Assessment of land use land cover change impact on hydrological regime of a basin

The sustainability of water resources mainly depends on planning and management of land use; a small change in it may affect water yield largely, as both are linked through relevant hydrological processes, explicitly. However, human activities, especially a significant increase in population, in-migration and accelerated socio-economic activities, are constantly modifying the land use and land cover (LULC) pattern. The impact of such changes in LULC on the hydrological regime of a basin is of widespread concern and a great challenge to the water resource engineers. While studying these impacts, the issue that prevails is the selection of a hydrological model that may be able to accommodate spatial and temporal dynamics of the basin with higher accuracy. Therefore, in the present study, the capabilities of variable infiltration capacity hydrological model to hydrologically simulate the basin under varying LULC scenarios have been investigated. For the present analysis, the Pennar River Basin, Andhra Pradesh, which falls under a water scarce region in India, has been chosen. The water balance components such as runoff potential, evapotranspiration (ET) and baseflow of Pennar Basin have been simulated under different LULC scenarios to study the impact of change on hydrological regime of a basin. Majorly, increase in built-up (13.94% approx.) and decrease in deciduous forest cover (2.44%) are the significant changes observed in the basin during the last three decades. It was found that the impact of LULC change on hydrology is balancing out at basin scale (considering the entire basin, while routing the runoff at the basin outlet). Therefore, an analysis on spatial variation in each of the water balance components considered in the study was done at grid scale. It was observed that the impact of LULC is considerable spatially at grid level, and the maximum increase of 265 mm (1985–2005) and the decrease of 48 mm (1985–1995) in runoff generation at grid were estimated. On the contrary, ET component showed the maximum increase of 400 and decrease of 570 mm under different LULC change scenario. Similarly, in the base flow parameter, an increase of 70 mm and the decrease of 100 mm were observed. It was noticed that the upper basin is showing an increasing trend in almost all hydrological components as compared to the lower basin. Based on this basin scale study, it was concluded that change in the land cover alters the hydrology; however, it needs to be studied at finer spatial scale rather than the entire basin as a whole. The information like the spatial variation in hydrological components may be very useful for local authority and decision-makers to plan mitigation strategies accordingly.     

Estimation of land coverage from a land cover classification derived from remotely sensed data

Remotely sensed data are an attractive source of land cover information. In many applications the required information relates to the extent or coverage of land cover class(es) in a region, which is generally derived from a count of the pixels allocated to the class(es) of interest in a classification. A highly accurate classification is not required for the derivation of accurate estimates of class coverage, provided the classification is accompanied by appropriate information on its quality. For instance, the information on classification quality contained in the classification confusion matrix can be used to significantly increase the accuracy of the estimates of land coverage. This is illustrated with reference to a case study focused on the estimation of despoiled land coverage in administratively defined local district in industrial South Wales from Landsat TM data. The accuracy of the investigation was assessed relative to a map of despoiled land cover for this region produced by conventional methods. From an image classification of moderate accuracy, the classification accuracy ranged form 57–83% between the districts investigated, a pixel count provided estimated of despoiled land coverage that were only poorly correlated to the mapped coverage;r = 0.27. Using the information on the pattern of error in the class allocation contained in the classification confusion matrix the estimation accuracy was increased significantly, with a correlation ofr = 0.81 observed between the remote sensing based estimate and the mapped land coverage. Furthermore, the r.m.s. error in despoiled land coverage estimation was reduced by approximately half, to less than 1% district area, when the classification was used in conjunction with information on the pattern of classification error.     

The impact of land use and land cover changes on soil erosion in western Iran

Natural Hazards - Analysis of long-term land use and land cover (LULC) changes requires up-to-date remotely sensed data to assess their effects on erosion. This is a particularly important...     

中国高精度土地覆盖数据在RegCM4/CLM模式中的引入及其对区域气候模拟影响的分析

基于中国1:100万植被图和1:600万植被区划图, 按照通用陆面模式CLM植被功能型分类标准, 制作了可用于CLM及RegCM4区域气候模式的25 km×25 km分辨率的中国高精度土地覆盖数据(简称VEG数据). 相比CLM默认使用的土地覆盖数据(简称ORG数据), VEG数据不仅能提供更多的土地覆盖局地特征, 还纠正了ORG数据中裸地和农作物的比例偏高、 灌木的比例偏低等误差. 对比使用两套土地覆盖数据的RegCM4多年连续积分结果, 分析了不同土地覆盖分布对气温、 降水等的影响, 并从地表能量收支的角度给出影响机理解释. 结果显示: VEG数据的使用, 使得模式对冬季气温和降水的模拟能力有一定提高, 模式在南部区域偏干偏冷的系统误差有所减弱; 采用VEG数据后, 由于粗糙度、 反照率等下垫面参数的改变及云量的变化, 使得地表能量收支发生显著调整. 青藏高原地区的气温变化与湍流通量和长波辐射的变化有密切的联系, 主要源自粗糙度引起的湍流通量增加、 以及云量引起的向下净长波辐射增加. 而在中国中部和南部, 短波辐射变化更为明显, 它与地表反照率的变化相一致. 基于所制作的土地覆盖数据, 可广泛应用于CLM模式在中国区域的应用之中.     

Quantitatively analyze the impact of land use/land cover change on annual runoff decrease

Annual runoff in Luanhe river basin was detected a downward trend and caused water crisis in Tianjin, China. To quantify the decreased runoff volume, Mann–Kendall test and Pettitt test were employed to check whether there existed significant trend and change points for annual rainfall and runoff time series in Panjiakou reservoir basin and 8 sub-watersheds. It was found that the annual runoff time series had a significant downward trend at 5 % confidence level, and the change point was at 1979 in Panjiakou reservoir watershed. Then double mass curve of annual rainfall and annual runoff was plotted, and two lines were fitted before and after 1979, respectively. Based on this method, the comprehensive effects of land use/land cover change on annual runoff were estimated. To further quantify the contributions of each main factor to annual runoff decrease, water stored in check dams and social water use in different periods were surveyed first. And then multi-linear regression was used to develop the relations between annual runoff and the driven factors. Water area decrease was identified to be the main factor contributing to annual runoff reduction. The results in this study can provide valuable information for water resources planners and policy makers.     

Quaternary lacustrine deposits in a high-energy semi-arid mountain environment,Karakoram Mountains,northern Pakistan

Impressive Quaternary lacustrine deposits are present as terrace remnants throughout the Karakoram Mountains, northern Pakistan. They are mainly the result of damming of drainage systems during glacial advances or by catastrophic mass movement deposits. The longevity of most lakes is relatively short, in the order of years to tens of years, but sedimentation rates are extremely high as a consequence of the high sediment loads within the rivers. This results in deposits that frequently exceed 10 m in thickness. The sediments comprise dominantly planar bedded, massive and, less commonly, planar laminated, silts, comprising detrital quartz, feldspar, mica, calcite, chlorite and illite. A facies model for lacustrine sedimentation in a high-energy semi-arid high mountain region is presented, using case studies from a glacially dammed palaeolake (Glacial Lake Gilgit) and a debris-flow dammed palaeolake (Lake Serat). The rapid deposition and absence of organic material restricts the usefulness of these lacustrine sediments as proxies for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, but they are helpful in reconstructing the former extent of glaciers and illustrating the importance of high-magnitude–low-frequency events, such as landsliding, as formative processes contributing to the evolution of the Karakoram landscape.     

Effects of land use on spatial patterns of soil properties in a rocky mountain area of Northern China

In the rocky mountain area of North China, soil fertility has decreased with severe soil and water losses under various land uses. Land use has been proven to affect soil fertility spatial distribution patterns at larger scales. However, less information is available about these effects in field scale plots. Soil samples were collected at 2-m intervals by grid sampling from an area (18?×?18 m) within three land use types (poplar woodland, rotation cropland with peanut and sweet potato, and peach orchard). Soil properties including soil particle composition, soil organic matter, total nitrogen (TN), nitrate nitrogen (NO₃ ^?-N), total phosphorus (TP), and available phosphorus (AP) were measured for each sample. The spatial variability and spatial pattern of the soil properties were assessed for the three contrasting land use types. NH₄ ⁺-N, NO₃ ^?-N, and AP in the peach orchard and NO₃ ^?-N in the poplar woodland exhibited strong variation (coefficient of variance >100 %). Other properties showed moderate variations. With annual plowing and fertilization, soil properties in the rotation cropland had less variability and greater spatial autocorrelated ranges. The spatial dependences of sand content, TN, NO₃ ^?-N, and SWC in both the peach orchard and the rotation cropland were weaker than those in the poplar woodland, but the spatial dependences of TP and AP in the peach orchard were stronger than those in either the rotation cropland or the poplar woodland. Human activities such as plowing, fertilization, and harvesting had obvious effects on the spatial variability and spatial pattern of soil properties.     

The impact of land use and land cover changes on soil moisture and hydraulic conductivity along the karst hillslopes of southwest China

The understanding of the temporal and spatial dynamics of soil moisture and hydraulic property is crucial to the study of several hydrological and ecological processes. Karst environments are extremely fragile because of thin soil and small soil water holding capacity. A marked intensification of agricultural land use and deforestation due to increase of population and thus expansion of agricultural areas has made the karst environment even more delicate. In this study, the soil moisture contents (SMC) and hydraulic conductivities (K) along four karst hillslopes were measured in situ by time domain reflectometry and the Guelph Permeameter, respectively, at test plots, each of which has a different vegetative cover, landform, land surface slope, soil property and content of rock fragment. The statistical results from the measurements show that land cover changes strongly affect the distribution of soil moisture and hydraulic properties. Compared with SMC in the bare soil areas, SMC values are 30.5, 20.1 and 10.2% greater in the forest, shrub and grass areas, respectively. Vegetation roots significantly increase permeability of low-layer silt soils. Measured K values were 0.8, 0.6 and 0.01 cm/min for the forest, agriculture and bare soil areas, respectively. When the forest was destroyed by fire or cut to become an agricultural area or bare soils, SMC would be reduced by 13.1 and 32.1%, respectively. If deforestation leads to strong rock desertification, SMC was reduced by 70%. Bedrock fractures significantly reduce the SMC in the overlying layer, but increase K values. SMC values of 30–45% would be reduced to 17–30% for the soil layer embedding rocks with and without fractures, respectively. K values could be increased from 1.0 to 8.5 cm/min. SMC are sensitive to terrain. A slope angle increase of 1° would reduce SMC about 0.82%. These changes resulting from land cover and land use alterations offer useful information to further investigate the response of ecosystem evolution to hydrodynamic processes.     

High resolution mapping and classification of oyster habitats in nearshore Louisiana using sidescan sonar

Sidescan sonar holds great promise as a tool to quantitatively depict the distribution and extent of benthic habitats in Louisiana’s turbid estuaries. In this study, we describe an effective protocol for acoustic sampling in this environment. We also compared three methods of classification in detail: mean-based thresholding, supervised, and unsupervised techniques to classify sidescan imagery into categories of mud and shell. Classification results were compared to ground truth results using quadrat and dredge sampling. Supervised classification gave the best overall result (kappa=75%) when compared to quadrat results. Classification accuracy was less robust when compared to all dredge samples (kappa=21–56%), but increased greatly (90–100%) when only dredge samples taken from acoustically homogeneous areas were considered. Sidescan sonar when combined with ground truth sampling at an appropriate scale can be effectively used to establish an accurate substrate base map for both research applications and shellfish management. The sidescan imagery presented here also provides, for the first time, a detailed presentation of oyster habitat patchiness and scale in a productive oyster growing area.     

Investigating spatial contribution of land use types and land slope classes on soil erosion distribution under tropical environment

Natural Hazards - Increasing land occupancy for farming without conservation principles, particularly in the Indonesian island of Java, is resulting in a severe erosion problem. This study...     

Detection of soil salinity changes and mapping land cover types based upon remotely sensed data

Soil salinity is a major environmental hazard. The global extent of primary and secondary salt affected soils is about 955 and 77 M?ha, respectively. Soil salinity tends to increase in spite of considerable effort dedicated to land reclamation. This requires careful monitoring of the soil salinity status. The objectives of this study were: (a) to evaluate the capability of thematic mapper (TM) and multispectral scanner (MSS) imagery for mapping land cover types, (b) to analyse the spectral features of sail crusts relative to bare soil and gravely soil surface conditions, and (c) to detect the soil salinity changes during the period 1975–2004 in the Ardakan area located in the central Iranian Deserts. The Landsat MSS and TM on two different dates of September 14, 1975 and September 11, 2004, respectively, were used. Due to great confusion between some classes, the TM 6 was included in the band combination. The result of the image classification based on the combination of TM bands 3, 4, 5, and 6 showed of the classification results. For multi-temporal analysis, both TM and MSS images were classified with the same method but with a different number of training classes. The TM-classified image was regrouped to make it comparable with MSS regrouped classified image. The comparison between the classified images showed about 39% of the total area had changed in 29 years. The result of this study revealed the possibility of detecting important soil salinity changes by using Landsat satellite data     

Land use/land cover classification of the vicinity of Lake Chad using NigeriaSat-1 and Landsat data

Lake Chad in Africa experienced severe droughts in the 1970s and 1980s and overexploitations of water resulting in a decline of water level in the Lake and surrounding rivers. Such droughts and overexploitation of water caused a significant change of land use and water management practices over the last 50 years. Understanding the change of land use and land cover is, therefore, crucial to understand disturbance of the water cycle around the Lake. The present study analyzed satellite images of Lake Chad from Landsat-MSS, Landsat-TM, and NigeriaSat-1 to investigate the change of land cover during three time periods: the 1970s, 1991, and 2006. Unsupervised and supervised classifications were performed for the land cover analysis. The overall accuracies of the classification of Landsat-TM and NigeriaSat-1 are 93.33 and 95.24 %, respectively. It is evident that a 35 % decrease of waterbodies occurred from the 1970s to 1991, but a slight increase of 0.9 % occurred between 1991 and 2006. The Shrubland has overtaken most of the waterlog areas, as much as seven times of what it was in the 1970s. The interpretation of NigeriaSat-1 images indicates that NigeriaSat-1 has similar capabilities to Landsat-TM and Landsat-MSS for the detection of various land cover types because land cover and land use features are discernible on the processed images, especially depletion of waterbodies and vegetation. These are similarities justify the quality of the NigeriaSat-1 images for land cover and land use analysis.     

Monitoring land use/land cover change using multi-temporal Landsat satellite images in an arid environment: a case study of El-Arish,Egypt

Environment in arid conditions is dynamic and needs more investigation to understand the complexity of change. This spatiotemporal study will help to assess and monitor the land use and land cover change in the arid region of El-Arish area, where the climate and human activities are the major threats to rural development. In the past 11 years, dramatic changes of environment have been recorded in case studies. The post-classification comparison method was used to observe the changes using multi-temporal satellite images which were captured in the years 1999, 2001, 2005, and 2010. The overall accuracy of the produced thematic images was assessed regarding to the quantity and allocation disagreements. Five classes were defined in this investigation: bare soil, vegetation, urban, sand dunes, and fertile soil. From the year 1999 to 2010, fertile soil was increased by 13 %. Bare soil class occupied more than 50 % of land in the case study during for over a decade. From year 1999 to 2010, vegetation cover witnessed a dramatic increase. Soil and water management are the keys of land development and positive land use and land cover dynamics. Changing agricultural policies of using the available water resources are needed in the case study to prevent severe food shortage in the future.     

Exploring the influence of land cover on weight loss awareness

Weight loss is regarded as a commitment for more and more individuals in the US, since obesity is a prevalent public health issue in this country. The geographic environment in which people live and self-awareness of weight status are believed to play an important role bodyweight management. Thus, understanding the association between geographic settings and the awareness of weight status is vital to sustaining or improving quality of life. With the emergence of vast geotagged social media data sources, the analysis of “geographical awareness” of weight status in the context of geographic settings leads to a new research avenue. In order to fully understand the awareness of weight status and the relation with the geographic environment, our analysis was based on weight loss related “tweets” (messages sent on Twitter) and National Land Cover Dataset. We present our findings obtained from modeling: (1) the geographic patterns of weight-loss-related tweets, and (2) how land cover changes impact the weight loss related cyberspace message activities using cross tabulation. The results of analysis are summarized with tables and graphics.     

Assessment of the effects of climate and land cover changes on river discharge and sediment yield,and an adaptive spatial planning in the Jakarta region

In Jakarta, climate change has been detected through rising air temperatures, increased intensity of rainfall in the wet season, and sea level rise. The coupling of such changes with local anthropogenic driven modifications in the environmental setting could contribute to an increased probability of flooding, due to increase in both extreme river discharge and sedimentation (as a result of erosion in the watersheds above Jakarta and as indicated by sediment yield in the downstream area). In order to respond to the observed and projected changes in river discharge and sediment yield, and their secondary impacts, adaptation strategies are required. A possible adaptation strategy is through policy making in the field of spatial planning. For example, in Indonesia, presidential regulation number 54 year 2008 (Peraturan Presiden Nomor 54 Tahun 2008—Perpres 54/2008) was issued as a reference for the implementation of water and soil conservation. This paper assesses the impact of climate and land cover change on river discharge and sediment yield, as well as the effects of Perpres 54/2008 on that river discharge and sediment yield. The spatial water balance model Spatial Tools for River Basins and Environmental and Analysis of Management Option was used for the runoff computations, whilst the Spatial Decision Assistance of Watershed Sedimentation model was used to simulate erosion, Sediment Delivery Ratio, and sediment yield. The computation period is from January 1901 to December 2005, at the scale of the following watersheds: Ciujung, Cisadane, Ciliwung, and Citarum. During the twentieth century, computed average discharge in the downstream area (near Jakarta) increased between 2.5 and 35 m³/s/month, and sediment yield increased between 1 × 10³ and 42 × 10³ tons/year. These changes were caused by changes in both land cover and climate, with the former playing a stronger role. Based on a computation under a theoretical full implementation of the spatial plan proposed by Perpres 54/2008, river discharge would decrease by up to 5 % in the Ciliwung watershed and 26 % in the Cisadane watershed. The implementation of Perpres 54/2008 could also decrease the sediment yield, by up to 61 and 22 % in the Ciliwung and Cisadane watersheds, respectively. These findings show that the implementation of the spatial plan of Perpres 54/2008 could significantly improve watershed response to runoff and erosion. This study may serve as a tool for assessing the reduction in climate change impacts and evaluating the role of spatial planning for adaptation strategies.     

Progress on the mapping of groundwater resources and environment in Asia

With the ever-accelerating economic and social growth in Asia, the sustainable development of environment, economy and society of Asia and beyond, is severely constrained by a series of grave issues, such as global climate change, population explosion, resource shortage, and rampant disasters. The need for study on groundwater resources and environment in Asia as part of the efforts to tackle global climate change looms even larger. In analyzing how global changes of modern times and human activities are related to primary geo-environment, the groundwater environment serial maps of Asia introduces a new concept for mapping geo-environment of Asia that connects the geological background to groundwater environment. The serial maps reveal the geographic environment that is closely related to groundwater, the special-temporal features of the geo-environment and how it is distributed. The study is vital not only to the harmonious development among environment, economy and society as well as ecological progress in Asia, but also to the strategic requirements posed by the “One Belt One Road”.     

SAR polarimetric decomposition with ALOS PALSAR-1 for agricultural land and other land use/cover classification: case study in Rajasthan,India

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has operational applications in crop mapping and monitoring in many countries due to the distinct backscatter signature at various stages of crop growth. Polarimetric analysis of SAR data from different satellites was used for information extraction from different types of scatters in imaged terrain. The scattering processes were analyzed through the received scatter matrix derived from the target decomposition of SAR data. Three decomposition techniques, namely Freeman–Durden, Cloude–Pottier and Touzi decomposition of the ALOS PALSAR-1 data, were used in this study to extract land use/cover information with a specific emphasis on agriculture. The decomposed output parameters from these techniques were classified with supervised classifier of support vector machine (SVM) using region of interest (ROI) selected land use/cover classes. An accuracy assessment for the classified output was carried out using the ROI. The Ramgarh village in Jaisalmer district of Rajasthan with the predominance of agricultural land, sand dunes and settlements was chosen as the study area. Freeman–Durden decomposition resulted in the highest overall accuracy of about 85% in the land use/cover classification among the three decomposition techniques adopted in the study. It was also observed that the accuracy of land use/cover mapping derived from Cloude–Pottier and Touzi decompositions improved with the use of eigenvalues in the SVM classification. Higher accuracies in the classification of agriculture land were noted with all the three decomposition techniques. The four parameters of Cloude–Pottier (H, A, α, β) and Touzi (α _s, Φ _s, ψ, τ) decompositions improved the classification accuracy for all the classes due to eigenvalues. The overall classification accuracy was above 88% for both the decomposition techniques with four parameters. The soil moisture values for agriculture land and sand dunes were validated through soil moisture maps generated using Oh 1992 and 2004 models.