Monitoring 25 years of land cover change dynamics in Africa: A sample based remote sensing approach

The study examines the changes in sub-Saharan's natural land cover resources for a 25 year period. We assess these changes in four broad land cover classes – forests, natural non-forest vegetation, agriculture and barren – by using high spatial resolution Earth observing satellites. Two sets of sample images, one ‘historical’ targeted at 1975 and a second ‘recent’ targeted at the year 2000, have been selected through a stratified random sampling technique over the study area, targeting a sampling rate of 1% in each of the strata. The results, presented at eco-region level and aggregated at sub-Saharan level, show a 57% increase in agriculture area at the expense of natural vegetation which has itself decreased by 21% over the period, with nearly 5 million hectares forest and non-forest natural vegetation lost per year. The impacts of these changes on the environment on one site and on the socio-economy on the other site are discussed and possible pressures on human well being are highlighted.     

Application of Superabsorbent Polymers for Improving the Ecological Chemistry of Degraded or Polluted Lands

About 3.5 billion ha of land, which amounts to almost 30% of the total solid land of the world, has been degraded by human activities. The ecological restoration of these lands is a major challenge for mankind since they are the only option left for increasing the amount of arable land and producing food for the ever growing worldwide population. One common feature of these degraded lands is the fact that their organic soil matter is degraded also. Rainfall therefore, changes from a blessing to a menace since it is not kept in the soil and therefore causes erosion. A solution for the restoration of these lands could be the application of superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) to these soils. These substances are like ‘artificial humus’ as they are hydrophilic and contain carboxylic groups. This enables them to bind cations and water. They have the following advantages for the restoration of degraded lands. They increase the plant available water in the soil which enables the plants to survive longer under water stress. SAP amendment to soils reduces the evapotranspiration rate of the plants. They induce a significantly higher growth rate in plants growing on SAP amended soil. They bind heavy metals and mitigate their action on plants. They mitigate the effects of salinity. The benefits of SAP amendment to soils substantially outweigh their costs.     

Mapping badland areas using LANDSAT TM/ETM satellite imagery and morphological data

Soil erosion is the most influential component of land degradation for its strong impacts on both natural and agricultural environments. In order to support effective intervention and recovery policies for eroded areas, monitoring techniques should take into account the space–time variability of the processes involved, and make use of assessed mapping methodologies as baseline criteria for studying the dynamics of landform development. When using multispectral data for mapping eroded areas, low spectral separability is a significant limit in areas with complex features, where soil materials are frequently remixed by surface runoff. Since multispectral satellite images are a valuable data source for multi-temporal analyses of erosion processes at the medium scale, we assessed how accurately a badland area can be identified from LANDSAT TM and ETM data. A protocol for an optimal mapping was built up by testing the performance of different supervised algorithms and input layers (spectral and morphological). Tests were carried out in a well-known badland area of Basilicata, Italy, with an extension of  8000 ha. Results obtained from the use of spectral bands (with and without thermal channel) and principal components returned an overall accuracy ranging from 53% (for classification on first three components) to 72% (for classification on all bands from TM), with low values for the kappa coefficient (0.30–0.50), showing that the spectral information alone are insufficient to accurately identify badland areas. In order to improve mapping, we found that the integration of slopes and aspects derived from a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) can overcome problems inherent to the low separability of spectral signatures. The use of morphological data was tested for different classification algorithms and integration approaches. In discriminating badlands, the better performing algorithm was MLC (Maximum Likelihood Classifier) and the best results were obtained by integrating all seven bands (including TIR) with slope and aspect maps as input within the classifier (A > 0.85 and K  0.75 for both the sensors). We selected such parameters because they play an important role in characterising badlands of study area from a morphological perspective but the proposed approach is also conceptually simple and can be easily exported to other areas. The obtained results support the hypothesis that the combined use of remote sensing imagery and auxiliary morphological data significantly improves the mapping of badlands over large areas with heterogeneous features, thus providing a useful methodology for long-term studies on soil erosion processes.     

陕西省榆林市秋冬季黑碳观测研究

利用2011年秋冬季榆林大气成分站黑碳浓度、颗粒物质量浓度、大气能见度、地面气象资料,计算边界层高度、气溶胶吸收系数、大气消光系数,导出单次散射反照率,并对其进行分析讨论。结果表明：（1） 榆林秋冬季平均黑碳浓度为2.6 μg·m^-3。（2）黑碳占颗粒物质量浓度PM_1.0比值为10.6%,黑碳与颗粒物质量浓度PM_1.0、PM_2.5、PM₁₀相关系数分别为0.91、0.91、0.72。（3）黑碳浓度受边界层高度影响,沙漠风场对黑碳的堆积输送起主导作用。（4） 榆林地区气溶胶吸收系数与大气消光系数比值为16.8%。（5）单次散射反照率平均值为0.72。     

科尔沁沙地几种固沙植物光谱-生物量模型构建与分析

在控制背景反射噪音、植被盖度和水分含量的条件下,利用ASD光谱仪对科尔沁沙地4种主要固沙植物杨树(Populus spp.)、黄柳(Salix gordejevii)、小叶锦鸡儿(Caragana microphylla)、樟子松(Pinus sylvestris)光谱反射特征和地面光谱生物量模型构建进行了研究.结果表明:科尔沁沙地4种主要固沙植物光谱反射曲线的趋势基本一致,但是在620～670 nm与841～876 nm波长范围内存在差别,其中在波长620～670 nm最易识别的植物为小叶锦鸡儿,其次是黄柳、杨树,在波长841～876 nm范围最易识别的植物为樟子松、杨树.不同植物的NDVI与盖度和生物量的关系密切,模型拟合精度较高.相对而言,NDVI-盖度模型优于NDVI-生物量模型.不同植物种构建的NDVI盖度模型计算结果相差较小,而NDVI生物量模型的计算结果相差较大.在区域植被生产力遥感监测中,植被样方选择要考虑优势植物种影响,数据采样要涵盖研究区主要植物种.     

The role of land use on the local climate and air quality during calm inter-monsoon in a tropical city

The modification of land use is known to be a major climate change driver to the local warming and air quality in cities. Despite the reduction of NOx over the years, the Selangor state has captured a higher level of O_3 in year 2011. The measurement result has shown that the surge in O_3 level was attributed to the reduction of NO_x/NMHC ratio. This paper hence attempted to identify the role of land use change from 1999 to 2011 on the ground ozone air quality in the tropical urban conurbation, Greater Kuala Lumpur(GKL), Selangor, Malaysia. With the state-of-the-art chemical weather prediction tool, WRFChem, the external synoptic factors and emission inventory were controlled when comparing the chronological land use changes. The results showed that the urban-induced temperature and wind bias in the tropical region has induced stronger wind to disperse the NO_x and carries the TVOC from the suburban to the downwind urban region. The reduction of NO_x/TVOC has gradually shifted towards the optimum O_3 formation regime in 2011. The formation of highly concentrated ozone becomes more sensitive to the increment of TVOC as the NO_x level reduces in the urban. This highlights the essential involvement of TVOC in the ozone formation in lieu of the NOx reduction in the tropical city, a region with growing emitter of reactive biogenic ozone precursors.     

Using Landsat data to determine land use changes in Datong basin,China

The aim of this study was to determine land use changes in Datong basin using multitemporal Landsat data for the period of 1977–2006. Four dates of Landsat images from 1977, 1990, 2000, and 2006 were selected to classify the study area. Based on the supervised classification method of maximum likelihood algorithm, images were classified into six classes: water, urban, forest, agriculture, wetland, and barren land. A multidate postclassification comparison change detection algorithm was used to determine changes in land use in four intervals. It is found that (1) urban land area increased 213% due to urbanization that resulted from rapid increase of urban population and high-speed economic development, (2) agriculture area increased 34.0% due to land reclamation that resulted from rapid increase of rural population and improvement of irrigation capacity, (3) forest area decreased 20.9% due to deforestation for urban area and agricultural use, (4) barren land area decreased 78.2% due to cultivation for agricultural use, and (5) water and wetland decreased 39.1 and 67.1%, respectively, due to exploitation of surface water and decrease of recharge from groundwater to surface water that resulted from over exploitation of groundwater.     

欧洲地区不同温室气体背景下土地利用/覆盖变化的气候效应

通过温室气体排放和土地利用/覆盖变化,人类活动对气候变化产生显著影响。为了探究在不同温室气体浓度（Greenhouse gas concentration,GHG）背景下,相同的土地利用/覆盖变化（Land Use and Land Cover Change,LULCC）对于欧洲区域气候的影响差异,采用CESM（Community Earth System Model）耦合模式进行了模拟研究。研究发现,在1850年温室气体浓度背景下,土地利用/覆盖变化导致欧洲中东部地区降水显著增加,而在2000年温室气体浓度背景下,土地利用/覆盖变化导致欧洲中东部地区降水减少。温室气体增加后,LULCC导致该地区对流层低层大气环流由辐合变为辐散,气温以及大气水汽含量降低,这些变化能较大程度的改变LULCC对区域降水的净影响力。     

Ch’ixi landscapes: Indigeneity and capitalism in the Bolivian Chaco

Contemporary debates around the ontological turn have pitted efforts to take indigenous ontologies seriously against demands to make visible the forms of dispossession and environmental suffering that characterize the (post)colonial and capitalist present. Meanwhile, a growing array of governmental projects seeks to identify and protect indigenous ontologies in the face of capitalist development processes, including through forms of collective tenure. How can we make sense of such initiatives, and what kind of territories do they encounter and produce? This paper engages this question ethnographically through an examination of everyday life in a legally recognized Native Community Land in the Bolivian Chaco. Drawing on Bolivian Aymara scholar Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui’s notion of ch’ixi, I argue that indigenous territories are neither ontologically separate from, nor entirely subsumed by, capitalist development processes. Rather, they are subject to multiple land values, ontologies, and investments. A contested indigenous land titling process, capitalist labor relations, hydrocarbon compensation money, and efforts to maintain relations with spirit beings are all interwoven in the fabric of Guaraní everyday life. Such ch’ixi landscapes emerge at the confluence of capitalist efforts at rendering territories investable, governmental efforts at managing dispossession, and Guaraní efforts to maintain life and exercise territorial sovereignty amidst contradictory processes of (post)colonial governmentality.     

Research on Dynamic of Terrestrial System of China: Academic Logic and Synthetic Scheme

Land surface, the environment where human survive and develop, is a synthesis formed with multi-scaled and multi-process interactions between natural factors. The terrestrial system, which is the core study field of physical geography, can be defined as the land surface synthesis with spatially ordered distribution and temporally dynamic balance. In the past century, natural variations and human activities have had profound influences on land surface. How they drove the changed interactions between land surface factors, and further altered the land surface pattern, are the frontier and basis for global change and geography studies. Based on the brief review of research on terrestrial system at home and abroad, the paper summarized the existing difficulties and problems, and then proposed the academic logic for studies of dynamic of terrestrial system. The research should be conducted following the logic of elements, patterns and dynamic, with emphasis on themes of processes and feedback, variation in regions and terrestrial system. At last, the synthetic scheme was designed for research on dynamic of terrestrial system. Aimed at innovation of regionalization methodology and detection on driving mechanism of dynamic of terrestrial system, the following four aspects should be included: Changes and interaction mechanism of key factors (i.e. water, soil, climate and plant) and their spatial-temporal variation; Quantifying the influences of factor interactions on regionalization formation and conversion; Quantified assessment on changing tendency and magnitude of land surface pattern under global climate change; Accomplishment of dynamic land surface pattern at different past and future stages. Correspondingly, the technical route should combine bottom-up and top-down methodologies, with field survey, earth observation, station monitoring and mathematical simulation to build the comprehensive database. Conducting research on dynamic of terrestrial system can be helpful for developing theory of integrated physical geography, deepening cognition on dynamic land surface pattern, and providing scientific basis for regional sustainable resources utilization and countermeasure establishment of climate change adaptation.