Case Study 3: Modelling the Impacts of Land-use and Climate Change on Hydrological Responses in the Mixed Underdeveloped/Developed Mgeni Catchment, South Africa

Urbanization is one of the most significant contributing factors to anthropogenic climate change. However, a lack of projected city land use data has posed significant challenges to factoring urbanization into climate change modeling. Thus, the results from current models may contain considerable errors in estimating future climate scenarios. The Pearl River Delta region was selected as a case study to provide insight into how large-scale urbanization and different climate change scenarios impact the local climate. This study adopts projected land use data from freely available satellite imagery and applies dynamic simulation land use results to the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF). The simulation periods cover the summer periods in 2010 and 2029–2031, the latter of which is averaged to represent the year 2030. The WRF simulation used the observed local climate conditions in 2010 to represent the current scenario and the projected local climate changes for 2030 as the future scenario. Under all three future climate change scenarios, the warming trend is prominent (around 1–2 °C increase), with a widespread reduction in wind speed in inland areas (1–2 ms−1). The vulnerability of human health to thermal stress was evaluated by adopting the wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT). The results from the future scenarios suggest a high public health risk due to rising temperatures in the future. This study provides a methodology for a more comprehensive understanding of future urbanization and its impact on regional climate by using freely available satellite images and WRF simulation tools. The simulated temperature and WBGT results can serve local governments and stakeholders in city planning and the creation of action plans that will reduce the potential vulnerability of human health to excessive heat.

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Agricultural land use conflict in the context of climate change: an Australian case study

Research Handbook on Climate Change and Agricultural Law ◽

10.4337/9781784710644.00019 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 385-422

Author(s):

Amanda Kennedy ◽

Amy Cosby

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Agricultural Land Use ◽

Land Use Conflict ◽

Australian Case

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Land Use Optimization for a Rapidly Urbanizing City with Regard to Local Climate Change: Shenzhen as a Case Study

Journal of Urban Planning and Development ◽

10.1061/(asce)up.1943-5444.0000200 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 141 (1) ◽

pp. 05014007 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Wenting Zhang ◽

Bo Huang

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Local Climate ◽

Land Use Optimization ◽

Local Climate Change

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Scenario Analysis on Climate Change Impacts of Urban Land Expansion under Different Urbanization Patterns: A Case Study of Wuhan Metropolitan

Advances in Meteorology ◽

10.1155/2013/293636 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2013 ◽

pp. 1-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Xinli Ke ◽

Feng Wu ◽

Caixue Ma

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Urban Expansion ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Urban Land ◽

Urban Land Use ◽

Rapid Urbanization ◽

Urban Land Expansion ◽

The Impact

Urban land expansion plays an important role in climate change. It is significant to select a reasonable urban expansion pattern to mitigate the impact of urban land expansion on the regional climate in the rapid urbanization process. In this paper, taking Wuhan metropolitan as the case study area, and three urbanization patterns scenarios are designed to simulate spatial patterns of urban land expansion in the future using the Partitioned and Asynchronous Cellular Automata Model. Then, simulation results of land use are adjusted and inputted into WRF (Weather Research and Forecast) model to simulate regional climate change. The results show that: (1) warming effect is strongest under centralized urbanization while it is on the opposite under decentralized scenario; (2) the warming effect is stronger and wider in centralized urbanization scenario than in decentralized urbanization scenario; (3) the impact trends of urban land use expansion on precipitation are basically the same under different scenarios; (4) and spatial distribution of rainfall was more concentrated under centralized urbanization scenario, and there is a rainfall center of wider scope, greater intensity. Accordingly, it can be concluded that decentralized urbanization is a reasonable urbanization pattern to mitigate climate change in rapid urbanization period.

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Land Use Zoning for Conserving Ecosystem Services under the Impact of Climate Change: A Case Study in the Middle Reaches of the Heihe River Basin

Advances in Meteorology ◽

10.1155/2015/496942 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2015 ◽

pp. 1-13 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Chenchen Shi ◽

Jinyan Zhan ◽

Yongwei Yuan ◽

Feng Wu ◽

Zhihui Li

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

River Basin ◽

Heihe River Basin ◽

Heihe River ◽

Impact Of Climate Change ◽

The Impact ◽

The Heihe River Basin

Ecosystem services are the benefit human populations derive directly and indirectly from the natural environment. They suffer from both the human intervention, like land use zoning change, and natural intervention, like the climate change. Under the background of climate change, regulation services of ecosystem could be strengthened under proper land use zoning policy to mitigate the climate change. In this paper, a case study was conducted in the middle reaches of the Heihe River Basin to assess the ecosystem services conservation zoning under the change of land use associated with climate variations. The research results show the spatial impact of land use zoning on ecosystem services in the study area which are significant reference for the spatial optimization of land use zoning in preserving the key ecosystem services to mitigate the climate change. The research contributes to the growing literature in finely characterizing the ecosystem services zones altered by land use change to alleviate the impact of climate change, as there is no such systematic ecosystem zoning method before.

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