scholarly journals Land-cover change threatens tropical forests and biodiversity in the Littoral Region, Cameroon

Oryx ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
pp. 882-891 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud I. Mahmoud ◽  
Mason J. Campbell ◽  
Sean Sloan ◽  
Mohammed Alamgir ◽  
William F. Laurance
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Landsat Imagery ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Littoral Region ◽  
Equatorial Africa ◽  
Forest Regions ◽  
Forested Areas ◽  
Major Factors

AbstractTropical forest regions in equatorial Africa are threatened with degradation, deforestation and biodiversity loss as a result of land-cover change. We investigated historical land-cover dynamics in unprotected forested areas of the Littoral Region in south-western Cameroon during 1975–2017, to detect changes that may influence this important biodiversity and wildlife area. Processed Landsat imagery was used to map and monitor changes in land use and land cover. From 1975 to 2017 the area of high-value forest landscapes decreased by c. 420,000 ha, and increasing forest fragmentation caused a decline of c. 12% in the largest patch index. Conversely, disturbed vegetation, cleared areas and urban areas all expanded in extent, by 32% (c. 400,000 ha), 5.6% (c. 26,800 ha) and 6.6% (c. 78,631 ha), respectively. The greatest increase was in the area converted to oil palm plantations (c. 26,893 ha), followed by logging and land clearing (c. 34,838 ha), all of which were the major factors driving deforestation in the study area. Our findings highlight the increasing threats facing the wider Littoral Region, which includes Mount Nlonako and Ebo Forest, both of which are critical areas for regional conservation and the latter a proposed National Park and the only sizable area of intact forest in the region. Intact forest in the Littoral Region, and in particular at Ebo, merits urgent protection.

scholarly journals Long-term effects of land use/land cover change on surface runoff in urban areas of Beijing, China

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 084596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongchang Sun ◽  
Xinwu Li ◽  
Wenxue Fu ◽  
Yingkui Li ◽  
Dongsheng Tang
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Surface Runoff ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Effects Of Land Use ◽  
Beijing China

Historical and Future Land-Cover Change in a Municipality of Ghana

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (9) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel M. Attua ◽  
Joshua B. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Land Cover Changes ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Land Administration

Abstract Urban land-cover change is increasing dramatically in most developing nations. In Africa and in the New Juaben municipality of Ghana in particular, political stability and active socioeconomic progress has pushed the urban frontier into the countryside at the expense of the natural ecosystems at ever-increasing rates. Using Landsat satellite imagery from 1985 to 2003, the study found that the urban core expanded by 10% and the peri-urban areas expanded by 25% over the period. Projecting forward to 2015, it is expected that urban infrastructure will constitute 70% of the total land area in the municipality. Giving way to urban expansion were losses in open woodlands (19%), tree fallow (9%), croplands (4%), and grass fallow (3%), with further declines expected for 2015. Major drivers of land-cover changes are attributed to demographic changes and past microeconomic policies, particularly the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP); the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP); and, more recently, the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS). Pluralistic land administration, complications in the land tenure systems, institutional inefficiencies, and lack of capacity in land administration were also key drivers of land-cover changes in the New Juaben municipality. Policy recommendations are presented to address the associated challenges.

scholarly journals Transformasi Lanskap dan Layanan Ekosistem Budaya di Area Peri-Urban: Wisata Alam dan Permukiman di Bandung Selatan

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-78
Author(s):  
Medria Shekar Rani
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Landsat Imagery ◽  
Urban Ecosystem ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Destination Area ◽  
Landscape Alteration ◽  
Increasing Demand

Peri-urban provides complementary urban ecosystem services when green areas in cities are decreasing due to densification. However, land cover change in the area from natural landscapes to agriculture and settlements affects the ecosystem's capacity to provide services. This study aims to identify landscape transformation using a model and analyze its effects on cultural ecosystem services at Kawah Putih (White Crater) nature-based tourism destination area in the peri-urban in South Bandung, Indonesia. This study also analyzes how cultural ecosystem services and the increasing demand for new settlements in the area have influenced tourist visitation. Landscape change in the area (1989-2019) was identified from mapsdeveloped from Landsat imagery, using the Land Change Modeler (LCM) module in Terrset. A spatial assessment of offered cultural ecosystem services was then conducted using three indicators based on the land cover change near Kawah Putih. It is found that the composition of developed areas in the district has increased from 6.09% to 10.79% in 30 years. The quality of cultural ecosystem service has decreased, which is arguably influenced by the landscape alteration in the area. However, there was an increasing trend in the number of tourists (2016-2019) despite the deterioration of landscape quality. It is argued that the result is influenced by the visitors' perception of the landscape in the case study area. The rapid land cover change in the area was affected by the nearby city's growth, in which the tourism industry is one of the elements of such transformation.

Land Cover Change: Does it affect temperature variability?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aristoklis Lagos ◽  
Stavroula Sigourou ◽  
Panayiotis Dimitriadis ◽  
Theano Iliopoulou ◽  
Demetris Koutsoyiannis
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Temperature Increase ◽  
Temperature Variability ◽  
Land Cover Changes ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Different Types ◽  
General Dynamics ◽  
Global Datasets

<p>Changes in the land cover occur all the time at the surface of the Earth both naturally and anthropogenically. In the last decades, certain types of land cover change, including urbanization, have been correlated to local temperature increase, but the general dynamics of this relationship are still not well understood. This work examines whether land cover is a parameter affecting temperature increase by employing global datasets of land cover change, i.e. the Historical Land-Cover Change Global Dataset, and daily temperature from the NOAA database. We thoroughly investigate the temperature variability and its possible correlation to the different types of land-cover changes. A comparison is specifically made between the rate of temperature increase measured in urban areas, and the same rate measured in nearby non-urban areas.</p>

scholarly journals Satellite-Based Assessment of Grassland Conversion and Related Fire Disturbance in the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Hess ◽  
Cheila Cullen ◽  
Jeanette Cobian-Iñiguez ◽  
Jacob Ramthun ◽  
Victor Lenske ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Landsat Imagery ◽  
Fire Danger ◽  
Fire Disturbance ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Kenai Peninsula ◽  
Spruce Beetle ◽  
Grassland Conversion ◽  
The Relationship

Spruce beetle-induced (Dendroctonus rufipennis (Kirby)) mortality on the Kenai Peninsula has been hypothesized by local ecologists to result in the conversion of forest to grassland and subsequent increased fire danger. This hypothesis stands in contrast to empirical studies in the continental US which suggested that beetle mortality has only a negligible effect on fire danger. In response, we conducted a study using Landsat data and modeling techniques to map land cover change in the Kenai Peninsula and to integrate change maps with other geospatial data to predictively map fire danger for the same region. We collected Landsat imagery to map land cover change at roughly five-year intervals following a severe, mid-1990s beetle infestation to the present. Land cover classification was performed at each time step and used to quantify grassland encroachment patterns over time. The maps of land cover change along with digital elevation models (DEMs), temperature, and historical fire data were used to map and assess wildfire danger across the study area. Results indicate the highest wildfire danger tended to occur in herbaceous and black spruce land cover types, suggesting that the relationship between spruce beetle damage and wildfire danger in costal Alaskan forested ecosystems differs from the relationship between the two in the forests of the coterminous United States. These change detection analyses and fire danger predictions provide the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge (KENWR) ecologists and other forest managers a better understanding of the extent and magnitude of grassland conversion and subsequent change in fire danger following the 1990s spruce beetle outbreak.

Land Cover Change Simulations in Yangon Under Several Scenarios of Flood and Earthquake Vulnerabilities with Master Plan

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanakorn Sritarapipat ◽  
◽  
Wataru Takeuchi
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Land Cover Changes ◽  
Master Plan ◽  
Economic Area ◽  
Urban Planning And Management ◽  
Multiple Scenarios

Yangon is the largest city and major economic area in Myanmar. However, it is considered to have a high risk of floods and earthquakes. In order to mitigate future flood and earthquake damage in Yangon, land cover change simulations considering flood and earthquake vulnerabilities are needed to support urban planning and management. This paper proposes land cover change simulations in Yangon from 2020 to 2040 under various scenarios of flood and earthquake vulnerabilities with a master plan. In our methodology, we used a dynamic statistical model to predict urban expansion in Yangon from 2020 to 2040. We employed a master plan as the future dataset to enhance the prediction of urban expansion. We applied flood and earthquake vulnerabilities based on multi-criteria analysis as the areas vulnerable to disaster. We simulated land cover changes from 2020 to 2040 considering the vulnerable areas with a master plan for multiple scenarios. The experiments indicated that by using a master plan, some of the predicted urban areas are still located in areas highly vulnerable to floods and earthquakes. By integrating the prediction of urban expansion with flood and earthquake vulnerabilities, the predicted urban areas can effectively avoid areas highly vulnerable to floods and earthquakes.

scholarly journals Quantifying Short-Term Urban Land Cover Change with Time Series Landsat Data: A Comparison of Four Different Cities

Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 4319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongsheng Zhang ◽  
Ting Wang ◽  
Yuhan Zhang ◽  
Yiru Dai ◽  
Jiangjie Jia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Land ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Land Cover Types ◽  
Urban Land Cover ◽  
Urban Land Cover Change

Short-term characteristics of urban land cover change have been observed and reported from satellite images, although urban landscapes are mainly influenced by anthropogenic factors. These short-term changes in urban areas are caused by rapid urbanization, seasonal climate changes, and phenological ecological changes. Quantifying and understanding these short-term characteristics of changes in various land cover types is important for numerous urban studies, such as urbanization assessments and management. Many previous studies mainly investigated one study area with insufficient datasets. To more reliably and confidently investigate temporal variation patterns, this study employed Fourier series to quantify the seasonal changes in different urban land cover types using all available Landsat images over four different cities, Melbourne, Sao Paulo, Hamburg, and Chicago, within a five-year period (2011–2015). The overall accuracy was greater than 86% and the kappa coefficient was greater than 0.80. The R-squared value was greater than 0.80 and the root mean square error was less than 7.2% for each city. The results indicated that (1) the changing periods for water classes were generally from half a year to one and a half years in different areas; and, (2) urban impervious surfaces changed over periods of approximately 700 days in Melbourne, Sao Paulo, and Hamburg, and a period of approximately 215 days in Chicago, which was actually caused by the unavoidable misclassification from confusions between various land cover types using satellite data. Finally, the uncertainties of these quantification results were analyzed and discussed. These short-term characteristics provided important information for the monitoring and assessment of urban areas using satellite remote sensing technology.

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