scholarly journals The Location and Extent of Systematic Drainage in Relation to Land Use in the Past and at Present and in Relation to Soil Vulnerability to Accelerater Infiltration in the Protected Landscape Area Železné Hory

Author(s):  
Petr Karásek ◽  
Lenka Tlapáková ◽  
Jana Podhrázská

This study searched for associations between the extent of hydromelioration systems and the land use (in the past and at present), degree of nature conservation, and infiltration of water through soil profile in the Protected Landscape Area (PLA) Železné hory. According to the available evidence, 34.6% of arable land and 32.1% of permanent grasslands in this area are drained by the drainage systems. Analysis of the original design documentations of drainage structures indicate, that the extent of drained areas can actually be even higher. The hydromelioration systems were built namely in the second half of the 20th century. The drainage also affected alluvial meadows, wetlands, and ecologically valuable stations. After establishment of PLA Železné hory in 1991, the protected area was divided into four zones according to their significance and protection regime. This study has revealed the presence of areas drained by systematic drainage systems (101 ha of grasslands) even in the zones of highest landscape protection degree (1st and 2nd protection zones). The inadequately executed drainage systems should be eliminated and the character of the land should be brought closer to its natural conditions. On the model part of the PLA we also performed a study of historical changes in the landscape in three time horizons (1839, 1950, 2014) to show differences in land use before building of drainage, at the time of building, and at present.

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 288-305
Author(s):  
Addo Koranteng ◽  
Isaac Adu-Poku ◽  
Emmanuel Donkor ◽  
Tomasz Zawiła-Niedźwiecki

AbstractLand use and land cover (LULC) terrain in Ghana has undergone profound changes over the past years emanating mainly from anthropogenic activities, which have impacted countrywide and sub-regional environment. This study is a comprehensive analysis via integrated approach of geospatial procedures such as Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) of past, present and future LULC from satellite imagery covering Ghana’s Ashanti regional capital (Kumasi) and surrounding districts. Multi-temporal satellite imagery data sets of four different years, 1990 (Landsat TM), 2000 (Landsat ETM+), 2010 (Alos and Disaster Monitoring Constellation-DMC) and 2020 (SENTINEL), spanning over a 30-year period were mapped. Five major LULC categories – Closed Forest, Open Forest, Agriculture, Built-up and Water – were delineated premised on the prevailing geographical settings, field study and remote sensing data. Markov Cellular Automata modelling was applied to predict the probable LULC change consequence for the next 20 years (2040). The study revealed that both Open Forest and Agriculture class categories decreased 51.98 to 38.82 and 27.48 to 20.11, respectively. Meanwhile, Built-up class increased from 4.8% to 24.8% (over 500% increment from 1990 to 2020). Rapid urbanization caused the depletion of forest cover and conversion of farmlands into human settlements. The 2040 forecast map showed an upward increment in the Built-up area up to 35.2% at the expense of other LULC class categories. This trend from the past to the forecasted future would demand that judicious LULC resolutions have to be made to keep Ghana’s forest cover, provide arable land for farming activities and alleviate the effects of climate change.


2014 ◽  
Vol 962-965 ◽  
pp. 2660-2664
Author(s):  
Jun Chang ◽  
Yao Wu Wei ◽  
Wei Liu

Land use/cover change situations and its driving forces in the Southern Mountainous Areas of Jinan was investigated based on Landsat TM data of 1987, 2000, 2005 and 2010 in the paper. The result indicates that arable land, grassland and woodland have always accounted for the largest areal proportion in the past three decades. The area of arable land presents a degressive tendency, while the area of grassland and construction land had an opposite tendency. Population, policy as well as urbanization and economic growth are the main driving factors of the land use/cover change in the Southern Mountainous Areas of Jinan.


Author(s):  
Tatiana Vorobyova ◽  
Yelaman Smagulov

The agricultural use of land resources in the dry steppe regions of Northern Kazakhstan has undergone significant changes over the past century and continues to change at the present time. The middle position in the region is occupied by the Akmola region, one of the leading agricultural regions, where 9.3 % of the country’s gross agricultural output is produced. The main branches of agriculture in the region are grain farming and dairy and beef cattle breeding. The study of the change in the ratio of the areas of arable and pasture lands, the changes that have occurred in the state of agricultural landscapes as a result of long-term use is important for the further development of the agricultural industry in the region. Using the example of the Astrakhan district of the Akmola region, typical for the dry steppe zone, an analysis of changes in the structure of agricultural land from 1953 to 2020 was carried out. with the help of a series of digital maps compiled from detailed maps of scientific reference atlases of Northern Kazakhstan in 1964, 1970, remote sensing data of different times, archival materials and data of modern statistics. The resulting maps visualize significant changes in cropland areas within the study area over the past 70 years. Seven main periods were identified, during which the most significant changes in the structure of land use occurred as a result of political, economic and natural factors. During the years of development of virgin and fallow lands, the highest rates of increase in arable land were observed, which continued on a smaller scale until 1990. The period from 1991-1999 characterized by a large-scale reduction of arable land and abandonment of pastures. This was followed by two periods of gradual restoration of the use of arable and rangelands. Compiled comprehensive map of the dynamics of agricultural land use from 1988 to 2020 made it possible to identify spatial and temporal patterns in changes in the structure of agricultural land use, to determine to which specific natural types of lands the abandoned lands belonged and to which restored ones. Spatial analysis showed that over the past 30, more than half of the area’s area has not changed the type of land use. The results obtained are used to select the optimal ratio of arable and pasture lands in the structure of agricultural land use, as well as to develop a strategy for the rational use of agricultural land in the zone of risky farming.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Dax ◽  
Urs Schönenberger ◽  
Birgit Beck ◽  
Bernadette Vogler ◽  
Heinz Singer ◽  
...  

<p>Agricultural pesticides can enter surface waters through various pathways and impair the water quality. In the past, numerous studies have been conducted for certain entry paths such as surface runoff, direct drift into water bodies or preferential flow to drainage systems. Man-made hydraulic shortcuts (e.g. road storm drains or manholes of tile drainage systems) might potentially also play a major role for pesticide inputs into surface waters. However, they have been largely overlooked in the past. This study is the first one to measure pesticide concentrations in hydraulic shortcuts in agricultural catchments.</p><p>For our analysis, we selected a small catchment (2.8km<sup>2</sup>) with predominant arable land use in the Swiss Plateau. We installed a rain event-based sampling system at six locations in the catchment: water level proportional samplers at four road storm drainage inlets, one auto sampler in a manhole collecting water from the tile and road drainage system, and another auto sampler in the stream at the outlet of the catchment. In addition, we measured rainfall in the catchment as well as discharge or water level at each of the six sampling locations.</p><p>During spring and summer of 2019, samples were collected during 19 rain events. In a first step, the samples from the drainage inlets were analyzed. Liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry was used to quantify concentrations of 40 pesticides known to be applied in the catchment.</p><p>The obtained results support the hypothesis that hydraulic shortcuts can be relevant for pesticide transport. First, a wide variety of compounds was detected: 33 substances were found in the samples, 7 were not detected. Per rain event, 4 to 15 pesticides were measured on average. Second, some of the compounds were found in very high concentrations: some exceeded concentrations of 5 µg/L and reached up to 60 µg/L.</p><p>Ecological quality criteria are known for 15 of the analyzed substances. Based on the sum of the respective risk quotients, nearly a third of the samples posed an acute ecological risk. In most cases, the elevated risk could almost exclusively be attributed to the two herbicides Dimethenamide and Terbuthylazine, as well as to the fungicide Epoxiconazole. Azoxystrobin, Cyproconazole, Mesulfuron-methyl, Metamitron and Metribuzin added to the overall risk to a lesser extent.</p><p>In a next step, samples taken by the auto sampler will be analyzed to obtain time series of the rain events and to link the findings from storm drain inlets to the concentration dynamics observed in the receiving drainage system and the river itself.</p>


Author(s):  
Anatoly Pogorelov ◽  
Dmitry Lipilin ◽  
Evgeny Kiselev

In the Krasnodar territory, agricultural land occupies 62 % of the territory; of which 79 % is arable land. Most of the agricultural land is located on the Azov-Kuban Plain in the northern part of the region in the steppe river basins. The basin of the Beysug river with an area of about 6,000 km2, in terms of its geographical characteristics, should be attributed to representative basins from the standpoint of the modern dynamics of agricultural landscapes and transformations of the river network. The article analyzes the changes in the steppe agricultural landscapes in the Beysug river basin for the period 1999–2020 in terms of changes in the structure of land use and hydrographic characteristics, based on the data of satellite images. The transformation of agrolandscapes is accompanied by redevelopment of the territory, massive construction of dams on rivers, violation of the conditions of natural drainage, which leads to the restructuring of water exchange processes in river basins. Changes in water exchange processes under semi-arid conditions can be sensitive to local landscapes and agriculture. Until now, insufficient attention has been paid to the hydrological aspects of the transformation of steppe landscapes. According to the DEM ASTER GDEM, 15 river basins were identified with the subsequent determination of land use types on the surface of the basins. In each of the basins, a land use structure has been established, which directly affects the hydrographic indicators, and a decrease in the length of watercourses and the density of the river network has been revealed. Over the past 20 years, in the studied basins, the total length of watercourses due to plowing and redevelopment of the surface has decreased by 8–37 %, and in general in the Beysug river basin—by 469 km.


Complexity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andong Guo ◽  
Yuqing Zhang ◽  
Qing Hao

Changes in land use/cover are among the most prominent impacts that humans have on the environment. Therefore, exploring land use/cover change is of great significance to urban planning and sustainable development. In this study, we preprocessed multiperiod land use and socioeconomic data, combined with spatial zoning, multilayer perception (MLP) artificial neural network, and Markov chain (MC), to construct a cellular automaton model of spatial zoning. Moreover, with the help of ArcGIS 10.2 and TerrSet 18.07 software, we explore the current status of land use and predict future changes. The results showed that drastic changes have occurred among different land use classes in Jinzhou District over the past 13 years owing to the impact of economic development and reclamation projects. Construction land, arable land, and waters have changed by +85.09, −24.42, and −23.62 km2, respectively. By comparing the FoM and Kappa coefficients, we concluded that the prediction accuracy of partitioned MLP-MC is better than that of unpartitioned MLP-MC. Therefore, using the spatial zoning approach to identify the conversion rules among land use classes in different zones can more effectively predict future land use changes and provide a reference for urban planning and policy making.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 2621
Author(s):  
Zhanzhuo Chen ◽  
Min Huang ◽  
Daoye Zhu ◽  
Orhan Altan

As the second largest island in Japan, Hokkaido provides precious land resources for the Japanese people. Meanwhile, as the food base of Japan, the gradual decrease of the agricultural population and more intensive agricultural practices on Hokkaido have led its arable land use to change year by year, which has also caused changes to the whole land use pattern of the entire island of Hokkaido. To realize the sustainable use of land resources in Hokkaido, past and future changes in land use patterns must be investigated, and target-based land use planning suggestions should be given on this basis. This study uses remote sensing and GIS technology to analyze the temporal and spatial changes of land use in Hokkaido during the past two decades. The types of land use include cultivated land, forest, waterbody, construction, grassland, and others, by using the satellite images of the Landsat images in 2000, 2010, and 2019 to achieve this goal to make classification. In addition, this study used the coupled Markov-FLUS model to simulate and analyze the land use changes in three different scenarios in Hokkaido in the next 20 years. Scenario-based situational analysis shows that the cultivated land in Hokkaido will drop by about 25% in 2040 under the natural development scenario (ND), while the cultivated land area in Hokkaido will remain basically unchanged in cultivated land protection scenario (CP). In forest protection scenario (FP), the area of forest in Hokkaido will increase by 1580.8 km2. It is believed that the findings reveal that the forest land in Hokkaido has been well protected in the past and will be protected well in the next 20 years. However, in land use planning for future, Hokkaido government and enterprises should pay more attention to the protection of cultivated land.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 749
Author(s):  
Leonardo Bianchini ◽  
Gianluca Egidi ◽  
Ahmed Alhuseen ◽  
Adele Sateriano ◽  
Sirio Cividino ◽  
...  

The spatial mismatch between population growth and settlement expansion is at the base of current models of urban growth. Empirical evidence is increasingly required to inform planning measures promoting urban containment in the context of a stable (or declining) population. In these regards, per-capita indicators of land-use change can be adopted with the aim at evaluating long-term sustainability of urbanization processes. The present study assesses spatial variations in per-capita indicators of land-use change in Rome, Central Italy, at five years (1949, 1974, 1999, 2008, and 2016) with the final objective of quantifying the mismatch between urban expansion and population growth. Originally specialized in agricultural productions, Rome’s metropolitan area is a paradigmatic example of dispersed urban expansion in the Mediterranean basin. By considering multiple land-use dynamics, per-capita indicators of landscape change delineated three distinctive waves of growth corresponding with urbanization, suburbanization, and a more mixed stage with counter-urbanization and re-urbanization impulses. By reflecting different socioeconomic contexts on a local scale, urban fabric and forests were identified as the ‘winner’ classes, expanding homogeneously over time at the expense of cropland. Agricultural landscapes experienced a more heterogeneous trend with arable land and pastures declining systematically and more fragmented land classes (e.g., vineyards and olive groves) displaying stable (or slightly increasing) trends. The continuous reduction of per-capita surface area of cropland that’s supports a reduced production base, which is now insufficient to satisfy the rising demand for fresh food at the metropolitan scale, indicates the unsustainability of the current development in Rome and more generally in the whole Mediterranean basin, a region specialized traditionally in (proximity) agricultural productions.


Author(s):  
Tiziana Pedrotta ◽  
Erika Gobet ◽  
Christoph Schwörer ◽  
Giorgia Beffa ◽  
Christoph Butz ◽  
...  

AbstractKnowledge about the vegetation history of Sardinia, the second largest island of the Mediterranean, is scanty. Here, we present a new sedimentary record covering the past ~ 8,000 years from Lago di Baratz, north-west Sardinia. Vegetation and fire history are reconstructed by pollen, spores, macrofossils and charcoal analyses and environmental dynamics by high-resolution element geochemistry together with pigment analyses. During the period 8,100–7,500 cal bp, when seasonality was high and fire and erosion were frequent, Erica arborea and E. scoparia woodlands dominated the coastal landscape. Subsequently, between 7,500 and 5,500 cal bp, seasonality gradually declined and thermo-mediterranean woodlands with Pistacia and Quercus ilex partially replaced Erica communities under diminished incidence of fire. After 5,500 cal bp, evergreen oak forests expanded markedly, erosion declined and lake levels increased, likely in response to increasing (summer) moisture availability. Increased anthropogenic fire disturbance triggered shrubland expansions (e.g. Tamarix and Pistacia) around 5,000–4,500 cal bp. Subsequently around 4,000–3,500 cal bp evergreen oak-olive forests expanded massively when fire activity declined and lake productivity and anoxia reached Holocene maxima. Land-use activities during the past 4,000 years (since the Bronze Age) gradually disrupted coastal forests, but relict stands persisted under rather stable environmental conditions until ca. 200 cal bp, when agricultural activities intensified and Pinus and Eucalyptus were planted to stabilize the sand dunes. Pervasive prehistoric land-use activities since at least the Bronze Age Nuraghi period included the cultivation of Prunus, Olea europaea and Juglans regia after 3,500–3,300 cal bp, and Quercus suber after 2,500 cal bp. We conclude that restoring less flammable native Q. ilex and O. europaea forest communities would markedly reduce fire risk and erodibility compared to recent forest plantations with flammable non-native trees (e.g. Pinus, Eucalyptus) and xerophytic shrubland (e.g. Cistus, Erica).


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 647
Author(s):  
Fan Sun ◽  
Yi Wang ◽  
Yaning Chen ◽  
Yupeng Li ◽  
Qifei Zhang ◽  
...  

The desert-oasis ecotone, as a crucial natural barrier, maintains the stability of oasis agricultural production and protects oasis habitat security. This paper investigates the dynamic evolution of the desert-oasis ecotone in the Tarim River Basin and predicts the near-future land-use change in the desert-oasis ecotone using the cellular automata–Markov (CA-Markov) model. Results indicate that the overall area of the desert-oasis ecotone shows a shrinking trend (from 67,642 km2 in 1990 to 46,613 km2 in 2015) and the land-use change within the desert-oasis ecotone is mainly manifested by the conversion of a large amount of forest and grass area into arable land. The increasing demand for arable land for groundwater has led to a decline in the groundwater level, which is an important reason for the habitat deterioration in the desert-oasis ecotone. The rising temperature and drought have further exacerbated this trend. Assuming the current trend in development without intervention, the CA-Markov model predicts that by 2030, there will be an additional 1566 km2 of arable land and a reduction of 1151 km2 in forested area and grassland within the desert-oasis ecotone, which will inevitably further weaken the ecological barrier role of the desert-oasis ecotone and trigger a growing ecological crisis.


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