scholarly journals Modelling the effects of land use on mangroves in a RAMSAR site of Panama

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana Lopez-Angarita ◽  
Alexander Tilley ◽  
Juan M Diaz
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Coastal Development ◽  
Ramsar Site ◽  
Mangrove Forests ◽  
Cumulative Impact ◽  
Local Livelihoods ◽  
Growing Economy ◽  
The Impact

The role of mangroves as pivotal providers of ecosystem services has been widely acknowledged. In Latin America, mangroves play an important role in traditional coastal livelihoods, but the growing economy of these nations demands the expansion of land for development, putting pressure in ecosystems such as mangroves. Here we examine the impact of land use activities on mangroves in the Gulf of Montijo, a RAMSAR site located in the Pacific coast of Panama. Spatial information of land use was analysed, ground-truthed and classified into agriculture, aquaculture and coastal development, and subsequently ranked according to estimated level of impact on mangroves based on 27 interviews with local informants. We developed a spatially-referenced cumulative impact model of human activities on mangroves. Results showed that despite the protection status of the Gulf of Montijo, its mangrove forests are affected by localised human activities, dominated by agriculture. Given the importance of fishing for local livelihoods, evaluating the effects of agriculture, rice in particular, on mangroves and their associated fauna will be essential for the sustainable management of this RAMSAR site.

scholarly journals Water Accounting Plus (WA+) – a water accounting procedure for complex river basins based on satellite measurements

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (7) ◽  
pp. 2459-2472 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Karimi ◽  
W. G. M. Bastiaanssen ◽  
D. Molden
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Satellite Measurements ◽  
Resource Base ◽  
Water Depletion ◽  
Water Accounting ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Coping with water scarcity and growing competition for water among different sectors requires proper water management strategies and decision processes. A pre-requisite is a clear understanding of the basin hydrological processes, manageable and unmanageable water flows, the interaction with land use and opportunities to mitigate the negative effects and increase the benefits of water depletion on society. Currently, water professionals do not have a common framework that links depletion to user groups of water and their benefits. The absence of a standard hydrological and water management summary is causing confusion and wrong decisions. The non-availability of water flow data is one of the underpinning reasons for not having operational water accounting systems for river basins in place. In this paper, we introduce Water Accounting Plus (WA+), which is a new framework designed to provide explicit spatial information on water depletion and net withdrawal processes in complex river basins. The influence of land use and landscape evapotranspiration on the water cycle is described explicitly by defining land use groups with common characteristics. WA+ presents four sheets including (i) a resource base sheet, (ii) an evapotranspiration sheet, (iii) a productivity sheet, and (iv) a withdrawal sheet. Every sheet encompasses a set of indicators that summarise the overall water resources situation. The impact of external (e.g., climate change) and internal influences (e.g., infrastructure building) can be estimated by studying the changes in these WA+ indicators. Satellite measurements can be used to acquire a vast amount of required data but is not a precondition for implementing WA+ framework. Data from hydrological models and water allocation models can also be used as inputs to WA+.

scholarly journals Benthic foraminifera as ecological indicators in the Tunda Island Waters, Serang District, Banten Province, Indonesia

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
ISNI NURRUHWATI ◽  
FACHRI ARDIANSYAH ◽  
YUNIARTI ◽  
LINTANG PERMATA SARI YULIADI ◽  
Ruhyat Partasasmita
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Coral Reefs ◽  
Benthic Foraminifera ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Ecological Indicators ◽  
Coastal Development ◽  
Mangrove Forests ◽  
Benthic Foraminifers ◽  
A Site

Abstract. Nurruhwati I, Ardiansyah F, Yuniarti, Yuliadi LPS, Partasasmita R. 2020. Benthic foraminifera as ecological indicators in the Tunda Island Waters Serang District, Banten Province, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 21: 3142-3148. Coral reef communities all across Southeast Asia are experiencing intense pressures from extensive tourism and massive coastal development. A prediction regarding coral reefs’ capacity to recover is a necessity since it is constantly exposed to damaging events such as mass bleaching and increased erosion. Tunda Island (which is highly rich in biodiversity and include coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass, and algae meadows) was sampled at 10 different sites in August 2019. Coral reefs are highly influenced by ecological factors such as temperature variability, salinity, DO, and pH. The assessments were conducted using the FORAM Index (FI) to accurately predict the capacity of coral reefs to recover based on relative abundances of symbiont-bearing larger benthic foraminifera in reef sediments. The FI values ranged from 3.7 to 7.9 with a median of 4.7 and the average of 5 indicates that the water quality should support the recovery of reefs by reef-building corals and symbiont-bearing larger benthic foraminifers. The lowest FI value sampled was recorded from a site with extensive human activities (FI=3.4), while the highest one was recorded from a site with minimal to none human activities (FI=7.9), which indicates that the deterioration of water quality is caused by wastes from tourism activities near the coastal area.

scholarly journals Investigation on Farmland Abandonment of Terraced Slopes Using Multitemporal Data Sources Comparison and Its Implication on Hydro-Geomorphological Processes

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pepe ◽  
Mandarino ◽  
Raso ◽  
Scarpellini ◽  
Brandolini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Landslide Susceptibility ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Temporal Analysis ◽  
Shallow Landslide ◽  
Farmland Abandonment ◽  
Geomorphological Processes ◽  
Lower Magnitude ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Terraced Slopes

This paper presents a quantitative multi-temporal analysis performed in a GIS environment and based on different spatial information sources. The research is aimed at investigating the land use transformations that occurred in a small coastal terraced basin of Eastern Liguria from the early 1950s to 2011. The degree of abandonment of cultivated terraced slopes together with its influence on the distribution, abundance, and magnitude of rainfall-induced shallow landslides were accurately analysed. The analysis showed that a large portion of terraced area (77.4%) has been abandoned over approximately sixty years. This land use transformation has played a crucial role in influencing the hydro-geomorphological processes triggered by a very intense rainstorm that occurred in 2011. The outcomes of the analysis revealed that terraces abandoned for a short time showed the highest landslide susceptibility and that slope failures affecting cultivated zones were characterized by a lower magnitude than those which occurred on abandoned terraced slopes. Furthermore, this study highlights the usefulness of cadastral data in understanding the impact of rainfall-induced landslides due to both a high spatial and thematic accuracy. The obtained results represent a solid basis for the investigation of erosion and the shallow landslide susceptibility of terraced slopes by means of a simulation of land use change scenarios.

Dynamic assessment of flood inundation based on a spatiotemporal hydrological model feed by a dynamic representation of human activities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kouadio Prudence Aka ◽  
Gerald A Corzo P ◽  
Koffi blaise  Yao
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Morphometric Parameters ◽  
Climatic Data ◽  
Runoff Water ◽  
Dynamic Representation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City ◽  
Hydrological Functioning

<p>Floods are one of the most recurrent and damaging natural disasters in cities in developing countries today. The city of Abidjan (economic capital of Côte d'Ivoire) is not immune to these disasters. Indeed, according to the ONPC (2014), floods have killed an average of 13 people each year since 2009. One of the causes of the worsening and recurrence of these disasters is the urbanization experienced by the city of Abidjan in recent years. This urbanization has resulted in an increase in waterproofed areas and at the same time an increase in the volume of runoff water. The main objective of this research is to study the dynamics of floods and to see the impact of human activities on the hydrological functioning of the Gourou and Bonoumin watersheds in order to anticipate the risks of flooding. To do this, several specific objectives have been assigned in this study. These are: (1) the morphometric characterization of each watershed ; (2) the cartographic and diagnostic of stormwater management works and the dynamics of land use as well as the study of the variability of rainfall relative to the resurgence of floods in each basin ; (3) the establishment of a geographic information system for the study of floods; and (4) the prospective study of the evolution of land use and the future hydrological functioning of the watersheds studied using scenarios in order to take measures to fight against floods. The equipment used is composed of rain gauges (for measuring the spatial variation of rainfall in each sub-basin), limnimetric scales (to measure the heights of water in rivers), a double-ring infiltrometer (to measure the infiltration capacity on the basins) and software (Goldsim for simulating the behavior of watersheds). The data used consist of climatic data (temperature, rain), historical data on the floods in Abidjan, land use data (satellite images), physical characterization data of the watersheds (slope, hydrographic network, sanitation network , rainwater management works, morphometric parameters of the basins. The methodology adopted consisted of (1) collecting historical data on past floods in Abidjan; (2) description of the environment during rainy events; (3) studying the morphometric parameters of the watersheds studied and also (4) the study of the evolution of rainfall. Thus, the results obtained made it possible to show that the Gourou and Bonoumin basins cover respectively an area of 27.42 km² and 46.37 km² and the Gravelius indices of the two basins are respectively 4.89 and 5.51. Each year, the risk of a flood occurring is 75% with an average of more than 500 million property damage. The level reached in flooded areas of about 1 meter and according to historical data about inundations in Abidjan, on average 16 people lose their lives each year.</p>

Impact of human intervention and climate change on the land cover change in the glacial affected area of the Tianshan Mountains

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Wei ◽  
Liyang Xiong ◽  
Guoan Tang ◽  
Josef Strobl ◽  
Kaikai Xue
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Snow Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Tianshan Mountains ◽  
Human Intervention ◽  
Large Spatial Scale ◽  
The Impact

<p><strong>Abstract</strong>: Land use/land cover change (LULC) in glacial affected areas are driven by climate change and human activities. Monitoring and simulation of the spatial and temporal land cover changes in this special region provide scientific basis in understanding the natural environment, helping to reveal the impact of climate change and human activities on LULC. In this study, the Tianshan Mountains (TSM), located in the hinterland of Eurasia, were selected as the study area to investigate the LULC of the glacial affected areas. The relationship between LULC, human intervention and climate change on a large spatial scale were also analyzed. The LULC of the TSM in China for the past 35 years were analyzed using a dynamical change model, a landscape pattern index, a centroid transfer model, and geoinformation TUPU based on the land use data of 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2015. Results show that the areas of cultivated and built-up lands immensely increased by 45.87% and 187%, respectively. Correspondingly, the areas of bare land and ice and snow cover decreased by 27% and 38%, respectively. The land use change in the TSM was characterized by different stages, and high conversion rate and intensity were obtained from 2000 to 2015. The landscape change was mainly reflected in terms of the significant increase in the number of patches and the simplification and regularization of patch shapes. The spatial connectivity of different land use types increased. The temperature and precipitation in the region show an increasing trend, and the melting rate of ice and snow cover significantly accelerated. This study can help to achieve a dynamic LULC model to investigate the interacting influences of climate change and human activities in glacial affected areas.</p>

scholarly journals Attribution of Runoff Reduction in the Juma River Basin to Climate Variation, Direct Human Intervention, and Land Use Change

Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1775 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingyi Bu ◽  
Chunxia Lu ◽  
Jun Niu ◽  
Yanchun Gao
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Climate Variation ◽  
Stochastic Methods ◽  
Human Intervention ◽  
Runoff Reduction ◽  
The Impact

Juma River, located in the Midwest of the Haihe River basin, is an important source of water supply to Beijing and Hebei. Over the past decades, the region has been seriously threatened by water shortages owing to complex climate conditions and intensive human activities. This study investigated the runoff characteristics of the Juma River by employing the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and stochastic methods for the period of 1961–2013. Accordingly, the runoff changes attributed to the climate variation and different types of anthropogenic activities (land use change and direct human intervention) were estimated, respectively, in conjunction with the improved quantitative response analysis. The results indicated that the annual runoff of both Zijingguan station and Zhangfang station has decreased significantly at the 0.001 significance level, and reduction rates were −0.054 billion m3 and −0.10 billion m3, respectively. Moreover, the persistency of this trend has been shown for decades (Hurst coefficient > 0.50). The SWAT model was calibrated and validated during the baseline period of 1961–1978. Significant rising temperatures and declining precipitation were the main reasons for runoff reduction, especially during the two periods of 1998–2002 and 2003–2008. Additionally, water withdrawal of Wuyi canal aggravated the runoff reduction and water scarcity conditions in the region. After 2009, the effects of direct human intervention exceeded those of climate change. However, the impact of land use change can be seen as negligible during the study period. Climate change had a greater effect on runoff reduction in winter, while the impact of human activities was more dramatic in summer.

scholarly journals Water Accounting Plus (WA+) – a water accounting procedure for complex river basins based on satellite measurements

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 12879-12919 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Karimi ◽  
W. G. M. Bastiaanssen ◽  
D. Molden
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Satellite Measurements ◽  
Resource Base ◽  
Water Depletion ◽  
Water Accounting ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Coping with the issue of water scarcity and growing competition for water among different sectors requires proper water management strategies and decision processes. A pre-requisite is a clear understanding of the basin hydrological processes, manageable and unmanageable water flows, the interaction with land use and opportunities to mitigate the negative effects and increase the benefits of water depletion on society. Currently, water professionals do not have a common framework that links hydrological flows to user groups of water and their benefits. The absence of a standard hydrological and water management summary is causing confusion and wrong decisions. The non-availability of water flow data is one of the underpinning reasons for not having operational water accounting systems for river basins in place. In this paper we introduce Water Accounting Plus (WA+), which is a new framework designed to provide explicit spatial information on water depletion and net withdrawal processes in complex river basins. The influence of land use on the water cycle is described explicitly by defining land use groups with common characteristics. Analogous to financial accounting, WA+ presents four sheets including (i) a resource base sheet, (ii) a consumption sheet, (iii) a productivity sheet, and (iv) a withdrawal sheet. Every sheet encompasses a set of indicators that summarize the overall water resources situation. The impact of external (e.g. climate change) and internal influences (e.g. infrastructure building) can be estimated by studying the changes in these WA+ indicators. Satellite measurements can be used for 3 out of the 4 sheets, but is not a precondition for implementing WA+ framework. Data from hydrological models and water allocation models can also be used as inputs to WA+.

scholarly journals Anthropocene refugia: integrating history and predictive modelling to assess the space available for biodiversity in a human-dominated world

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Monsarrat ◽  
Scott Jarvie ◽  
Jens-Christian Svenning
Keyword(s):  
Human Activities ◽  
Time Perspective ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Species Distributions ◽  
Predictive Modelling ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
The Future ◽  
Novel Concept ◽  
The Impact

1.AbstractDuring periods of strong environmental change, some areas may serve as refugia, where components of biodiversity can find protection, persist and potentially expand from should conditions again become favourable. The refugia concept has previously been used in the context of climatic change, to describe climatically stable areas in which taxa survived past Quaternary glacial-interglacial oscillations, or where they might persist in the future under anthropogenic climate change. However, with the recognition that Earth has entered the Anthropocene, an era in which human activities are the dominant driving force on ecosystems, it is critical to also consider human pressures on the environment as factors limiting species distributions. Here, we present a novel concept, Anthropocene refugia, to refer to areas that provide spatial and temporal protection from human activities and that will remain suitable for a given taxonomic unit in the long-term. It integrates a deep-time perspective on species biogeography that provides information on the natural rather than current-day relictual distribution of species, with spatial information on modern and future anthropogenic threats. We define the concept and propose a methodology to effectively identify and map realised and potential current and future refugia, using examples for two megafauna species as a proof of concept. We argue that identifying Anthropocene refugia will improve biodiversity conservation and restoration by allowing better prediction of key areas for conservation and potential for re-expansions today and in the future. More generally, it forms a new conceptual framework to assess and manage the impact of anthropogenic activities on past, current and future patterns of species distributions.

scholarly journals Effects of climate change and human activities on runoff in the Nenjiang River Basin, Northeast China

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 11521-11549 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Q. Dong ◽  
G. X. Zhang ◽  
Y. J. Xu
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Northeast China ◽  
Dominant Factor ◽  
Runoff Reduction ◽  
Nenjiang River Basin ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The Nenjiang River Basin (NRB) is an important grain-production region with abundant wetlands in Northeast China. Climate change and anthropogenic activities have dramatically altered the spatial and temporal distribution of regional stream discharge and water resources, which poses a serious threat to wetland ecosystems and sustainable agriculture. In this study, we analyzed 55-yr (1956–2010) rainfall and runoff patterns in the river basin to quantitatively evaluate the impact of human activities on regional hydrology. The long-term hydrologic series were divided into two periods: period I (1956–1974), during which minimum land use change occurred, and period II (1975–2010), during which land use change intensified. Kendall's rank correlation test, non-parametric Pettitt test and precipitation-runoff double cumulative curve (DCC) methods were utilized to identify the trends and thresholds of the annual runoff in the upstream, midstream, and downstream basin areas. Our results showed that the runoff in the NRB has continuously declined in the past 55 yr, and that the effects of climate change and human activities on the runoff reduction varied in the upstream, midstream and downstream area over different time scales. For the entire study period, climate change has been the dominant factor, accounting for 69.6–80.3% of the reduction in the total basin runoff. However, the impact of human activities has been increasing from 19.7% during the 1950s–1970s to 30.4% in the present time. Spatially, the runoff reduction became higher from the upstream to the downstream areas, revealing an increasing threat of water availability to the large wetland ecosystem in the lower river basin. Furthermore, the sustainable development of irrigated agriculture in the NRB will be a threat to the survival of the wetlands.

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