Europe as well. Based on the observed patterns we divided Europe into six regions of similar spatiotemporal characteristics of SMC and NDVI. Then, we used a global gridded dataset of the fate of land evaporation (i.e., where it ends up as precipitation) to investigate whether the drought intensification and propagation was impacted by the reduction in water vapor transported from the regions that first experienced the drought. This impact was investigated by identifying the anomalies in the water vapor originating from land recycling, imports, and exports within Europe during the spring, summer, and autumn seasons. From these regions we identified four drought regions and investigated the changes in water vapor originating from source regions on the development of drought in those regions. It was found that during the onset phase of the 2018 drought in Europe that the water vapor originating from land played an important role in mitigating the precipitation anomalies as, for example, the share of land evaporation contributing to precipitation increased from 27% (normal years) to 38% (2018) during July in the west of Europe. Land evaporation played a minor role in amplifying it during the intensification phase of the drought as the share of land evaporation contribution to precipitation decreased from 23% (normal years) to 21% (2018) during August in the west of Europe. These findings are somewhat in contrast to similar studies in other continents that found the land surface to play a strong amplifying role for drought development. Subsequently, we found that the relative increase in the amount of land water vapor originating from eastern half of Europe played a role in delaying the onset and accelerating the decay of the 2018 drought in the west of Europe.