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Land change science

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Land change science refers to the interdisciplinary study of changes in climate, land use, and land cover.[1] Land change science specifically seeks to evaluate patterns, processes, and consequences in changes in land use and cover over time. The purpose of land change science is to contribute to existing knowledge of climate change and to the development of sustainable resource management and land use policy. The field is informed by a number of related disciplines, such as remote sensing, landscape ecology, and political ecology, and uses a broad range of methods to evaluate the patterns and processes that underlie land cover change. Land change science addresses land use as a coupled human-environment system to understand the impacts of interconnected environmental and social issues, including deforestation and urbanization.

History

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Land change science is a recently developed field, which emerged in conjunction with the advancement of climate change and global environmental change research, and is important to the evolution of climate change science and adaptation. It is both problem-oriented and interdisciplinary.[2] In the mid-20th century, human-environment relationships were emerging in areas of study such as anthropology and geography.[3] Some scholars assert 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.[3] 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.[3]

Aims

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Thus far, the aims of land change science have been to:[4]

  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
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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.[4] It is meant to supplement the study of climate change, and through the examination of land cover and land use changes in conjunction with climatic changes over the same period of time, scientists can better understand how human land use practices contribute to a changing climate.[3] Given its close association with the study of climate change, land change science is inherently sustainability research and the scientific knowledge it produces is used to influence the development of sustainable agriculture, and sustainable land use practices and policies.[2]

Although land change science involves quantifying the location, extent, and variability of land change cover and the analysis of emergent patterns, it remains fundamentally interdisciplinary, including social and economic components.[5]

Methods

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Land change science mainly operates within the international scientific research frameworks from which its fundamental questions were developed.[3] Although the field has ties to social and cultural studies in its understanding of land and land change as a human-environment system, land change science also focuses on ecosystems and earth systems' structure, function, and effects on land change, independent of human activity. Land change science encompasses a broad scope of dimensions, ranging from quantifying the ecological effects of land cover change, to understanding the socio-environmental drivers for land-use decisions at an institutional level.[6] 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.[6]

Land cover monitoring and assessments

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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.[7] In the course of monitoring and assessing land cover and land use changes, scientists look at several factors, including where land-cover and land-use are changing, the extent and timescale of changes, and how changes vary through time.[5] To this end, scientists use a variety of tools, including satellite imagery and other sources of remotely sensed data (e.g., aircraft imagery), field observations, historical accounts, and reconstruction modeling.[7] These tools, particularly satellite imagery, allow land change scientists to accurately monitor land-change rates and create a consistent, long-term record to quantify change variability over time.[5] Through observing patterns in land cover changes, scientists can determine the consequences of these changes, predict the impact of future changes, and use this information to inform strategic land management.

Risk and vulnerability

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Modeling risk and vulnerability is also one of land change science's practical applications. Accurate predictions of how human activity will influence land cover change over time, as well as the impact that such changes have on the sustainability of ecological and human systems, can inform the creation of policy designed to address these changes.[8]

Studying risk and vulnerability in the context of land change science entails the development of quantitative, qualitative, and geospatial models, methods, and support tools.[9] 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, an understanding of geographic distributions of people and infrastructure, and accurate calculation of the probability of specific disturbances occurring.[9]

Land change modeling

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A key method for studying risk and vulnerability in the context of land change science is land change modeling (LCM), which can be used to simulate changes and land use and land cover.[10] LCMs can be used to predict how land use and land cover may change under alternate circumstances, which is useful for risk assessment, in that it allows for the prediction of potential impacts and can be used to inform policy decisions, albeit with some uncertainty.[10]

This section is an excerpt from Land change modeling.[edit]
Predicting the effects of deforestation on rainfall in Brazil, an example of land change modeling.

Land change models (LCMs) describe, project, and explain changes in and the dynamics of land use and land-cover. LCMs are a means of understanding ways that humans change the Earth's surface in the past, present, and future.

Land change models are valuable in development policy, helping guide more appropriate decisions for resource management and the natural environment at a variety of scales ranging from a small piece of land to the entire spatial extent.[11][12] Moreover, developments within land-cover, environmental and socio-economic data (as well as within technological infrastructures) have increased opportunities for land change modeling to help support and influence decisions that affect human-environment systems,[11] as national and international attention increasingly focuses on issues of global climate change and sustainability.

Example research areas

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Human activity is the most significant cause of land cover change, and humans are also directly impacted by the environmental consequences of these changes.[5] Collective land use and land cover changes have fundamentally altered the functioning of key Earth systems.[13] For instance, human changes to land use and land cover have a profound impact climate at a local and regional level, which in turn contributes to climate change.[13]


Given the important role that humans play in land cover change, and to understand land change patterns and their affect the climate, land change scientists must identify the social and economic drivers of historic land change. Two examples of land use and land cover change that play a key role in the social and economic dimensions of land change science, are deforestation and urbanization.

Rainforest deforestation for land use conversion

Deforestation, in the context of land change science, is the systematic and permanent conversion of previously forested land for other uses.[14] It has historically been a primary facilitator of land use and land cover change, is a particular focus of land change science.[8] Deforestation occurs for many interconnected reasons.[15] Thus it is important for land change scientists to track it in order to identify patterns that can shed light on why and when it happens. 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.

Broadly, urbanization is the increasing number of people who live in urban areas. In the context of land change science, urbanization refers to both urban population growth and the physical growth of urban areas.[16] Although urbanized areas cover just 3% of the Earth's surface, they nevertheless have a significant impact on land use and land cover change.[17]

Urbanization is important to land use and land cover change, and therefore land change science, for a variety of reasons. For example, urbanization affects land cover through the urban heat island effect. The effects of urban areas on climate indicate that urbanization may become a significant component of land change science.

Challenges

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Land change science as a discipline faces several challenges, many of the stemming from its interdisciplinary qualities or issues with developing inferences using aggregate data.[18] For example, land change science is limited by constraints on data and lack of understanding of underlying issues of land change.[19] Specifically, the spatial models frequently used to study land change may restricted by lack of access to public data on land change, faulty sensors, and high levels of variable uncertainty.[19] Thus, models are often only able to make short-term projections, which severely limits the level of prediction they can provide.[19] Additionally, it is difficult to synthesize and combine the case studies of social-environmental systems that are essential to the study of land change on a global scale.[20] Thus, these setbacks pose fundamental challenges to the connection of communities and environment that land change science seeks to achieve.[18]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Land Change Science Program - Science". www.usgs.gov. Archived from the original on 2021-02-10. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  2. ^ a b Messerli, Peter; Heinimann, Andreas; Giger, Markus; Breu, Thomas; Schönweger, Oliver (2013-10-01). "From 'land grabbing' to sustainable investments in land: potential contributions by land change science". Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 5 (5): 528–534. Bibcode:2013COES....5..528M. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2013.03.004. ISSN 1877-3435.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ a b 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.
  5. ^ a b c d "The Science of LCLUC | LCLUC". lcluc.umd.edu. Archived from the original on 2021-01-17. Retrieved 2021-03-08.
  6. ^ 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. Bibcode:2015REnvC..15..211M. doi:10.1007/s10113-014-0626-8. ISSN 1436-3798. PMC 4372122. PMID 25821402.
  7. ^ a b "Land Cover Monitoring and Assessments | USGS.gov". www.usgs.gov. Archived from the original on 2021-02-10. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  8. ^ a b 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. hdl:11122/8174. ISSN 0006-3568.
  9. ^ a b "Risk and Vulnerability | USGS.gov". www.usgs.gov. Archived from the original on 2021-01-25. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  10. ^ a b Van Vliet, Jasper; Bregt, Arnold K.; Brown, Daniel G.; Van Delden, Hedwig; Heckbert, Scott; Verburg, Peter H. (2016-08-01). "A review of current calibration and validation practices in land-change modeling". Environmental Modelling & Software. 82: 174–182. Bibcode:2016EnvMS..82..174V. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2016.04.017. ISSN 1364-8152. Archived from the original on 2021-04-18. Retrieved 2021-04-09.
  11. ^ a b Brown, Daniel G.; et al. (2014). Advancing Land Change Modeling: Opportunities and Research Requirements. Washington, DC: The National Academic Press. pp. 11–12. ISBN 978-0-309-28833-0.
  12. ^ Brown DG, Verburg PH, Pontius Jr RG, Lange MD (October 2013). "Opportunities to improve impact, integration, and evaluation of land change models". Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 5 (5): 452–457. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2013.07.012.
  13. ^ a b Lambin, Eric F.; Turner, B.L.; Geist, Helmut J.; Agbola, Samuel B.; Angelsen, Arild; Bruce, John W.; Coomes, Oliver T.; Dirzo, Rodolfo; Fischer, Günther; Folke, Carl; George, P.S.; Homewood, Katherine; Imbernon, Jacques; Leemans, Rik; Li, Xiubin; Moran, Emilio F.; Mortimore, Michael; Ramakrishnan, P.S.; Richards, John F.; Skånes, Helle; Steffen, Will; Stone, Glenn D.; Svedin, Uno; Veldkamp, Tom A.; Vogel, Coleen; Xu, Jianchu (2001-12-01). "The causes of land-use and land-cover change: moving beyond the myths". Global Environmental Change. 11 (4): 261–269. doi:10.1016/S0959-3780(01)00007-3. ISSN 0959-3780. Archived from the original on 2020-07-05. Retrieved 2021-04-09.
  14. ^ Derouin, Sarah (2019). "Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects". livescience.com. Archived from the original on 2020-12-20. Retrieved 2021-03-08.
  15. ^ 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. Bibcode:2013ESPSD..55a...3L. doi:10.1080/00139157.2013.748385. ISSN 0013-9157. PMC 3857132. PMID 24347675.
  16. ^ "Urbanization". ScienceDaily. Archived from the original on 2021-01-13. Retrieved 2021-04-09.
  17. ^ Liu, Zhifeng; He, Chunyang; Zhou, Yuyu; Wu, Jianguo (May 2014). "How much of the world's land has been urbanized, really? A hierarchical framework for avoiding confusion". Landscape Ecology. 29 (5): 763–771. Bibcode:2014LaEco..29..763L. doi:10.1007/s10980-014-0034-y. ISSN 0921-2973. S2CID 207209868.
  18. ^ a b Rindfuss, Ronald R.; Walsh, Stephen J.; Turner, B. L.; Fox, Jefferson; Mishra, Vinod (2004-09-28). "Developing a science of land change: Challenges and methodological issues". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 101 (39): 13976–13981. Bibcode:2004PNAS..10113976R. doi:10.1073/pnas.0401545101. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 521107. PMID 15383671.
  19. ^ a b c Council, National Research (2013-09-16). Advancing Land Change Modeling: Opportunities and Research Requirements. doi:10.17226/18385. ISBN 978-0-309-28833-0. Archived from the original on 2021-04-16. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  20. ^ "GLOBE: Global Collaboration Engine - Land Change Science". Archived from the original on 2021-04-16. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
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