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

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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Identification of sensitive indicators to assess the interrelationship between soil quality, management practices and human health

SOIL ◽

10.5194/soil-1-173-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 173-185 ◽

Cited By ~ 122

Author(s):

R. Zornoza ◽

J. A. Acosta ◽

F. Bastida ◽

S. G. Domínguez ◽

D. M. Toledo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Human Health ◽

Soil Quality ◽

Management Practices ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Aggregate Stability ◽

Health Indicators ◽

Nutrient Content ◽

Sustainable Land Use ◽

Soil Quality Index

Abstract. Soil quality (SQ) assessment has long been a challenging issue, since soils present high variability in properties and functions. This paper aims to increase the understanding of SQ through the review of SQ assessments in different scenarios providing evidence about the interrelationship between SQ, land use and human health. There is a general consensus that there is a need to develop methods to assess and monitor SQ for assuring sustainable land use with no prejudicial effects on human health. This review points out the importance of adopting indicators of different nature (physical, chemical and biological) to achieve a holistic image of SQ. Most authors use single indicators to assess SQ and its relationship with land uses – soil organic carbon and pH being the most used indicators. The use of nitrogen and nutrient content has resulted sensitive for agricultural and forest systems, together with physical properties such as texture, bulk density, available water and aggregate stability. These physical indicators have also been widely used to assess SQ after land use changes. The use of biological indicators is less generalized, with microbial biomass and enzyme activities being the most selected indicators. Although most authors assess SQ using independent indicators, it is preferable to combine some of them into models to create a soil quality index (SQI), since it provides integrated information about soil processes and functioning. The majority of revised articles used the same methodology to establish an SQI, based on scoring and weighting of different soil indicators, selected by means of multivariate analyses. The use of multiple linear regressions has been successfully used for forest land use. Urban soil quality has been poorly assessed, with a lack of adoption of SQIs. In addition, SQ assessments where human health indicators or exposure pathways are incorporated are practically inexistent. Thus, further efforts should be carried out to establish new methodologies to assess soil quality not only in terms of sustainability, productivity and ecosystem quality but also human health. Additionally, new challenges arise with the use and integration of stable isotopic, genomic, proteomic and spectroscopic data into SQIs.

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The MODIS Global Vegetation Fractional Cover Product 2001–2018: Characteristics of Vegetation Fractional Cover in Grasslands and Savanna Woodlands

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs12030406 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 406 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Michael J. Hill ◽

Juan P. Guerschman

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Production Systems ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Bare Soil ◽

Additional Information ◽

Fractional Cover ◽

Grassland Type ◽

Global Vegetation ◽

Global Indicator

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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LUU CHECKER: A Web-based Tool to Incorporate Emerging LUs in the SWAT Model

Applied Engineering in Agriculture ◽

10.13031/aea.13295 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 35 (5) ◽

pp. 723-731 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Gurdeep Singh ◽

Dharmendra Saraswat ◽

Naresh Pai ◽

Benjamin Hancock

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Management Practices ◽

Assessment Tool ◽

Urban Forest ◽

Swat Model ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Web Based ◽

Large Size ◽

Hydrologic Response Unit ◽

User Friendly

Abstract. Standard practice of setting up Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) involves use of a single land use (LU) layer under the assumption that no change takes place in LU condition irrespective of the length of simulation period. This assumption leads to erroneous conclusions about efficacy of management practices in those watersheds where land use changes (LUCs) (e.g. agriculture to urban, forest to agriculture etc.) occur during the simulation period. To overcome this limitation, we have developed a user-friendly, web-based tool named LUU Checker that helps create a composite LU layer by integrating multiple years of LU layers available in watersheds of interest. The results show that the use of composite LU layer for hydrologic response unit (HRU) delineation in 2474-km2 L’Anguile River Watershed in Arkansas was able to capture changed LU at subbasin level by using LU data available in the year 1999 and 2006, respectively. The web-based tool is applicable for large size watersheds and is accessible to multiple users from anywhere in the world. Keywords: Land use, Web-based tool, SWAT, LUU Checker.

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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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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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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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Spatio-Temporal Variation Analysis of Landscape Pattern Response to Land Use Change from 1985 to 2015 in Xuzhou City, China

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su10114287 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (11) ◽

pp. 4287 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Yantao Xi ◽

Nguyen Thinh ◽

Cheng Li

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Landscape Pattern ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Vegetation Index ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Local Level ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Landscape Patterns ◽

Rapid Urbanization ◽

Barren Land

Rapid urbanization has dramatically spurred economic development since the 1980s, especially in China, but has had negative impacts on natural resources since it is an irreversible process. Thus, timely monitoring and quantitative analysis of the changes in land use over time and identification of landscape pattern variation related to growth modes in different periods are essential. This study aimed to inspect spatiotemporal characteristics of landscape pattern responses to land use changes in Xuzhou, China durfing the period of 1985–2015. In this context, we propose a new spectral index, called the Normalized Difference Enhanced Urban Index (NDEUI), which combines Nighttime light from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System with annual maximum Enhanced Vegetation Index to reduce the detection confusion between urban areas and barren land. The NDEUI-assisted random forests algorithm was implemented to obtain the land use/land cover maps of Xuzhou in 1985, 1995, 2005, and 2015, respectively. Four different periods (1985–1995, 1995–2005, 2005–2015, and 1985–2015) were chosen for the change analysis of land use and landscape patterns. The results indicate that the urban area has increased by about 30.65%, 10.54%, 68.77%, and 143.75% during the four periods at the main expense of agricultural land, respectively. The spatial trend maps revealed that continuous transition from other land use types into urban land has occurred in a dual-core development mode throughout the urbanization process. We quantified the patch complexity, aggregation, connectivity, and diversity of the landscape, employing a number of landscape metrics to represent the changes in landscape patterns at both the class and landscape levels. The results show that with respect to the four aspects of landscape patterns, there were considerable differences among the four years, mainly owing to the increasing dominance of urbanized land. Spatiotemporal variation in landscape patterns was examined based on 900 × 900 m sub-grids. Combined with the land use changes and spatiotemporal variations in landscape patterns, urban growth mainly occurred in a leapfrog mode along both sides of the roads during the period of 1985 to 1995, and then shifted into edge-expansion mode during the period of 1995 to 2005, and the edge-expansion and leapfrog modes coexisted in the period from 2005 to 2015. The high value spatiotemporal information generated using remote sensing and geographic information system in this study could assist urban planners and policymakers to better understand urban dynamics and evaluate their spatiotemporal and environmental impacts at the local level to enable sustainable urban planning in the future.

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The extent of land use impact on water regime

Plant Soil and Environment ◽

10.17221/3435-pse ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 52 (No. 6) ◽

pp. 239-244 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

P. Kovář

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Water Balance ◽

Water Regime ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Subsurface Water ◽

Rainfall Runoff ◽

Short Term ◽

Water Recharge ◽

The Impact

The paper is focused on the impact of land use changes on water regime. First, an emphasis was given to what extent the main components of the water balance on the experimental catchment V&scaron;eminka (region Vsetínské Hills) were influenced. For this reason, the WBCM-5 model was implemented for the period of 10 years in a daily step with a particular reference to simulate the components of direct runoff and of subsurface water recharge. In the selected years of the period 1990–2000, the major changes were made in land use and also the significant fluctuation of rainfall-runoff regimes were observed (e.g. dry year 1992 and flood year 1997). After WBCM-5 parameter calibration it was found that some water balance components can change in relation to substantial land use changes even up to tens of percent in a balance-consideration, i.e. in daily, monthly and yearly or decade values, namely the components of interception and also of direct runoff and of subsurface water recharge. However, a different situation appears when investigating significant short-term rainfall-runoff processes. There were about seven real flood events analysed using the model KINFIL-2 (time step 0.5 hr) during the same period of about 10 years on the same catchment. Furthermore, some land use change positive or negative scenarios were also analysed there. As opposed to long-term water balance analyses, there was never achieved any greater differences in the hydrograph peak or volume than 10%. Summarising, it is always important to distinguish a possible land use change impact in either long-term balance or short-term runoff consideration, otherwise a misunderstanding might be easily made, as can often be found when commenting on the impact on floods in some mass media.

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