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Land change science

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Imaging by NASA of the effects of deforestation on rainfall in Brazil, an example of land change science modeling.

Land change science refers to the interdisciplinary study of patterns, processes, and consequences of changes in climate, land use, and land cover.[1] The purpose of land change science is to contribute to existing knowledge of climate change regarding the development of sustainable resource management. Land change science addresses land use as a human-environment system that can be used to understand interconnected environmental and social consequences.

Overview of land change

Human changes to land surfaces have been documented for centuries as having significant impacts on both earth systems and human well-being. The reshaping of landscapes to serve human needs, such as the clearing of forest for farmland, can have long-term effects on earth systems and exacerbate the causes of climate change.[2] Although fossil fuel burning is the primary driver of present-day climate change, prior to the Industrial Revolution, deforestation and irrigation were the largest sources of human-driven greenhouse gas emissions.[2] Even today, 35% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide contributions can be attributed to land use or land cover changes.[2] Currently, almost 50% of Earth’s non-ice land surface has been transformed by human activities, with approximately 40% of that land used for agriculture, surpassing natural systems as the principal source of nitrogen emissions.[2]

Remote sensing images show changes to the extent of the Aral Sea from 1989 (left) to 2014 (right).

Further, local land change and land use can have substantial, compounded impacts on regional climate systems, particularly when human activities heavily disrupt natural cycles. The rapid decline of the Aral Sea, which in turn caused events such as the wind-caused spreading of salt from the dry seabed on adjacent agricultural lands, is a good example of the coupled effect of human activities on landscapes and ecosystems, as well as how land change science can be used to map and study these changes.[2] In 1960, the Aral Sea, located in Central Asia, was the world's fourth largest lake.[3] However, as a result of a water diversion project undertaken by the Soviet Union in order to irrigate arid plains in what is now Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the Aral Sea has since lost 85% of its land cover and 90% of its volume.[3] The loss of the Aral Sea has had a significant effect on human-environment interactions in the region, including the decimation of the Aral Sea fishing industry and the aforementioned salinization of agricultural lands.[3] Additionally, scientists have been able to use technology such as NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to track changes to the Aral Sea and its surrounding climate over time.[4] The use of modeling and satellite imaging to track human-caused land cover change is characteristic of land change science.

Land change science is a recently developed field that is important to the evolution of climate change science and adaptation strategies. It is both problem-oriented and interdisciplinary.[5] The purpose of land change science has thus far been to:[2]

  1. Observe and monitor land changes underway throughout the world
  2. Understand land change as a human-environmental system
  3. Model land change
  4. Assess system outcomes such as vulnerability, sustainability, and resilience

Origin

Land change science emerged in conjunction with the advancing of climate change and global environmental change studies. In the mid-20th century, human-environment relationships were emerging in areas of study such as anthropology and geography.[6] Some scholars argue that the discipline of land change science is loosely derived from German concepts of landscape as the total amount of things within a given territory.[6] In the latter half of the 20th century, scientists studying cultural ecology and risk-assessment ecology worked to develop land change science as a means of addressing land as a human-environment system that can be understood as a foundation of global environmental science.[6]

Influences

Land change science is an interdisciplinary field, and thus is influenced by a number of related areas of study, including remote sensing, political ecology, resource economics, landscape ecology, and biogeography.[2] It is meant to supplement the study of climate change by helping scientists better understand how human land use practices contribute to a changing climate by examining land cover and land use changes in conjunction with changes in climate over the same period of time.[6] Given its close association with the study of climate change, land change science is also at its core sustainability research and the scientific knowledge it produces is used to influence the development of sustainable agriculture, land use practices and policies.[5]

Dimensions

Land change science predominantly operates within the international scientific research frameworks from which its fundamental questions were developed.[6] Although it has ties to social and cultural sciences in its understanding of land and land change as a human-environment system, land change science also focuses on the structure and function of earth systems and environmental systems and their effects on land change independent of human activity. There are many different dimensions of land change science, ranging from quantifying the ecological effects of land cover change to understanding the socio-environmental drivers for land-use decisions at an institutional level.[7] As a result, land change science relies heavily on the synthesis of a wide range of data and a diverse range of data collection methods, some of which are detailed below.[7]

Land cover monitoring and assessments

A primary function of land change science is to document and model long-term patterns of landscape change, which may result from both human activity and natural processes.[8] In the course of monitoring and assessing land cover and land use changes, scientists look at several factors, including where are land-cover and land-use changing, what is the extent and over what time scale and how do the changes vary from year to year.[9] To complete this function, scientists can use a variety of tools including satellite imaging, remotely-sensed data, observation, historical accounts, and reconstruction modeling.[8] These tools, particularly satellite imaging, can allow land change scientists to accurately monitor land-change rates and therefore create a consistent, long-term data record which can then be used quantify change variability over time.[9] By better understanding patterns in changes in land cover, scientists can determine the consequences of these changes and predict the impact of future changes in land management.

Risk and vulnerability

Studying risk and vulnerability in the context of land change science entails the development of quantitative, qualitative, and geospatial models, methods, and support tools.[10] The purpose of these tools is to communicate the vulnerability of both human communities and natural ecosystems to hazard events or long-term land change. Modeling risk and vulnerability requires analyses of community sensitivity to hazards as well as an understanding of geographic distributions of people and infrastructure, coupled with an ability to calculate the likelihood of occurrence for specific disturbance factors.[10]

Modeling risk and vulnerability is also one of the many practical applications of land change science. The ability to develop accurate predictions of how human activity will influence land cover change over time and the impact that these changes will have on both ecological sustainability and human societies can inform the creation of policy designed to address these changes.[11]

Human Impact and Land Change Science

Although land change science involves a great deal of quantifying the location, extent, and variability of land change cover in order to identify patterns that emerge from this data, it remains fundamentally interdisciplinary and also includes social and economic components.[9] Human activity is not only the most significant cause of land cover change, but humans are also directly impacted by the environmental consequences of these changes.[9] Given the important role that humans play in land change cover, and in order to understand land change patterns and how they affect the climate, land change scientists must identify the social and economic drivers of historic land change. Below are some examples of land use and land cover change that play a key role in the social and economic components of land change science.

Deforestation

Deforestation in terms of land change science is the systematic and permanent conversion of previously forested land for other uses.[12] It has historically been a primary facilitator of land use and land cover change, is a particular focus of land change science.[11] Forests are a vital part of the global ecosystem, and are essential to carbon capture, ecological processes, and biodiversity.[11] However, since the invention of agriculture, global forest cover has diminished by 35%.[11] Furthermore, tropical forests in particular support at least two-thirds of the world's biodiversity, and sustained changes in land cover in these regions is believed to be contributing to a mass extinction.[13] Given the severe ecological consequences that are shown to result from human-driven conversion of forest land cover, as well as the knowledge that forest cover continues to trend downward, in establishing patterns and modeling land use change over time land change scientists must also look to the social and economic drivers of deforestation itself.

Land use and land cover change resulting from deforestation is primarily the effect of large-scale social and economic processes. Deforestation is often thought of as the product of the development of industrial agriculture[14]. However, in actuality a great deal of deforestation of old-growth forest, which contains a wealth of biodiversity, is the result of small-scale migrant farming.[14] As land cover changes and forest is removed, forest resources become exhausted and increasing populations lead to scarcity, which in turn prompts people to move again to previously untouched forest and restart the process of deforestation.[14] This process is also known as rural-to-rural migration.[14] There are several reasons behind this continued migration. Poverty-driven lack of available farmland and high costs may lead to an increase in farming intensity on existing farmland.[14] This then leads to overexploitation of the farmland, which in turn leads to desertification, another land cover change, which renders soil unusable and therefore unprofitable, requiring farmers to seek out untouched and unpopulated old-growth forests. [14]

Phenomena such as economic insecurity and rural migration are not necessarily quantitative, but they nevertheless provide valuable information to land change science models that attempt to predict future land cover change and its consequences.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Land Change Science Program - Science". www.usgs.gov. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Turner, B. L.; Lambin, Eric F.; Reenberg, Anette (2007-12-26). "The emergence of land change science for global environmental change and sustainability". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104 (52): 20666–20671. doi:10.1073/pnas.0704119104. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 2409212. PMID 18093934.
  3. ^ a b c Middleton, Nick (2019). The Global Casino: An Introduction to Environmental Issues. London & New York: Routledge. pp. 179–182. ISBN 978-1-315-15840-2.
  4. ^ "World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea". earthobservatory.nasa.gov. 2014-09-24. Retrieved 2021-03-08.
  5. ^ a b "From 'land grabbing' to sustainable investments in land: potential contributions by land change science". Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 5 (5): 528–534. 2013-10-01. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2013.03.004. ISSN 1877-3435.
  6. ^ a b c d e Turner, B.L.; Robbins, Paul (November 2008). "Land-Change Science and Political Ecology: Similarities, Differences, and Implications for Sustainability Science". Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 33 (1): 295–316. doi:10.1146/annurev.environ.33.022207.104943. ISSN 1543-5938.
  7. ^ a b Magliocca, Nicholas R.; Rudel, Thomas K.; Verburg, Peter H.; McConnell, William J.; Mertz, Ole; Gerstner, Katharina; Heinimann, Andreas; Ellis, Erle C. (February 2015). "Synthesis in land change science: methodological patterns, challenges, and guidelines". Regional Environmental Change. 15 (2): 211–226. doi:10.1007/s10113-014-0626-8. ISSN 1436-3798.
  8. ^ a b "Land Cover Monitoring and Assessments | USGS.gov". www.usgs.gov. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  9. ^ a b c d "The Science of LCLUC | LCLUC". lcluc.umd.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-08.
  10. ^ a b "Risk and Vulnerability | USGS.gov". www.usgs.gov. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  11. ^ a b c d Mayer, Audrey L.; Buma, Brian; Davis, Amélie; Gagné, Sara A.; Loudermilk, E. Louise; Scheller, Robert M.; Schmiegelow, Fiona K.A.; Wiersma, Yolanda F.; Franklin, Janet (2016-04-27). "How Landscape Ecology Informs Global Land-Change Science and Policy". BioScience. 66 (6): 458–469. doi:10.1093/biosci/biw035. ISSN 0006-3568.
  12. ^ November 2019, Sarah Derouin-Live Science Contributor 06. "Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects". livescience.com. Retrieved 2021-03-08. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ Giam, Xingli (2017-06-06). "Global biodiversity loss from tropical deforestation". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114 (23): 5775–5777. doi:10.1073/pnas.1706264114. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 5468656. PMID 28550105.
  14. ^ a b c d e f López-Carr, David; Burgdorfer, Jason (2013-01-01). "Deforestation Drivers: Population, Migration, and Tropical Land Use". Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development. 55 (1): 3–11. doi:10.1080/00139157.2013.748385. ISSN 0013-9157. PMC 3857132. PMID 24347675.



Category:Earth sciences Category:Human impact on the environment


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