Austral Yungas under future climate and land-use changes scenarios: the importance of protected areas for long-term amphibian conservation

Vegetation Fractional Cover (VFC) is an important global indicator of land cover change, land use practice and landscape, and ecosystem function. In this study, we present the Global Vegetation Fractional Cover Product (GVFCP) and explore the levels and trends in VFC across World Grassland Type (WGT) Ecoregions considering variation associated with Global Livestock Production Systems (GLPS). Long-term average levels and trends in fractional cover of photosynthetic vegetation (FPV), non-photosynthetic vegetation (FNPV), and bare soil (FBS) are mapped, and variation among GLPS types within WGT Divisions and Ecoregions is explored. Analysis also focused on the savanna-woodland WGT Formations. Many WGT Divisions showed wide variation in long-term average VFC and trends in VFC across GLPS types. Results showed large areas of many ecoregions experiencing significant positive and negative trends in VFC. East Africa, Patagonia, and the Mitchell Grasslands of Australia exhibited large areas of negative trends in FNPV and positive trends FBS. These trends may reflect interactions between extended drought, heavy livestock utilization, expanded agriculture, and other land use changes. Compared to previous studies, explicit measurement of FNPV revealed interesting additional information about vegetation cover and trends in many ecoregions. The Australian and Global products are available via the GEOGLAM RAPP (Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring Rangeland and Pasture Productivity) website, and the scientific community is encouraged to utilize the data and contribute to improved validation.

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Satellite Imaging and Long-Term Mosquito Surveillance Implicate the Influence of Rapid Urbanization on Culex Vector Populations

Insects ◽

10.3390/insects10090269 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (9) ◽

pp. 269

Author(s):

Eleanor N. Field ◽

Ryan E. Tokarz ◽

Ryan C. Smith

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Disease Transmission ◽

Culex Pipiens ◽

Management Practices ◽

Mosquito Species ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Mosquito Vector ◽

Rapid Urbanization ◽

Mosquito Surveillance

The ecology and environmental conditions of a habitat have profound influences on mosquito population abundance. As a result, mosquito species vary in their associations with particular habitat types, yet long-term studies showing how mosquito populations shift in a changing ecological landscape are lacking. To better understand how land use changes influence mosquito populations, we examined mosquito surveillance data over a thirty-four-year period for two contrasting sites in central Iowa. One site displayed increasing levels of urbanization over time and a dramatic decline in Culex pipiens group (an informal grouping of Culex restuans, Culex pipiens, and Culex salinarius, referred to as CPG), the primary vectors of West Nile virus in central Iowa. Similar effects were also shown for other mosquito vector populations, yet the abundance of Aedes vexans remained constant during the study period. This is in contrast to a second site, which reflected an established urban landscape. At this location, there were no significant changes in land use and CPG populations remained constant. Climate data (temperature, total precipitation) were compiled for each location to see if these changes could account for altered population dynamics, but neither significantly influence CPG abundance at the respective site locations. Taken together, our data suggest that increased landscape development can have negative impacts on Culex vector populations, and we argue that long-term surveillance paired with satellite imagery analysis are useful methods for measuring the impacts of rapid human development on mosquito vector communities. As a result, we believe that land use changes can have important implications for mosquito management practices, population modeling, and disease transmission dynamics.

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Future climate and land use instability can negate the benefits of protected areas

10.21203/rs.3.rs-270966/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ernest Asamoah ◽

Linda Beaumont ◽

Joesph M Maina

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Multiple Scales ◽

Future Climate ◽

Spatially Adaptive ◽

Climate Stress ◽

Potential Benefits ◽

High Conservation ◽

Climate Velocity

Abstract Expanding protected area networks and enhancing their capacities is currently one avenue at the forefront of efforts to conserve and restore global biodiversity. Climate and habitat loss resulting from land use interact synergistically to undermine the potential benefits of protected areas (PAs). Targeting conservation, adaptation and mitigation efforts requires an understanding of patterns of climate and land-use change within the current arrangement of PAs, and how these might change in the future. In this paper, we provide this understanding using predicted rates of temporal and spatial displacement of future climate and land use globally and within PAs. We show that ~ 47% of the world’s PAs—10.6% of which are under restrictive management—are located in regions that will likely experience both climate stress and land-use instability by 2050. The vast majority of these PAs are also distributed across moist biomes and in high conservation value regions, and fall into less-restrictive management categories. The differential impacts of combined land use and climate velocity across protected biomes indicate that climate and land-use change may have fundamentally different ecological and management consequences at multiple scales. Taken together, our findings can inform spatially adaptive natural resource management and actions to achieve sustainable development and biodiversity goals.

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Relationships between landslides and land use changes in the Sanbagawa and Mikabu Belts, Shikoku, Japan

Abstracts of the ICA ◽

10.5194/ica-abs-1-203-2019 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

pp. 1-1

Author(s):

Roxanne Lai ◽

Takashi Oguchi

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Spatial Data ◽

Landslide Susceptibility ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Land Abandonment ◽

Crystalline Schist ◽

Agricultural Abandonment ◽

Landslide Kinematics

Abstract. Changing land use is an increasingly important issue as human habits, behaviors, and needs change. There has been an increase in land and agricultural abandonment in some places of the world. In Japan, movement of the population from rural to urban areas have resulted in much land and agricultural abandonment. In 2016, a land ministry survey showed that 4.1 million hectares of land in Japan had unclear ownership, with farmland making up 16.9% of the total. As vegetation cover changes after land abandonment, this temporal and spatial effect may have important effects on geomorphic processes such as landslide susceptibility and landslide kinematics.Here we track long-term land use changes over vegetated landslide areas of the Sanbagawa and Mikabu Belts of Shikoku Island, Japan. The Sanbagawa and Mikabu Belts are metamorphic belts that run across Southwest Japan, and are home to numerous large crystalline schist landslides, including the widely-studied slow but continuously moving Zentoku landslide. Villages and communities have been built on these landslide areas due to historical and cultural factors, as well as the fertility of the soil. Consequently, given the changing land uses including land abandonment in these landslide areas over time, we use long-term high-resolution land cover vegetation datasets to examine first the long-term land use changes, and then use statistical methods to explore their relationships with landslide susceptibility and kinematics. Mapping of spatial data and their analysis using GIS constitute a core part of the research. The results suggest interconnections between land use changes and land movement.

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Spatial Planning as a Tool for Effective Nature Conservation: A Conceptual Framework for Turkey’s Spatial Planning System

Journal of Landscape Ecology ◽

10.2478/jlecol-2018-0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 73-98

Author(s):

Esra Yazici Gökmen ◽

Nuran Zeren Gülersoy

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Nature Conservation ◽

Literature Review ◽

Conceptual Framework ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Conservation Planning ◽

Spatial Planning ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Planning System ◽

Effective Planning

Abstract Protected areas can be parts of larger ecosystems, and land use changes in the unprotected part of the ecosystems may threaten the biological diversity by affecting the ecological processes. The relationship between protected areas and their surroundings has been influential in understanding the role of spatial planning in nature conservation. This article focuses on the problem that Turkey’s protected areas are vulnerable to pressure and threats caused by land use changes. Spatial planning serving as a bridge between nature conservation and land use is the solution for effective nature conservation in Turkey. Thereby, the aim of this article is to develop a conceptual framework which offers spatial planning as an effective tool to bridge the gap between land use change and nature conservation. In this context, first literature review is conducted, and systematic conservation planning, evidence-based conservation planning, bioregional planning and national system planning are presented as effective planning methods in nature conservation. In addition to literature review, official national statistics and Convention on Biological Diversity’s country reports are utilized to shed light on Turkey’s current state. Finally, a conceptual framework is defined, the main differences with the current situation are revealed. The results indicate that an effective planning system for Turkey’s protected areas incorporates a holistic, target-oriented system defining the spatial planning process for protected areas. The spatial planning system to be developed in this context is also used by decision-makers in evaluating the ecological effectiveness of existing plans.

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Comparative analysis of the impact of slope inclination and altitude on long-term land use changes in Czechia

AUC GEOGRAPHICA ◽

10.14712/23361980.2015.43 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 71-76 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Přemysl Štych

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Comparative Analysis ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Slope Inclination ◽

The Impact

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The social context for conservation: amphibians in human-shaped landscapes

10.7287/peerj.preprints.27918 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Tibor Hartel ◽

Ben C Scheele ◽

Laurentiu Rozylowicz ◽

Andra Horcea-Milcu ◽

Dan Cogalniceanu

Keyword(s):

Protected Areas ◽

Amphibian Conservation ◽

Social Aspects ◽

Direct Control ◽

Adaptive Potential ◽

Management Options ◽

Economic Context ◽

The Social ◽

Natural Landscapes

Many human-shaped landscapes support viable amphibian populations due to the habitats created and/or maintained as a consequence of human actions. The challenges and approaches required to achieve the persistence of amphibians in human-shaped landscapes are markedly different from approaches commonly applied in protected areas. Contrary to protected areas or natural landscapes where amphibian conservationists can have direct control over management, in human-shaped landscapes, management options are best approached through understanding local communities’ values and socio-economic aspirations. However, consideration of the social aspects of amphibian conservation are vastly under-represented in the amphibian conservation literature. We propose that amphibian conservationists should: (i) assess the controllability of their mitigation actions for achieving long-term sustainability, (ii) understand the values and attitudes of individual landowners towards amphibians and amphibian-friendly management (local scale) and land stewardship on which amphibian conservation initiatives can be built (landscape scale), and (iii) understand the social and economic drivers of land-use change operating at regional levels, which is crucial for building adaptive potential in conservation programs. Since targeted amphibian conservation initiatives are limited in many human-shaped landscapes, consideration of the socio-economic context conducive to amphibian persistence is crucial.

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Forecasted climate and land use changes, and protected areas: the contrasting case of spiders

Diversity and Distributions ◽

10.1111/ddi.12191 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 20 (6) ◽

pp. 686-697 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Boris Leroy ◽

Céline Bellard ◽

Nicolas Dubos ◽

Arthur Colliot ◽

Manon Vasseur ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Land Use Changes

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Integrating Land-Use and Renewable Energy Planning Decisions: A Technical Mapping Guide for Local Government

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information ◽

10.3390/ijgi9050324 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (5) ◽

pp. 324

Author(s):

Jiaao Guo ◽

Victoria Fast ◽

Philip Teri ◽

Kirby Calvert

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Renewable Energy ◽

Land Use Planning ◽

Local Governments ◽

Emission Reduction ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Planning Decisions ◽

Environmentally Sensitive ◽

Utility Scale

Land-based, utility-scale renewable energy (RE) systems using wind or solar resources to generate electricity is becoming a decisive solution to meet long-term carbon emission reduction goals. Local governments are responding in kind, by adopting their own goals and/or establishing policies to facilitate successful implementations of RE in their jurisdiction. One factor to successful RE development is to locate the most suitable lands, while continuing to sustain land-based economies and ecosystem services. Local governments often have limited resources; and this is especially true for small, land-constrained local governments. In this paper, we illustrate how a standardized RE technical mapping framework can be used by local governments to advance the implementation of RE in land-constrained areas, through a case study in the Town of Canmore, Alberta. Canmore has a limited municipal area surrounded by the Canadian Rockies, along with complex land-use bylaw and environmentally sensitive habitats. This mapping framework accounts for these conditions as it considers theoretical resources, technically recoverable lands, legally accessible lands, and the spatial capital cost of connecting new RE facilities. Different land-use planning scenarios are considered including changing setback buffers and expanding restrictions on development to all environmentally sensitive districts. The total RE potentials are then estimated based on the least-conflict lands. Technically speaking, even under restrictive land suitability scenarios, Canmore holds enough land to achieve ambitious RE targets, but opportunities and challenges to implementation remain. To eventually succeed in its long-term emission reduction goal, the most decisive step for Canmore is to balance the growth of energy demands, land-use changes, and practicable RE development. Mapping systems that can study the influence of land-use planning decisions on RE potential are critical to achieving this balance.

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