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.     

基于不同土地覆盖类型NDSI阈值优化下的青藏高原积雪判别

美国国家雪冰数据中心（NSIDC）发布的MODIS第6版本逐日积雪范围产品（V6）仅提供了归一化积雪指数（NDSI）,而用户往往关心的是积雪范围或积雪覆盖率。NSIDC推荐全球积雪范围最佳的NDSI阈值为0.4,但是青藏高原地形复杂,积雪斑块化特征明显,单一的NDSI阈值并不能精确地判识不同下垫面上的积雪。不同的土地覆盖类型可能影响积雪判别的NDSI阈值。以青藏高原为研究对象,基于高分辨率卫星Landsat-5 TM数据,获取了青藏高原不同土地覆盖类型下判识积雪的最优NDSI阈值。结果表明,在草地和稀疏植被地表类型下,最优NDSI阈值分别为0.33和0.40;在其他下垫面类型下,最优NDSI阈值为0.47。以Landsat 8 OLI数据为"真值"对该NDSI阈值确定的积雪范围进行了精度检验。结果表明,采用新的NDSI阈值获取的MOD10A1 V6积雪范围产品的总体精度OA、错分误差OE和漏分误差UE分别为87.88%、5.20%和6.87%。而采用传统的0.4阈值时,其OA、OE和UE分别为87.36%、3.98%和8.60%。这表明考虑不同土地覆盖类型下的NDSI阈值优化可以有效地提高青藏高原积雪判别精度,特别是对占比面积较大的草地区域,通过NDSI阈值优化可以更加准确地识别积雪范围。     

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...     

伊朗北部阿哈尔地区土地利用信息的遥感分类与制图

遥感作为目前快速实现全球或大区域对地观测的最佳方法,在“一带一路”沿线地区地表信息获取方面具有重要的作用。总结了遥感技术在伊朗北部土地利用分类与制图的流程和方法,在土地利用分类体系、遥感分类方法和成果制图3个方面进行了研究。通过土地利用信息遥感分类标志,建立非接触的土地利用信息分类工作方法,保证了良好的工作精度。进行了伊朗北部地区土地利用信息的遥感制图,获取了该地区土地利用状况,为我国矿业企业与地质调查部门开展“一带一路”区域合作提供了技术支撑和决策依据,为开展境外土地利用信息的提取与制图工作提供了案例。     

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.     

典型喀斯特石漠化地区植被动态监测与土地利用变化的影响分析

基于2001至2014年MOD13Q1数据集、数字地面高程数据以及中梁山地区多期土地覆盖数据,进行植被覆盖度（FVC）估算及其变化趋势模拟、多期土地利用转移矩阵分析,探讨中梁山地区植被覆盖度动态变化特征、土地利用的时空变化特征以及土地利用和地形同植被覆盖度间的响应机制。研究结果表明：中梁山76.69%的区域为植被改善区,退化区面积占总面积的10.12%,存在明显的改善趋势,生态情况得到良好恢复;人类活动对中梁山区域影响方式主要表现为耕地向林地和建设用地转化的特点;植被生长趋势的空间异质性与坡度有关,坡陡区植被改善面积约为退化面积的14倍,缓坡区仅为7倍;植被退化现象受人览活动的影响较大,而人类晃动对植被改善影响较小,植被改善主要与植物的自然生长演替有关。