Spatiotemporal patterns of tropical deforestation and forest degradation in response to the operation of the Tucuruí hydroelectric dam in the Amazon basin

The planned construction of hundreds of hydroelectric dams in the Amazon basin has the potential to provide invaluable ‘clean’ energy resources for aiding in securing future regional energy needs and continued economic growth. These mega-structures, however, directly and indirectly interfere with natural ecosystem dynamics, and can cause noticeable tree loss. To improve our understanding of how hydroelectric dams affect the surrounding spatiotemporal patterns of forest disturbances, this case study integrated remote sensing spectral mixture analysis, GIS proximity analysis and statistical hypothesis testing to extract and evaluate spatially-explicit patterns of deforestation (clearing of entire forest patch) and forest degradation (reduced tree density) in the 80,000 km² neighborhoods of the Brazil's Tucuruí Dam, the first large-scale hydroelectric project in the Amazon region, over a period of 25 years from 1988 to 2013. Results show that the average rates of deforestation were consistent during the first three time periods 1988–1995 (620 km² per year), 1995–2001 (591 km² per year), and 2001–2008 (660 km² per year). However, such rate dramatically fell to half of historical levels after 2008, possibly reflecting the 2008 global economic crisis and enforcement of the Brazilian Law of Environmental Crimes. The rate of forest degradation was relatively stable from 1988 to 2013 and, on average, was 17.8% of the rate of deforestation. Deforestation and forest degradation were found to follow similar spatial patterns across the dam neighborhoods, upstream reaches or downstream reaches at the distances of 5 km–80 km, suggesting that small and large-scale forest disturbances may have been influencing each other in the vicinity of the dam. We further found that the neighborhoods of the Tucuruí Dam and the upstream region experienced similar degrees of canopy loss. Such loss was mainly attributed to the fast expansion of the Tucuruí town, and the intensive logging activities alongside major roads in the upstream reservoir region. In contrast, a significantly lower level of forest disturbance was discovered in the downstream region.     

中国南方湿润区“荒漠化”问题讨论

荒漠化是当今世界所面临的严重的环境与社会经济问题,推进荒漠化研究工作对于保护生态环境,促进区域可持续发展具有重要意义。本文在对荒漠化内涵进行系统回顾的基础上,认为除了人为干扰叠加气候性干旱作用导致的荒漠化之外,南方湿润区因水土流失叠加物理性干旱作用导致的极端土地退化也是一种荒漠化,并从物质基础、气候条件、影响因子、形成营力、核心作用和地表过程方面进行比较,最后以南方红层区特殊的"红层荒漠化"为案例,利用实地调查和TM影像的植被覆盖度指标VFC对1992-2013年红层土地退化进行分析。结果显示,在人为反复干扰和其他自然因素作用下地表植被持续退化、群落干旱趋势明显,表土层流失,岩石风化加剧,以致形成类似"荒漠"景观的现象。红层区的退化过程可类比于喀斯特石漠化、红壤山地丘陵退化,但这类极端土地退化现象可否视为"荒漠化",有待于进一步的深入研究。     

Land desertification and restoration in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is characterized by high population growth, degraded and fragile nat-ural ecosystems, and a limited amount of arable lands. It is one of the most water-sc...     

石灰土中秸秆还田降解率及其对土壤肥力的影响

石灰土具有高的有机碳的积累,但营养成分的供给速率偏低,导致土壤贫瘠。本文通过室内模拟实验,研究相同来源玉米秸秆在岩溶土与非岩溶土中的降解情况,对秸秆降解率、土壤理化性质、土壤肥力等进行动态检测,结果表明：（1）总体上岩溶土秸秆降解速率比非岩溶土快。秸秆降解速度最快主要集中在最初60天,之后呈缓慢上升趋势,到98天基本达到平衡。非岩溶土降解峰值出现时间为第42天,岩溶土为第28天,峰值出现时间前者比后者滞后14天。总降解时间持续160天,岩溶土降解率为77%,非岩溶土为75%。（2）秸秆降解期间,土壤pH值前期有下降的趋势,后期慢慢回升,这与秸秆降解过程中不同时期降解产物变化规律相吻合。秸秆还田可以提高土壤肥力,其中速效氮和速效钾含量增加非常明显。（3）与岩溶土相比,全量检测结果显示各肥力指标在非岩溶土含量低,但升幅百分比高;有效态检测结果显示非岩溶土速效磷和速效钾含量高。说明秸秆还田一些营养元素有效态在非岩溶土中更易于释放,而岩溶土由于其土壤质地的特殊性,许多养分被土壤粘土矿物牢固结合,营养元素供给速率慢,但因此也易于养分全量的累积。     

Mapping degraded grassland on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau with multi-temporal Landsat 8 data — where do the severely degraded areas occur?

The Tibetan Plateau in Western China is the world’s largest alpine landscape, sheltering a rich diversity of native flora and fauna. In the past few decades, the Tibetan Plateau was found to suffer from grassland degradation processes. Grassland degradation is assumed to not only endanger biodiversity but also to increase the risk for natural hazards in other parts of the country which are ecologically and hydrologically connected to the area. However, the mechanisms behind the degradation processes remain poorly understood due to scarce baseline data and insufficient scientific research.We argue that remote sensing data can help to better understand degradation processes and patterns by: (1) identifying the distribution of severely degraded areas and (2) comparing the patterns of key spatial attributes of the identified areas (altitude above sea level, aspect, slope, administrative districts) with existing theories on degradation drivers. Therefore, we applied four Landsat 8 images covering large portions of the three counties Jigzhi, Baima and Darlag in the Eastern Tibetan Plateau. The dates of the Landsat scenes were selected to cover differing phenological stages of the ecosystem. Reference data were collected with a remotely piloted aircraft and a standard consumer RGB camera. To exploit the phenological information in the Landsat data as well as deal with the problem of cloud cover in multiple images, we developed a straightforward PCA-based procedure to merge the Landsat scenes. The merged Landsat data served as input to a supervised support vector machine classification which was validated with an iterative bootstrap procedure and an additional independent validation set. The considered classes were “high-cover grassland”, “grassland (including several stages of grassland vitality)”, “(severely) degraded grassland”, “green shrubland”, “grey shrubland”, “urban areas” and “water bodies”. Kappa accuracies ranged between 0.84 and 0.93 in the iterative procedure, while the independent validation led to a kappa accuracy of 0.76. Mean producer’s and user’s accuracies for all classes were higher than 80%, and confusion mainly occurred between the two shrubland classes and between the three grassland classes.Analysis of the slope, aspect and altitude values of the vegetation classes revealed that the degraded areas mostly occurred at the higher altitudes of the study area (4300–4600 m), with no strong connection to any specific slope or aspect. High-cover grassland was mostly located on sunny slopes at lower altitudes (less than 4300 m), while shrubland preferred shady, relatively steep slopes across all altitudes. These observations proved to be stable across the examined counties, while the proportions of land-cover classes differed between the examined regions. Most counties showed 5–7% severely degraded land cover. Darlag, the county located at the edge of the permafrost zone, and featuring the highest average altitude and lowest annual temperature and precipitation, was found to suffer from larger areas of severe degradation (14%).Therefore, our findings support a strong connection between degradation patterns and climatic as well as altitudinal gradients, with an increased degradation risk for high altitude areas and areas in colder and drier climatic zones. This is relevant information for pastoral management to avoid further degradation of high altitude pastures.     

Effects of grazing by Daphnia on algal carotenoids: Implications for paleolimnology

Reverse-phase thin layer chromatography was used to quantify algal carotenoid degradation resulting from grazing by Daphnia magna in suspensions of lyophilized Oscillatoria utermöhlii, O. limnetica, Anabaena flos-aquae and Synechococcus sp. Three samples were removed every 24 h from 0 h to 144 h and the carotenoid, carbon and nitrogen content of the remaining algal-fecal mixture was determined. Grazing by Daphnia reduced carotenoid concentrations by 30%–80% after 144 h, with myxoxanthophyll being the most labile pigment in experiments with filamentous cyanophytes. However, as a group, the carotenoids were more resistant to the combined effects of grazing by Daphnia and bacterial action than were particulate algal carbon (78% to 82% lost by 144 h) or nitrogen (86%–90%) during the period in which easily digestible material remained. The maximal extent of carotenoid enrichment relative to particulate carbon ranged from 150% to 300% of initial pigment concentrations but declined with repeated coprophagy. On the basis of these results and published pigment budgets, we conclude both that fecal transportation of pigments may be an important determinant of carotenoid accumulation rates and that carotenoid stratigraphies should record predator-mediated changes in zooplankton community structure, especially in oligotrophic conditions.     

Causes of Forest Encroachment: An Analysis of Bangladesh

Deforestation is a major cause of environmental degradation. Tropical countries with huge population pressure and widespread poverty are main frontier of deforestation. Bangladesh, being one the most densely populated country with diminishing tropical forestland, supports lowest per capita forestland. The forests are depleting mainly due to illegal logging and conversion to non-forestry uses. In this paper encroachment of forestland by individuals has been dealt with. The socioeconomic causes and pattern of encroachment have been analyzed. Limited land availability and unemployment have been identified as the major proximate causes of encroachment and, if no measures are adopted within next three decades the existing natural forests might be encroached.Part of thesis of the first author submitted for the partial fulfillment of the Master of Science in Forestry in the Khulna University, Bangladesh in 2001 (Iftekhar, 2001). Some of the findings have been presented in the World Forestry Congress XIII, Canada, held from 21 to 28 September 2003 (Iftekhar et al., 2003).     

MULTIDISCIPLINARY INVESTIGATIONS ON THREE ROCK GLACIERS IN THE SWISS ALPS: LEGACIES AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

This paper recognizes the contribution of Professor Wilfried Haeberli for his inspiration and leadership in the field of permafrost science and his generous encouragement, both direct and indirect, to the ETH Researchers who have, through him, endeavoured to contribute to this fascinating research area. The multidisciplinary investigations described in this paper have focused on three rock glaciers, Muragl, Murtèl‐Corvatsch and Furggwanghorn, all of which have been subject to a varying degree of prior study, and which are continuing to attract new generations of researchers to understand and explain the processes and predict future behaviour. This paper marks a stage at which it is possible to summarize some advances in the state of the art and associated innovations that can be attributed to early motivation by Wilfried Haeberli and offers a tribute as well as gratitude for his ongoing feedback and advice. Some thoughts on the development of thermokarst due to water ponding and flow, and a conceptual model of geotechnical mechanisms that aim to explain some aspects of rock glacier kinematics, are also introduced.     

基于熵权法的土地覆被动态遥感监测与评价——以新疆伊犁地区和博州为例

基于MODIS数据,选取植被净第一性生产力（NPP）、温度植被旱情指数（TVDI）、改进型土壤调整植被指数（MSAVI）、陆地表面温度（LST）4个对干旱地区地表覆被具有显著指示作用的指标,结合IGBP土地利用类型分类图,以新疆伊犁地区和博尔塔拉蒙古自治州（简称博州）为例,对研究区2003—2007年土地覆被动态进行监测,并利用熵权法确定各个指标的权重,在此基础上进行土地覆被动态的综合评价。结果表明,不同指标对不同的土地利用类型具有不同的适宜性和指示度;在新疆伊犁地区和博州,土地覆被动态地域差异性明显,土地覆被退化程度较大的土地类型为水体、草地、永久湿地、城镇,而森林、灌木林、荒漠草原和农田等土地类型有所改善,呈现出＂局部改善、总体退化＂的局面;引用熵权法将多个遥感指标综合起来进行土地覆被动态的监测与评价的途径是可行且有效的,可为干旱区土地覆被、荒漠化、土地退化、植被变化等工作的监测与评价提供可靠的技术方法与有价值的案例。     

三江源地区草地退化对中国区域气候影响的数值模拟研究

人类活动导致的土地利用变化是区域气候变化的一个重要驱动因素.位于青藏高原腹地的三江源地区,生态系统十分脆弱,其独特的地理位置决定了源区的生态环境对中国乃至全球的气候变化、生态环境均有十分重要的影响.该研究应用区域气候模式RegCM3,通过两组数值模拟试验结果的对比分析,探讨三江源地区的草地退化对中国区域气候的影响.模拟试验的区域模式水平分辨率为60 km,模拟区域中心位于35°N,105°E,水平格点数为92×82,相当于5520 km×4920 km的范围.研究结果表明:RegCM3对中国区域气候具有较好的模拟能力,能够用于定量研究土地利用变化对区域气候的影响.三江源地区的草地退化引起的气候变化在不同的地区是不一致的,变化最明显的地区是青藏高原地区.草地退化将会引起青藏高原地区的冬季降温和其他季节升温,气温变化最显著的季节是春季(0.46℃),冬季变化最小(0.03℃);三江源地区的草地退化对中国中、东部地区的气候影响较复杂,主要表现为夏季长江以北地区有不同程度的升、降温现象.由于青藏高原夏季热源作用的加强,导致夏季青藏高原低层大气的热低压有所加强,太平洋副热带高压向东退缩.降水量的变化主要表现在夏季降水的普遍减少.草地退化后,青藏高原地区的气候有向暖于方向发展的趋势.