Land use changes, landscape ecology and their socioeconomic driving forces in the Spanish Mediterranean coast (the Maresme County, 1850-2005)

[cat] Utilitzem un conjunt de m��triques del paisatge per estudiar l'evoluci�� a llarg termini seguida en una t��pica zona costanera del Mediterrani des de 1850 fins a 2005, que mostren una greu deterioraci�� del medi ambient entre 1950 i 2005. Les principals forces motores d'aquesta degradaci�� del paisatge han estat el creixement urb�� experimentat a les antigues zones agr��coles situades a les planes litorals, juntament amb l'abandonament i la reforestaci�� dels vessants dels pujols interceptats per ��rees residencials de baixa densitat, carreteres i altres infraestructures lineals. Duem a terme una an��lisi estad��stica de redund��ncia (RDA) amb la finalitat d'identificar els que considerem com alguns agents rectors socioecon��mics i pol��tics d'��ltima inst��ncia d'aquests impactes ambientals. Els resultats confirmen les nostres hip��tesis interpretatives, que s��n que: 1) els canvis en les cobertes i usos del s��l determinen canvis en les propietats dels paisatge, tant estructurals com funcionals; 2) aquests canvis no es produeixen per atzar, sin�� que estan relacionats amb factors geogr��fics i forces socioecon��miques i pol��tiques.

Land use changes, landscape ecology and their socioeconomic driving forces in the Spanish Mediterranean coast (the Maresme County, 1850-2005)

[cat] Utilitzem un conjunt de m��triques del paisatge per estudiar l'evoluci�� a llarg termini seguida en una t��pica zona costanera del Mediterrani des de 1850 fins a 2005, que mostren una greu deterioraci�� del medi ambient entre 1950 i 2005. Les principals forces motores d'aquesta degradaci�� del paisatge han estat el creixement urb�� experimentat a les antigues zones agr��coles situades a les planes litorals, juntament amb l'abandonament i la reforestaci�� dels vessants dels pujols interceptats per ��rees residencials de baixa densitat, carreteres i altres infraestructures lineals. Duem a terme una an��lisi estad��stica de redund��ncia (RDA) amb la finalitat d'identificar els que considerem com alguns agents rectors socioecon��mics i pol��tics d'��ltima inst��ncia d'aquests impactes ambientals. Els resultats confirmen les nostres hip��tesis interpretatives, que s��n que: 1) els canvis en les cobertes i usos del s��l determinen canvis en les propietats dels paisatge, tant estructurals com funcionals; 2) aquests canvis no es produeixen per atzar, sin�� que estan relacionats amb factors geogr��fics i forces socioecon��miques i pol��tiques.

GIS assessing traditional and modern agricultural land use/land cover change. A case study 1959-2005: Rekijoki, Somero, SW-Finland

Finland���s rural landscape has gone through remarkable changes from the 1950���s, due to agricultural developments. Changed farming practices have influenced especially traditional landscape management, and modifications in the arable land structure and grasslands transitions are notable. The review of the previous studies reveal the importance of the rural landscape composition and structure to species and landscape diversity, whereas including the relevance in presence of the open ditches, size of the field and meadow patches, topology of the natural and agricultural landscape. This land-change study includes applying remote sensed data from two time series and empirical geospatial analysis in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The aims of this retrospective research is to detect agricultural landscape use and land cover change (LULCC) dynamics and discuss the consequences of agricultural intensification to landscape structure covering from the aspects of landscape ecology. Measurements of LULC are derived directly from pre-processed aerial images by a variety of analytical procedures, including statistical methods and image interpretation. The methodological challenges are confronted in the process of landscape classification and combining change detection approaches with landscape indices. Particular importance is paid on detecting agricultural landscape features at a small scale, demanding comprehensive understanding of such agroecosystems. Topological properties of the classified arable land and valley are determined in order to provide insight and emphasize the aspect the field edges in the agricultural landscape as important habitat. Change detection dynamics are presented with change matrix and additional calculations of gain, loss, swap, net change, change rate and tendencies are made. Transition���s possibility is computed following Markov���s probability model and presented with matrix, as well. Thesis���s spatial aspect is revealed with illustrative maps providing knowledge of location of the classified landscape categories and location of the dynamics of the changes occurred. It was assured that in Rekijoki valley���s landscape, remarkable changes in landscape has occurred. Landscape diversity has been strongly influenced by modern agricultural landscape change, as NP of open ditches has decreased and the MPS of the arable plot has decreased. Overall change in the diversity of the landscape is determined with the decrease of SHDI. Valley landscape considered as traditional land use area has experienced major transitional changes, as meadows class has lost almost one third of the area due to afforestation. Also, remarkable transitions have occurred from forest to meadow and arable land to built area. Boundaries measurement between modern and traditional landscape has indicated noticeable proportional increase in arable land-forest edge type and decrease in arable land-meadow edge type. Probability calculations predict higher future changes for traditional landscape, but also for arable land turning into built area.

Modelling the likely impact of healthy eating guidelines on agricultural production and land use in England and Wales

Quadratic programming techniques were applied to household food consumption data in England and Wales to estimate likely changes in diet under healthy eating guidelines, and the consequences this would have on agriculture and land use in England and Wales. The first step entailed imposing nutrient restrictions on food consumption following dietary recommendations suggested by the UK Department of Health. The resulting diet was used, in a second step as a proxy for demand in agricultural commodities, to test the impact of such a scenario on food production and land use in England and Wales and the impacts of this on agricultural landscapes. Results of the diet optimisation indicated a large drop in consumption of foods rich in saturated fats and sugar, essentially cheese and sugar-based products, along with lesser cuts of fat and meat products. Conversely, consumption of fruit and vegetables, cereals, and flour would increase to meet dietary fibre recommendations. Such a shift in demand would dramatically affect production patterns: the financial net margin of England and Wales agriculture would rise, due to increased production of high market value and high economic margin crops. Some regions would, however, be negatively affected, mostly those dependent on beef cattle and sheep production that could not benefit from an increased demand for cereals and horticultural crops. The effects of these changes would also be felt in upstream industries, such as animal feed suppliers. While arable dominated landscapes would be little affected, pastoral landscapes would suffer through loss of grazing management and, possibly, land abandonment, especially in upland areas.

Full effects of land use change in the representative concentration pathways

Future land use change (LUC) is an important component of the IPCC representative concentration pathways (RCPs), but in these scenarios' radiative forcing targets the climate impact of LUC only includes greenhouse gases. However, climate effects due to physical changes of the land surface can be as large. Here we show the critical importance of including non-carbon impacts of LUC when considering the RCPs. Using an ensemble of climate model simulations with and without LUC, we show that the net climate effect is very different from the carbon-only effect. Despite opposite signs of LUC, all the RCPs assessed here have a small net warming from LUC because of varying biogeophysical effects, and in RCP4.5 the warming is outside of the expected variability. The afforestation in RCP4.5 decreases surface albedo, making the net global temperature anomaly over land around five times larger than RCPs 2.6 and 8.5, for around twice the amount of LUC. Consequent changes to circulation in RCP4.5 in turn reduce Arctic sea ice cover. The small net positive temperature effect from LUC could make RCP4.5's universal carbon tax, which incentivizes retaining and growing forest, counter productive with respect to climate. However, there are spatial differences in the balance of impacts, and potential climate gains would need to be assessed against other environmental aims.

Climatic impacts of land-use change due to crop yield increases and a universal carbon tax from a scenario model*

Future land cover will have a significant impact on climate and is strongly influenced by the extent of agricultural land use. Differing assumptions of crop yield increase and carbon pricing mitigation strategies affect projected expansion of agricultural land in future scenarios. In the representative concentration pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5) from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), the carbon effects of these land cover changes are included, although the biogeophysical effects are not. The afforestation in RCP4.5 has important biogeophysical impacts on climate, in addition to the land carbon changes, which are directly related to the assumption of crop yield increase and the universal carbon tax. To investigate the biogeophysical climatic impact of combinations of agricultural crop yield increases and carbon pricing mitigation, five scenarios of land-use change based on RCP4.5 are used as inputs to an earth system model [Hadley Centre Global Environment Model, version 2-Earth System (HadGEM2-ES)]. In the scenario with the greatest increase in agricultural land (as a result of no increase in crop yield and no climate mitigation) there is a significant -0.49 K worldwide cooling by 2100 compared to a control scenario with no land-use change. Regional cooling is up to -2.2 K annually in northeastern Asia. Including carbon feedbacks from the land-use change gives a small global cooling of -0.067 K. This work shows that there are significant impacts from biogeophysical land-use changes caused by assumptions of crop yield and carbon mitigation, which mean that land carbon is not the whole story. It also elucidates the potential conflict between cooling from biogeophysical climate effects of land-use change and wider environmental aims.

Quantifying the relative importance of land cover change from climate and land-use in the representative concentration pathways

Climate change is projected to cause substantial alterations in vegetation distribution, but these have been given little attention in comparison to land-use in the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios. Here we assess the climate-induced land cover changes (CILCC) in the RCPs, and compare them to land-use land cover change (LULCC). To do this, we use an ensemble of simulations with and without LULCC in earth system model HadGEM2-ES for RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. We find that climate change causes an expansion poleward of vegetation that affects more land area than LULCC in all of the RCPs considered here. The terrestrial carbon changes from CILCC are also larger than for LULCC. When considering only forest, the LULCC is larger, but the CILCC is highly variable with the overall radiative forcing of the scenario. The CILCC forest increase compensates 90% of the global anthropogenic deforestation by 2100 in RCP8.5, but just 3% in RCP2.6. Overall, bigger land cover changes tend to originate from LULCC in the shorter term or lower radiative forcing scenarios, and from CILCC in the longer term and higher radiative forcing scenarios. The extent to which CILCC could compensate for LULCC raises difficult questions regarding global forest and biodiversity offsetting, especially at different timescales. This research shows the importance of considering the relative size of CILCC to LULCC, especially with regard to the ecological effects of the different RCPs.

The biogeophysical climatic impacts of anthropogenic land use change during the Holocene

The first agricultural societies were established around 10���ka���BP and had spread across much of Europe and southern Asia by 5.5���ka���BP with resultant anthropogenic deforestation for crop and pasture land. Various studies (e.g. Joos et al., 2004; Kaplan et al., 2011; Mitchell et al., 2013) have attempted to assess the biogeochemical implications for Holocene climate in terms of increased carbon dioxide and methane emissions. However, less work has been done to examine the biogeophysical impacts of this early land use change. In this study, global climate model simulations with Hadley Centre Coupled Model version 3 (HadCM3) were used to examine the biogeophysical effects of Holocene land cover change on climate, both globally and regionally, from the early Holocene (8���ka���BP) to the early industrial era (1850���CE). Two experiments were performed with alternative descriptions of past vegetation: (i) one in which potential natural vegetation was simulated by Top-down Representation of Interactive Foliage and Flora Including Dynamics (TRIFFID) but without land use changes and (ii) one where the anthropogenic land use model Kaplan and Krumhardt 2010 (KK10; Kaplan et al., 2009, 2011) was used to set the HadCM3 crop regions. Snapshot simulations were run at 1000-year intervals to examine when the first signature of anthropogenic climate change can be detected both regionally, in the areas of land use change, and globally. Results from our model simulations indicate that in regions of early land disturbance such as Europe and south-east Asia detectable temperature changes, outside the normal range of variability, are encountered in the model as early as 7���ka���BP in the June���July���August (JJA) season and throughout the entire annual cycle by 2���3���ka���BP. Areas outside the regions of land disturbance are also affected, with virtually the whole globe experiencing significant temperature changes (predominantly cooling) by the early industrial period. The global annual mean temperature anomalies found in our single model simulations were ���0.22 at 1850���CE, ���0.11 at 2���ka���BP, and ���0.03�����C at 7���ka���BP. Regionally, the largest temperature changes were in Europe with anomalies of ���0.83 at 1850���CE, ���0.58 at 2���ka���BP, and ���0.24�����C at 7���ka���BP. Large-scale precipitation features such as the Indian monsoon, the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), and the North Atlantic storm track are also impacted by local land use and remote teleconnections. We investigated how advection by surface winds, mean sea level pressure (MSLP) anomalies, and tropospheric stationary wave train disturbances in the mid- to high latitudes led to remote teleconnections.

Analysis of land use and occupancy in permanent preservation areas according to the hydrography of Ribeir��o ��gua Fria - Bofete, SP - Brazil

Os conflitos de uso s��o determinados pelas ocupa����es inadequadas do solo, como �� o caso de ocupa����o do solo dentro de ��reas de preserva����o permanente. O presente trabalho teve como objetivos determinar as classes de uso do solo e se h�� conflitos dentro de ��reas de preserva����o permanente ao longo da rede de drenagem da microbacia do Ribeir��o ��gua Fria, munic��pio de Bofete (SP). Situa-se geograficamente entre as coordenadas: 48��09'30 a 48��18'30 de longitude WGr., 22��58'30 a 23��04'30 de latitude sul com uma ��rea de 15.242,84 ha. O mapa de uso do solo foi elaborado por meio da interpreta����o diretamente na tela do computador de imagem digital de sat��lite. Nos dados orbitais, a ��rea de estudo est�� inserida no quadrante A, da imagem TM/Landsat-5, ��rbita 220, ponto 76, passagem de 8/09/2007. O Sistema de Informa����o Geogr��fica empregado foi o Cartalinx. As ��reas de conflito da microbacia foram obtidas a partir do cruzamento entre os mapas de uso do solo e de APPs. Os resultados permitiram concluir que mais da metade da ��rea (51,09%) est�� ocupada por pastagens, reflexo de solos arenosos e de baixa fertilidade. Constatou-se, ainda, que apesar de quase metade da microbacia estar coberta com algum tipo de vegeta����o (48,78% de mata natural/reflorestamento), possui aproximadamente um ter��o das ��reas de preserva����o permanente utilizadas inadequadamente por pastagens (88,15%), reflorestamento (10,42%) e solo exposto (1,43%), totalizando 343,07 ha de ��reas conflitantes em um total de 993,26 ha de APPs.

The definition of potential infiltration areas in Guaratingueta watershed, Paraiba do Sul Basin, Southeastern Brazil: an integrated approach using physical and land-use elements

Funda����o de Amparo �� Pesquisa do Estado de S��o Paulo (FAPESP)

The effect of the land use on phytoplankton assemblages of a Cerrado stream (Brazil)

OBJETIVO: Nosso objetivo foi investigar se o uso do solo do ambiente terrestre adjacente influencia a estrutura das assembleias fitoplanct��nicas (composi����o, riqueza, diversidade e abund��ncia) e biomassa (clorofila-a) em um riacho de Cerrado durante diferentes per��odos do ano. M��TODOS: Os trabalhos de campo foram realizados trimestralmente durante dois anos. RESULTADOS: As vari��veis f��sico-qu��micas que melhor indicaram as diferen��as nas condi����es da ��gua foram condutividade, oxig��nio dissolvido e transpar��ncia. Tamb��m houve um not��vel aumento na concentra����o de nitrog��nio, f��sforo e material em suspens��o na ��gua durante o ver��o devido aos efeitos da pluviosidade. As assembleias fitoplanct��nicas foram compostas por 64 esp��cies. Cryptophyceae foi o grupo mais abundante, seguido por Bacillariophyceae. Para ambos os anos, a riqueza e a diversidade foram maiores durante a primavera e no outono, enquanto que a abund��ncia do fitopl��ncton e a concentra����o de clorofila-a foram mais elevados durante o outono e ver��o. A an��lise de agrupamento e a analise de correspond��ncia can��nica mostraram que a sazonalidade e o uso do solo s��o fatores importantes na estrutura����o das assembleias ao longo do ano. As altera����es nas assembleias fitoplanct��nicas ocorreram provavelmente em fun����o da varia����o na intensidade e freq����ncia da mistura da ��gua e da entrada de nutrientes oriundo do sistema terrestre adjacente para o aqu��tico. CONCLUS��O: A estrutura das assembleias fitoplanct��nicas mostrou ser altamente influenciada pelo uso do solo, corroborando com a hip��tese inicial do trabalho.

Impacts of Climate Change and the End of Deforestation on Land Use in the Brazilian Legal Amazon

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient��fico e Tecnol��gico (CNPq)