Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Land use change'
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Landry, Erik S. (Erik Sean). "Carbon dynamics of global land use, land-use change, and forestry." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/117919.
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Thesis: S.M. in Technology and Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, 2018.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 33-36).
Forest harvest for bioenergy is growing rapidly, spurred by the European Commission's declaration that bioenergy is carbon-neutral. Bioenergy advocates argue that the carbon released upon the combustion of harvested wood should eventually be reabsorbed from the atmosphere when the harvested land regrows. Recent studies, however, find that wood bioenergy can exacerbate climate change because it is less efficient than the fossil fuels it displaces, and because regrowth takes time and is uncertain. Other land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) practices can also cause significant carbon fluxes to and from the atmosphere that vary over time as the carbon sequestered in the biomass and soils on each land type changes. Understanding these complex interactions requires an explicit dynamic model that accounts for various land uses and regions, each with carbon content and flux characteristics specific to their respective vegetation, soil distributions, and climatic domains. This work extends the widely used C-ROADS climate model, originally developed with a single biosphere, to incorporate this level of detail. Built up from a diverse set of highly resolved geospatial databases for land cover, soils, climatic domains, and other relevant characteristics, the model aggregates the data into six land use types (natural forest, harvested forest, cropland, pasture, permafrost, and developed/other land) within six major regions (the US, EU, China, India, Other Developed Nations, and Other Developing Nations). It is used to analyze the impact of harvesting forests for bioenergy. Because wood bioenergy is less efficient than the fossil fuels it displaces, the first impact is an increase in atmospheric CO₂ . If the land regrows as forest, this carbon debt can eventually be repaid. However, the time required to do so is long, ranging from 20 to 186 years, depending on the region supplying the wood and whether the forest is thinned or clear-cut. Converting forest to cropland after harvest increases atmospheric CO₂ concentrations without payback. Results also show that afforestation programs are most effective in reducing atmospheric CO₂ when implemented in regions with more tropical climates due to the higher carbon density of these forests. This fast, regionally specific, multi-land-use model enables policy makers and other stakeholders to quickly design and evaluate of a wide range of LULUCF and bioenergy policy scenarios and their climatic effects.
by Erik S. Landry.
S.M. in Technology and Policy
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Bates-Lanclos, Melissa Marie. "Assessing urban land use/land cover change in Springfield, Missouri 1972-2000 /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2004. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p1426046.
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Maluki, Peter Masavi. "MAPPING LAND COVER LAND USE CHANGE IN MBEERE DISTRICT, KENYA." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1187030316.
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Gildea, Jason James. "Relationships Between Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Water-Quality Trends in Virginia." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/33253.
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This research examines the relationships between land use and surface water quality trends in Virginia. Data from 168 surface water quality monitoring stations throughout Virginia were analyzed for trends for the period of 1978 to 1995. Water-quality data available at these stations included dissolved oxygen saturation (DO), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), pH, total residue (TR), non-filterable residue (NFR), nitrate-nitrite nitrogen (NN), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), total phosphorus (TP), and fecal coliform (FC). A seasonal Kendall analysis was used to determine trends for each water-quality parameter at each station; this analysis produced an indicator (Kendall's tau) of improving or declining water quality. Median values for each water-quality variable were also determined at the monitoring stations.
Virginia land use was determined from the USGS Land Use Land Cover (LULC) data (1970s) and the Multi-resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) data (1990s). Land-use variables included urban, forest, pasture, cropland, total agriculture, and urban change. These six variables were correlated with Kendall's tau to determine if relationships exist between water-quality trends and land use. Water-quality medians and land use were also correlated.
In general, highly forested watersheds in Virginia were associated with improving water quality over the 1978 to 1995 study period. These watersheds were also commonly associated with better water quality as measured by the water-quality medians. Watersheds with less agricultural land tended to be associated with improving water quality. Better water quality, as measured by the water-quality medians, was generally associated with watersheds possessing fewer urban acres. There were few significant relationships between water-quality medians and agricultural variables.Master of Science
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Fontaine, Corentin M. "Residential agents and land use change modelling." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/4626.
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Urbanisation is driven by the complex interactions of many physical and human factors where human actions and decisions, individually and collectively, ultimately shape the patterns of urban landscapes. Agentbased modelling is an emerging technique in land use science that is designed to study multiple heterogeneous and locally interacting active entities within a system. An example of a local interaction is the request made by residents to planners for building permits. The decisions of planners in response to this request leads to emergent properties at an aggregate level such as city growth, assuming no equilibrium conditions. This thesis develops a framework for investigating in space and in time future residential land use change over a polycentric region using a case study of East Anglia, UK. Conceptually, the framework views the complexity of housing development in a system of cities (macrogeographical level) as the visible and concrete outcome of interactions between household demand for new dwellings (micro-geographical level) and the supply of building permits by local planners (meso-geographical level). Demand and supply are driven by household location preferences, as well as local planning, and evolve over time, leading to future land use change at speci c locations. The IPCC socio-economic scenarios are adapted to describe plausible evolutions in these preferences and strategies in order to evaluate di erent urban land use change pathways and the associated potential consequences for people (e.g. ooding risks) and the environment (e.g. biodiversity loss from land fragmentation). Simulation of new housing scenarios is undertaken within the agent-based modelling paradigm using a new computer programme developed in NetLogo. Issues of sensitivity analysis, validation, calibration and system complexity are addressed throughout the thesis. The thesis contributes to the eld of landscape and urban ecology by exploring urban complexity with a spatio-dynamic model of residential location behaviour driven by human and natural variables. As land use and land cover change is known to strongly a ect ecological landscape functions and processes, understanding the relationships between social and natural systems within changing landscapes helps to highlight hotspots of potential pressure and their e ects on the natural environment as part of an assessment of the possible ecological impacts of new urban development.
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Dunn, Christine Elizabeth. "Hydrological responses to moorland land-use change." Thesis, University of Hull, 1986. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:5038.
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Most documented investigations of the effects of land-use change on hydrological systems have considered the modification of forest areas. In this thesis, a headwater area in the North York Moors is used to examine the consequences of maintaining a land management regime which has received comparatively little observation in this context: controlled heather burning (muirburn). The effects of coniferous afforestation are also evaluated for selected variables. Particular attention is given to the responses of soil, moisture and evapotranspiration and the relationship between these two components.Simulated soil moisture deficits derived from empirical models are tested against measured values. Predictions based on Penman-Monteith evapotranspiration and 'layer' moisture deficits, along with an optimised soil-drying parameter, were found to simulate observed conditions most closely. A land-use change from open heather moorland to burnt ground promoted reductions both in evapotranspiration levels, especially at potential demando and in moisture deficits. In contrast, following afforestation, deficits were maintained or enhanced throughout the year, with higher moisture losses to interception than found under heather, due to the higher aerodynamic resistance of the latter. Predictions of actual evapotranspiration, determined from soil moisture models, were generally found to be reliable estimates of those 'observed' from the moorland water balance.Antecedent catchment conditions and storm characteristics were used in analysis of runoff distribution over time, quantified in terms of 'unit hydrographs' and linear regression models. Land-use effects were manifested most significantly in a doubling of hydrograph peak discharge following muirburn, the lower measured soil moisture deficits under a burnt catchment rendering more water available for storm runoff. A secondary, underlying control, that of a slower response from a wet catchment, lent 'support to evidence for the existence of variable source areas.
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Sheikh-Hassani, G. H. "Agricultural land use change in Gilan, Iran." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.382182.
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Bajželj, Bojana. "Land use, food security and climate change." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.709356.
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Kim, Dae-Sik. "Modeling Land-use Change and Urbanization Process." Kyoto University, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2433/147781.
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Friis, Cecilie. "Land use change in a globalised world." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/18180.
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Die weltweit steigende Nachfrage nach land-basierten Rohstoffen erhöht stetig den Druck auf Land und Landnutzung, vor allem in ressourcenreichen Frontierregionen. Eine gegenwärtige Erscheinungsform dessen stellen Transnationale Landnahmen dar, die den Landnutzungswandel vorantreiben und die landbasierte Lebensgrundlage insbesondere der ländlichen Bevölkerung in vielen Teilen der Welt massiv bedroht. Ziel dieser Doktorarbeit ist es, ein besseres Verständnis der komplexen Prozesse zu schaffen, die Landnahmen befördern. Erstens untersucht sie die rezente Konjunktur des Bananenanbaus in der Provinz Luang Namtha, Laos, die von Chinesischen Investoren getrieben wird. Zweitens zieht die Arbeit das telecoupling Konzept heran und unterzieht es einer kritischen Diskussion in Bezug auf seinen Mehrwert für die Analyse räumlich entkoppelter sozioökonomischer und ökologischer Wechselwirkungen. Eine mehrmonatige ethnographische Feldforschung und deren qualitative Analyse stellen die Grundlage dieser Arbeit dar. Ausgehend von zwei Bananenplantagen in einer kleinen ländlichen Gemeinde fokussiert die Arbeit die Mechanismen und Prozesse, die die Bananenexpansion befördern. Das telecoupling Konzept dient als Instrument, um zu analysieren, welchen Einfluss die multiplen und ko-konstitutiven Interaktionen auf den Vorstoß des Bananenanbaus haben. Darüber hinaus verdeutlichen die tiefgehenden lokalitätsbezogenen Analysen die verschiedenen Kontexte auf, die dieses Wechselspiel spezifisch lokal verorten und gestalten. Die Fallstudie zeigt auf, wie die räumlich entkoppelten Beziehungen durch ein grenzüberspannendes Netzwerk chinesischer Investoren mit sozialen Verbindungen in die Provinz hinein, sowie auf den (chinesischen) Obstmarkt vermittelt werden. Außerdem stellt die Studie heraus, dass die Strategien der Investoren zur Landgewinnung und der daraus resultierende verheerende Landnutzungswandel einer Entfremdung der Dorfbewohner_innen ‘vom Boden’ gleichkommen. Durch die empirische, methodologische sowie konzeptuelle Auseinandersetzung mit dem telecoupling Konzept verweist die Arbeit letztlich auf den Wert qualitativer Analysen für die schwer greifbaren, ‚immateriellen’ Interaktionen sowie mögliche Feedbackmechanismen, welche Landnutzungswandel in einer globalisierten Welt bestimmen.The global demand for land resources has increased the pressures on land, especially in resource-rich frontier regions. Transnational land acquisitions constitute one of these pressures that currently shape land use change and threaten land access and land-based livelihoods in rural areas. This thesis contributes to create a better understanding of the complex processes involved in such land acquisitions in two ways. First, it examines a recent boom in banana cultivation in Luang Namtha Province, Lao PDR driven by Chinese investors leasing land from Lao farmers and exporting the bananas to China. Second, it critically engages with the emerging telecoupling framework proposed in Land System Science as an analytical framework for dealing with distal causal interactions. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and using qualitative analyses, the thesis examines two plantations in a small village and traces the actors, mechanisms and processes driving the banana expansion. Using the telecoupling framework as a heuristic device, the study illuminates how multiple and co-constitutive economic, environmental, political and discursive interactions influence the banana expansion. Furthermore, the in-depth place-based analyses reveal how different contextual factors ground and shape these interactions in this particular location. In this case, the distal interactions are mediated through a cross-border network of Chinese investors with social ties in the local area, as well as in the fruit market in China. The study shows that the investors’ strategies to obtain access to the land combined with the resulting destructive land use conversion amount to an alienation of land from the villagers. By engaging empirically, methodologically and conceptually with the telecoupling framework, the thesis advances the discussion on telecoupling by demonstrating the value of qualitative analysis for capturing some of the more elusive and immaterial interactions, as well as potential feedbacks influencing land use change in a globalised world.
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Chan, Cheung-Wai Jonathan. "A neural network approach to land use/land cover change detection /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1998. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B21415067.
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陳章偉 and Cheung-Wai Jonathan Chan. "A neural network approach to land use/land cover change detection." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1998. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31238166.
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Saxena, Rishu. "Towards a Polyalgorithm for Land Use and Land Cover Change Detection." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/93177.
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Earth observation satellites (EOS) such as Landsat provide image datasets that can be immensely useful in numerous application domains.
One way of analyzing satellite images for land use and land cover change (LULCC) is time series analysis (TSA). Several algorithms for time series analysis have been proposed by various groups in remote sensing; more algorithms (that can be adapted) are available in the general time series literature. However, in spite of an abundance of algorithms, the choice of algorithm to be used for analyzing an image stack is presently an open question. A concurrent issue is the prohibitive size of Landsat datasets, currently of the order of petabytes and growing. This makes them computationally unwieldy --- both in storage and processing. An EOS image stack typically consists of multiple images of a fixed area on the Earth's surface (same latitudes and longitudes)
taken at different time points. Experiments on multicore servers indicate
that carrying out meaningful time series analysis on one such interannual, multitemporal stack with existing state of the art codes can take several days.
This work proposes using multiple algorithms to analyze a given image
stack in a polyalgorithmic framework. A polyalgorithm combines several basic algorithms, each meant to solve the same problem, producing a strategy that unites the strengths and circumvents the weaknesses of constituent algorithms. The foundation of the proposed TSA based polyalgorithm is laid using three algorithms (LandTrendR, EWMACD, and BFAST). These algorithms are precisely described mathematically, and chosen to be fundamentally distinct from each other in design and in the phenomena they capture. Analysis of results representing success, failure, and parameter sensitivity for each algorithm is presented. Scalability issues, important for real simulations, are also discussed, along with scalable implementations, and speedup results. For a given pixel, Hausdorff distance is used to compare the distance between the
change times (breakpoints) obtained from two different algorithms. Timesync validation data, a dataset that is based on human interpretation of Landsat time series in concert with historical aerial photography, is used for validation. The polyalgorithm yields more accurate results than EWMACD and LandTrendR alone, but counterintuitively not better than BFAST alone. This nascent work will be directly useful in land use and land cover change studies, of interest to terrestrial science research, especially regarding anthropogenic impacts on the environment, and in much broader applications such as health monitoring and urban transportation.M. S.
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Batunacun. "Modelling land use and land cover change on the Mongolian Plateau." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/21796.
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Der Bezirk Xilingol wurde als geeignetes Beispiel ausgewählt, weil es zu einem großen Flächenanteil von Grassteppe bedeckt ist und fast alle Phasen der Umweltpolitik Chinas durchlaufen hat. Es wurden zwei deutlich voneinander abgrenzbare Phasen identifiziert, von 1975 bis 2000 und von 2000 bis 2015. Während der ersten Phase, bis 2000, war Landdegradation der dominante Landnutzungswandelprozess, der 11.4 % der Gesamtfläche betraf. In dieser Phase war die menschliche Einflussnahme der Hauptfaktor in acht Landkreisen, die sich ändernden Wasserverhältnisse war es in sechs Landkreisen. Während der zweiten Phase, ab 2000, setzte ein spürbare Erholung des Zustandes auf 12 % des Gesamtgebietes ein, während die Degradation jedoch weiter voranschritt und zusätzliche 9,5 % des Landes veränderte. Während dieser Phase wurde die Städtebildung zum dominanten Treiber für die Landdegradierung in sieben Landkreisen, während der Einfluss menschlicher Störungen und der Wasserverfügbarkeit wieder zurückging.
Nach der Identifizierung der Haupttreiber für die Landdegradation, wurde die komplexe Beziehung zwischen verschiedenen Treibern und der Grassteppen-Degradation untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass die Beziehung zwischen dicht bedeckter, moderat bedeckter, und spärlich bedeckter Grassteppe und die Dichte des Schafbesatzes für die Degradationsdynamik in der Grassteppe verantwortlich waren.
In dieser Arbeit wurden die Methoden der Clusteranalyse, der Partial-Order-Theorie, und der Hasse Diagramme eingesetzt, um die Haupttreiber der Landdegradation auf Landkreisebene zu identifizieren. Dann wurde ein Ansatz aus dem maschinellen Lernen, XGBoost (eXtreme Gradient Boosting) verwendet, um die Dynamik der Grassteppen-Degradation vorauszusagen. Darüber hinaus wurde SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) eingesetzt, um das von XGBoost erstellte Black-Box-Modell zu in seine Bestanteile zu zerlegen und für jedes Degradations-Pixel in der Karte den Haupttreiber zu extrahieren.The aims of this thesis are to gain an integrated and systematic understanding of the processes and determinants of land degradation on the Mongolian Plateau. Xilingol was chosen as a suitable example, mainly since it is covered by vast grassland, and has experienced almost all ecological policies that have been implemented in China. Two distinct phases were identified in this region: 1975-2000 and 2000-2015. During the first phase (up to 2000), land degradation was the dominant land use change process, accounting for 11.4% of the total area. During this phase, human disturbance was the major driver in eight counties, whereas the water condition was the dominant driver in six counties. During the second phase (post-2000), land restoration increased (12.0% of the total area), whereas degradation continued, resulting in a further 9.5% of degraded land. During this phase, urbanisation became the dominant driver of land degradation in seven counties, while effects resulting from human disturbance and water availability decreased after 2000. After identifying the major drivers of degradation, the complex relationships between drivers and grassland degradation were captured. The results indicated that the distance to dense, moderately dense grass and sparse grass and sheep density were responsible for the grassland degradation dynamics. In this thesis, a clustering method, partial order theory and Hasse diagram techniques were first used to identify the major drivers of land degradation at the county level. Subsequently, an approach from machine learning, XGBoost (eXtreme Gradient Boosting), was used to predict the dynamics of grassland degradation. Moreover, SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) values were used to open up the black box model, and the primary driver was extracted for each pixel showing degradation.
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Guardiola-Claramonte, Maria Teresa. "EFFECTS OF LAND USE / LAND COVER CHANGE ON THE HYDROLOGICAL PARTITIONING." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/145730.
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Current global population growth and economic development accelerates the land cover conversion in many parts of the world and compromises the natural environment. However, the impacts of this land cover change on the hydrologic cycle at local to regional scales are poorly understood. The thesis presented here investigates the hydrologic implications of land use conversion in two different settings using two different approaches. The first study focuses in Southeast Asia and the expansion of rubber monocultures in a middle-sized basin. Field measurements suggest rubber has distinct dynamics compared to the area's native vegetation, depleting and exhausting the local water balance more than native vegetation. A phenology based evapotranspiration function is developed and used in a hillslope based hydrologic model to predict the implications of rubber expansion at a basin scale. The second study is centered in the semi-arid southwestern United States. This study challenges the traditional assumption that deforestation increases water yield at regional scales. Observations of water yield in basins affected by a regional piñon pine die-off show a decline in water yield during several years after die-off. These results suggest an increase in landscape sensitivity to vegetation disruption in semi-arid ecosystems as scale increases. Consequences of both studies have important implications for land and water managers in these different ecosystems.
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Knorn, Jan. "Studying land-use and land-cover change with high resolution data." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät II, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/16513.
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Naturschutzgebiete sind ein essentieller Bestandteil zur Wahrung natürlicher Lebensräume. Oft verfehlt die Einrichtung solcher Schutzzonen jedoch den erwarteten Effekt. Die größte Gefahr liegt hierbei neben dem Klimawandel im direkten Einfluss des Menschen. Besonders in Phasen sozioökonomischen Umschwungs und damit verbundenen Landnutzungsveränderungen oder auch illegaler Nutzung natürlicher Ressourcen, sind Naturschutzgebiete in ihrer Funktion gefährdet. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist somit, Ursachen des Landnutzungswandels sowie dessen Auswirkungen und Ausmaß am Beispiel des rumänischen Teils der Karpaten-Ökoregion abzuleiten. Das Untersuchungsgebiet ist ein wichtiges Zentrum für Biodiversität und in ihm befindet sich Osteuropas größte gemäßigte Waldregion sowie einige der letzten europäischen Urwälder. Rumänien umschließt mehr als die Hälfte der Karpaten und es ist hiernach von besonderem Interesse, Gründe und Auswirkungen des rezenten post-sozialistischen Landschaftswandels zu untersuchen. Mit Hilfe von Landsat Aufnahmen sowie einer ad hoc entwickelten Methode zur Klassifizierung großräumiger Gebiete, wurden Veränderungen in der Waldbedeckung für die post-sozialistische Zeit abgeleitet. Die Ergebnisse offenbaren großflächige Forstveränderungen, auch innerhalb von Naturschutzgebieten und Urwäldern. Institutionelle Umbrüche und eine rapide Umgestaltung in den Eigentumsverhältnissen, wurden als Hauptursachen herausgestellt. Rumänische Naturschutzgebiete erreichen nicht die gewünschte Effektivität und Urwäldern werden weiterhin dezimiert. Die Arbeit verdeutlicht den Einfluss sozioökonomischer Veränderungen auf die Entstehung von Raubbau und legt Defizite in der Effektivität von Schutzbemühungen zum Erhalt der Biodiversität und verbundener Ökosystemleistungen offen.Protected areas are one cornerstone of conservation efforts to safeguard natural habitats from destruction and overexploitation. Still, many of these areas remain less effective than initially envisioned. Besides climate change, main threats originate from enduring human activities. Protected areas are particularly at risk during periods of rapid socio-economic changes, which can trigger widespread land-use change and illegal resource use. The main goal of this thesis is to assess the extend and underlying causes of land-use change in protected areas and forest habitats within the Carpathian Ecoregion. The Romanian Carpathians were selected as a focus area in this study, because they comprise Eastern Europe’s largest continuous temperate forest region as well as some of the last and largest tracts of European old-growth forests, and they are a major hotspot of biodiversity. Romania comprises more than half of the Carpathian Ecoregion and it is of particular interest to study the causes and effects of land-use changes, which have emerged after the collapse of socialism in 1989. Post socialist forest cover change was quantified for the last 25 years using Landsat images and an ad hoc developed large area classification technique. Results show widespread forest disturbances, even inside protected areas and old-growth forests. Drivers of these disturbances can be related to institutional change and changes in ownership. The effectiveness of Romania’s protected area network in terms of its ability to safeguard biodiversity is most likely decreasing, and intact old-growth forests continue to disappear. This thesis reveals how rapid socio-economic changes may lead to overexploitation, and highlights substantial shortcomings in the effectiveness of protection efforts to safeguard biodiversity and related ecosystem services.
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Lawrence, Peter. "Climate impacts of Australian land cover change /." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2004. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe18055.pdf.
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Gollnow, Florian. "Land use change and land use displacement dynamics in Mato Grosso and Pará, Brazilian Amazon." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/18732.
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Die Nachfrage nach Agrarerzeugnissen gilt als zentrale Ursache für den Verlust weltweit wichtiger Ökosysteme. In Brasilien hat speziell die Ausweitung der Sojaproduktion zur Abholzung tropischer Wälder und Savannen geführt. Zumeist werden neu gerodete Flächen als Rinderweiden genutzt und vormalige Weiden für den Sojaanbau umgewandelt. Diese Entwicklung führt zu der Annahme, dass die Ausweitung der Sojaproduktion indirekt für die Rodung verantwortlich ist. Staatliche Umweltpolitiken und die Selbstverpflichtung der Sojaindustrie haben seit 2004 zu einer Verringerung der Abholzung beigetragen. Vor diesem Hintergrund zielt die vorliegende Dissertation darauf ab, ein vertieftes Verständnis der Wechselwirkungen zwischen Soja- und Rinderwirtschaft zu erlangen. Im Fokus stehen räumliche und zeitliche Dynamiken von Landnutzung und Landnutzungsverdrängung in Mato Grosso und Pará, einer der dynamischsten Regionen Brasiliens. Für diese Bundesstaaten werden Landnutzung und Landnutzungsverdrängung im regionalen Kontext, auf Grundstücksebene und mithilfe von Szenarien untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Strategien zur Verringerung der Abholzung Einfluss auf die Dynamiken der Landnutzung und Landnutzungsverdrängung hatten. Die durch die Ausweitung des Sojaanbaus hervorgerufene Verdrängungsprozesse haben sich nach der Implementierung der Umweltschutzstrategien verringert. Auch die Abholzung auf einzelnen Grundstücken in Mato Grosso ging zurück. Zugleich zeigt die Analyse, dass die Selbstverpflichtung der Sojaindustrie durch indirekte Abholzung teilweise untergraben wird. Die Ergebnisse der Szenarien unterstreichen die regionale Dynamik und speziell die Risiken einer weiteren Ausweitung von Rinderweiden. Insgesamt legen die Ergebnisse nahe, dass auf Reduktion der Abholzung abzielende Strategien die Wechselwirkungen von Soja- und Rinderwirtschaft beachten müssen. Dies erfordert eine verstärkte Zusammenarbeit von Rinderwirtschaft, Sojaindustrie und staatlichen Organisationen.Demands for agricultural commodities are a major threat for some of the most valuable ecosystems in the world. The expansion of the agricultural sector in Brazil, fueled by global demands for soybeans, contributed to the loss of tropical and savanna ecosystems. However, most deforestation was caused by pastures, raising concerns about land use displacement processes between soybean expansion and cattle ranching. Promising, reductions of deforestation were observed following the implementation of governmental strategies and zero-deforestation supply chain commitments. This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of spatial and temporal dynamics of soybean expansion and cattle ranching, driving deforestation in one of the most dynamic agricultural expansion and deforestation frontier of Brazil, in Mato Grosso and Pará. In this region, land use displacement describes the conversion of pasture to soybean followed by deforestation for cattle ranching at another location. This process was assessed at regional and property-level. Moreover, scenario analysis was applied to identify regional and subregional dynamics of land use changes. The results indicated that environmental governance affected regional and local land use dynamics and displacement processes. Distal displacement processes between soybean expansion and deforestation were significant, contributing to deforestation, but declined subsequently to the implementation of environmental policies. Likewise, deforestation at property-level declined following the policy implementations. However, the effectiveness of the zero-deforestation supply chain commitment was found to be at risk due to property-level displacement deforestation. Additionally, the scenario analysis emphasized the importance of subregional dynamics and identified risks of future deforestation. Integrating efforts between supply chain (soy and cattle) and governmental actors may be crucial to reduce deforestation in the Amazon.
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Templeton, Joshua J. "Three essays on taxation and land use change." Connect to this title online, 2004. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1101850043.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2004.Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 160 p.; also includes graphics Includes bibliographical references (p. 150-160).
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Ek, Edgar. "Monitoring Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Belize, 1993-2003: A Digital Change Detection Approach." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2004. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1102520727.
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Hussain, Masroor. "Automated Urban Land Use Classification and Change Monitoring." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.508925.
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Acosta-Morel, Montserrat. "Land Use Change, Forest Carbon Leakage, and REDD." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306880501.
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Kümmerle, Tobias. "Post-socialist land use change in the Carpathians." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät II, 2008. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/15741.
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Politische und sozioökonomische Rahmenbedingungen haben entscheidenden Einfluss auf Landnutzungswandel; die relative Bedeutung dieser Faktoren untereinander ist jedoch oftmals unklar. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, durch die Untersuchung der Auswirkungen der politischen und sozioökonomischen Transformation auf Landnutzungswandel in Osteuropa zu einem besseren Verständnis solcher übergreifenden Einflussfaktoren beizutragen. Am Beispiel des Dreiländerecks Polen-Slowakei-Ukraine in den Karpaten wurden hierzu grenzüberschreitende Landschaftsvergleiche durchgeführt, da solche Vergleiche die Entkopplung der Faktoren allgemeiner Landnutzungstrends von Faktoren länderspezifischer Veränderungen ermöglichen. Darüber hinaus sind die Auswirkungen postsozialistischen Landschaftswandels auf die Karpaten, einem Gebiet mit einzigartigem ökologischen Wert, bisher weitestgehend unerforscht. Mit Hilfe von Landsat TM/ETM+ Satellitendaten aus dem Jahr 2000 wurden rezente Landschaftsunterschiede zwischen Ländern quantifiziert. Auf der Basis von Bildern von 1986-2000 wurde anschliessend überprüft, ob Länderunterschiede auf sozialistischen oder post-sozialistischen Landschaftswandel zurückführbar sind. Die Ergebnisse dieser Analysen zeigten weit verbreiteten Landnutzungswandel nach 1989 als Folge von sich verschlechternden wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen, geschwächten Institutionen und gesellschaftlichem Wandel. Die Länder unterschieden sich jedoch auch deutlich hinsichtlich Forstveränderungen, Brachfallung und Parzellierung von Ackerland. Diese Unterschiede lassen sich durch verschiedene Besitzverhältnisse, Bewirtschaftungsformen und Landreformen erklären. Während sich Polen und die Slowakei landschaftlich seit 1989 annähern, entfernt sich die Ukraine zunehmend. Diese Arbeit unterstreicht die Bedeutung ökonomischer und institutioneller Veränderungen für Landschaftswandel und zeigt, wie unterschiedliche Besitzstrukturen und Landreformen Landschaftswandel beeinflussen.Broad-scale political and socio-economic conditions are powerful determinants of land use change. Yet, their relative importance is unclear. The main goal of this thesis was to increase the understanding of such broad-scale drivers of land use change by studying how Eastern Europe’s landscapes were affected by the political and socio-economic transition after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The border triangle of Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine in the Carpathians was selected as a study area, because cross-border comparisons of land use change allow for decoupling overall trends in the transition period from country specific changes. Moreover, the Carpathians are of exceptional ecological value, but little is known about land use effects on these ecosystems after 1989. Post-socialist land use change was quantified based on Landsat TM/ETM+ images by (1) comparing contemporary (year 2000) landscapes among countries, and (2) using images from 1986 to 2000 to investigate whether differences originated from socialist or post-socialist land use change. Results indicated that forest change, farmland abandonment, and farmland parcelization were widespread in the transition period, likely due to worsening economic conditions, weakened institutions, and societal change. However, land use trends also differed strongly among the three countries due to dissimilar land ownership patterns, land management practices, and land reforms. Poland and Slovakia converged in the transition period in terms of land cover, while Ukraine clearly diverged. This thesis provided compelling evidence of the importance of economic and institutional change for land use change and underpinned the pivotal role of ownership patterns and land management policies. These factors were important to understand land use change in Eastern Europe, and they are likely equally important elsewhere.
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Bradley, Andrew Vincent. "Land-use and land-cover change in the Chapare region of Bolivia." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/9586.
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This research examines the impacts of coca leaf cultivation (an ingredient for cocaine paste) on land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) in a colonised, humid-tropical forest area of central Bolivia. The socio-economic driving forces affecting the way farmers have utilised their land and the resulting effects on land-cover change are studied. Satellite imagery from 1975 to 2000, methods of participatory rural appraisal and socio-economic data has been combined to determine deforestation patterns, changes and the driving forces of LULCC. Three communities were studied: Arequipa, dominated by coca production and alternative development crops; Bogota, a cattle rearing community; and Caracas where fruit cultivation dominated. Three major periods were determined from a land-management synopsis in each community: (i) pre-coca dominant, driven by weak national policies and economics, with high rates of deforestation; (ii) coca-dominant, influenced by the international coca / cocaine economy, with the lowest rates of forest clearance; and (iii) post coca-dominant, driven by strong international anti-narcotics policies, when forest clearance accelerated again. The deforestation trajectories (rates) differ from published models and the variations are attributed to the rising dominance of coca being ascended by an enforced substitute economy. These driving forces have been conceptualised at local, national and international levels. Specific fragmentation patterns developed because of the spatial arrangement of plots planned in the 1960s and the subsequent variations in land-use management strategies between, as well as, within individual plots over time. A five stage conceptual model has been constructed to represent forest fragmentation at the community level. Overall, in the pursuit of global social gains, anti-narcotics policies caused rapid consumption of limited land resources and because of non-conservationist planning the connectivity between montane and humid tropical forests at the margins of a biodiversity hotspot is severely compromised -a message to planners and policymakers where conservation and development currently conflict in humid tropical regions.
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Anibas, Kyle Lawrence. "Land cover, land use and habitat change in Volyn, Ukraine : 1986-2011." Thesis, Kansas State University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/17682.
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Master of ScienceDepartment of Geography
Douglas G. Goodin
Volyn Oblast in Western Ukraine has experienced substantial land use/land cover change over the last 25 years as a result of a change in political systems. Remote sensing provides a framework to quantify this change without extensive field work or historical land cover records. In this study, land change is quantified utilizing a post-classification change detection technique comparing Landsat imagery from 1986-2011(Post-Soviet era began 1991). A variety of remote sensing classification methods are explored to take advantage of spectral and spatial variation within this complex study area, and a hybrid scheme is ultimately utilized. Land cover from the CORINE classification scheme is then converted to the EUNIS habitat classification scheme to analyze how land cover change has affected habitat fragmentation. I found large scale agricultural abandonment, increases in forested areas, shifts towards smaller scale farming practices, shifts towards mixed forest structures, and increases in fragmentation of both forest and agricultural habitat types. These changes could have several positive and negative on biodiversity, ecosystems, and human well-being.
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Tizora, Petronella Chenayi. "Modelling land use and land cover change in the Western Cape Province." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/65948.
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The Western Cape Province is currently faced with population growth, declining household sizes, increasing household numbers, high levels of migration, urbanization and escalating development pressures. These factors have consequently triggered changes in land use and land cover (LULC) and incited issues such as urban sprawl, marginalization of the poor, limited public access to resources, land degradation and climate change. Furthermore, the issues surrounding LULC in the Province emanate from past inequities in access to land coupled with unsustainable land use practices. This poses a challenge to the government which strives for a sustainable nation that safeguards democracy by providing basic access to services, managing limited resources and advancing effective and efficient integrated planning whilst maintaining ecosystem functions. Understanding drivers of LULC change and how various factors influence LULC is important in meeting this challenge. Models which integrate and evaluate diverse factors of LULC change can be used to guide planners in making more informed decisions and achieving a balance between urban growth and preservation of the natural environment. The implementation of these models at a regional scale is however very limited in South Africa. LULC change models are valuable if their structures are based on deep knowledge of the system under investigation and if they produce credible results. This study therefore investigates the suitability of LULC change models in simulating LULC changes at a regional scale by quantifying changes in LULC in the Western Cape Province, determining the driving factors of LULC changes and exploring and implementing a regional land use change model. An investigation of changes in LULC was conducted by integration of a desktop study of LULC maps using the 1990 and 2013-2014 South African National LULC datasets; document analysis; and expert opinion in the form of semi-structured interviews with municipality town planners. An adapted Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) Framework was used to analyse and present LULC changes in the study area. A literature review was conducted in shortlisting of models and further evaluations involved analysis of the models using selection criteria which focused on the model’s relevance to the study area, linkage potential to other models or software, transferability, user friendliness, data requirements and cost. The results of this study show that LULC changes in the Western Cape Province are driven by political, economic, technological, demographic, environmental and cultural factors which must be considered in strategies and policies in future planning to avoid detrimental impacts on the environment whilst maintaining socio-economic benefits. These factors were integrated in a hybrid model that was successfully implemented in the study area by combining Dyna-CLUE and Markov concepts. The hybrid model produced probability maps and simulation maps for the years between 1990 and 2014. Validation of the simulated maps was conducted using both visual and statistical analysis and the results indicated that the simulated maps were in good agreement with the validation map. Data availability was observed as the main drawback which influenced both the implementation of other suitable models and the accuracy of simulated maps. This study however contributes to the understanding of driving factors of LULC change and implementation of LULC change models at a regional scale in the South African context. Knowledge derived from this study can be used by planners as a guide to effectively gauge the impacts that planning policies and other driving factors might have on future LULC patterns in the Western Cape Province.Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2018.
Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology
MSc
Unrestricted
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Zhou, Yushuang. "Development of integrated prognostic models of land use/land cover change case studies in Brazil and China /." access full-text online access from Digital dissertation consortium, 2002. http://libweb.cityu.edu.hk/cgi-bin/er/db/ddcdiss.pl?3053828.
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Wu, Sin-leung Arthur. "The change in land policies of the HKSAR government since 1997." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 2001. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk:8888/cgi-bin/hkuto%5Ftoc%5Fpdf?B23295417.
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Mendoza, Ponce Alma Virgen. "Vulnerability of biodiversity to land use change and climate change in Mexico." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/21701.
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Biodiversity in Mexico is threatened by Land Use/Cover Change (LUCC) and Climate Change (CC). Identifying what sites will be most vulnerable to these threats can help to prioritise conservation, mitigation and adaptation strategies and target limited resources. Therefore, the aims of this study are 1) to identify the most vulnerable sites to LUCCs under different socio-economic and CC scenarios, and 2) to assess the vulnerability of endemic and threatened vertebrate species to establish prioritization strategies for biodiversity conservation. Spatially explicit socio-economic scenarios were created at national and subnational level (Chapter 3). National LUCC models were then developed using the DINAMICA EGO software (Chapter 4). These models were run for three future time slices (2020s, 2050s and 2080s) and two contrasting future climate and socio-economic scenarios to determine biodiversity vulnerability (Chapter 5). Vulnerability was estimated by quantifying the exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to LUCC and CC. This framework integrates national information about the priority sites of biodiversity conservation and their future extent of natural covers under future socio-economic and climate conditions. Finally, the vulnerability framework was also applied in a regional case-study in three municipalities of southern Mexico (Chapter 6). Results reveal that temperate forest is the most vulnerable ecosystem type in Mexico, followed by natural grasslands and tropical evergreen forests. Agriculture is the driver of this threat, which is projected to expand to feed an increasing population under dryer climatic conditions. More than 40% of endemic and endangered mammals are in places ranking from medium to extremely high vulnerability, followed by the 28% of the amphibians, 25% and 23% for reptiles and birds, respectively. These vertebrates are principally distributed on temperate forests and tropical dry forests. In the regional scale, rain-fed agriculture (RfA) and anthropogenic grasslands are the principal LUCC drivers, threatening 31 species of endangered vertebrates. A local strategy for creating corridors between patches close to rivers from the south to the north of one municipality is supported as conservation priority for the regional biodiversity. This research presents a novel approach for prioritising conservation strategies in highly biodiverse countries using readily available data sources, demonstrated at different spatial and temporal scales.
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Stabile, Marcelo C. C. "Deconstructing the complexity of land use and cover classification and land change modelling." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/8640.
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Land use and land cover (LULC) dynamics are an integral component of global change. In this thesis, various approaches were developed to unravel the complexity of LULC classification and the subsequent application of the multi-temporal LULC data for land change modelling. This complexity is particularly relevant in this study, whereby the available multi-temporal remote Landsat images are noisy and of relatively low spatial resolution. First, a semi-automated object-based method using rulesets and supervised classification was developed. This method was applied to the multi-temporal Landsat images to produce LULC maps. As the outcomes of the classification were not sufficiently accurate for land change modelling, the LULC maps were subsequently augmented using expert knowledge and input from landowners. Second, since high-resolution aerial photos were available for portions of the study area for 1998 and 2004, a case study was done with image fusion. The case study compared LULC maps derived from the different levels of fusion to those from the non-fused images. The results indicated that the feature- and decision-level fusion produced LULC maps which could be used for land change modelling. Third, in order to develop a land change model, the augmented multi-temporal LULC maps were used for extracting transition probabilities for a Markov-chain land change model. However, the classical Markov-chain method does not consider the neighbourhood influence, whereas the cellular automata does. A flexible hybrid approach, combining the Markov-chain and cellular automata algorithms, was developed. This was done to model the LULC dynamic transition probabilities to drive the change. The model’s sensitivity was assessed and the hybrid approach was tested by simulations of contemporary and future LULC patterns in the lower Hunter Valley, NSW with transition probabilities derived from various methods.
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Yorke, Charles. "Analyzing land use and land cover change in Densu River Basin in Ghana a remote sensing and GIS approach /." Diss., Online access via UMI:, 2006.
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Xu, Wei. "Agricultural land use change in relation to agroecosystem health." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq27473.pdf.
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Jussila, Hammes Johanna. "Essays on the political economy of land use change /." Göteborg : Dept. of Economics, School of Economics and Commercial Law, Göteborg University, 2005. http://www.handels.gu.se/epc/archive/00004451/01/Jussila%5Favhandl.pdf.
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Hammes, Johanna Jussila. "Essays on the political economy of land use change." Göteborg : Kompendiet, 2005. http://www.gbv.de/dms/sub-hamburg/507365801.pdf.
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Musgrove, Nicholas James. "Land use and vegetation change on the Long Mynd." Thesis, University of Wolverhampton, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2436/84479.
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The plant communities of the Long Mynd plateau are the culmination of over 3000 years of human intervention that largely deforested the uplands, and subsequently maintained the generally treeless heath and grassland communities now extant. The capacity of these communities to respond to directional change is well known, indeed the traditional mode of heathland management, burning, depends on the regenerative capacity of the target species, generally heather (Calluna vulgaris), for its success. However, changes in post WW2 stocking practice; the loss of ponies followed by an increase in the numbers of sheep and a change to them being overwintered on the hill, led to excessive grazing and damage to the heath. This coincided with the spread over the hill by bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) and other changes in the distribution and nature of the vegetation. A sequence of vegetation surveys made by various individuals and organisations over the past 75 years or so has been analysed in an attempt to delineate spatial and temporal changes in the vegetation. This demonstrated the need for a standardised survey methodology to allow consistent monitoring. The analysis showed that bracken had been infiltrating most of the communities from its origins outside the lower limits of the Common as well as from some of the valley sides. Within the last decade, this expansion has apparently been contained in line with the current management plan for control. A survey of 730 quadrats in some 30 stands was made to characterise the variation of the vegetation on the plateau, and to relate it to some of the associated environmental factors. Classification, unconstrained ordination and ordination constrained by the abiotic environmental variables, showed that, a) the strongest trend in the vegetation distinguished water-flushed communities, b) non-wetland communities differentiate between heathland and grassland, c) this trend can be only partly be attributed to the measured abiotic environmental variables, d) the amount of pure Pteridietum [U20] is limited, although much of the heathland and grassland has bracken within it. There are indications that invasion by bracken often correlates with a loss of dominance of Calluna in favour of Deschampsia flexuosa and Vaccinium myrtillus. Difficulties in associating these trends with measured abiotic variables suggests, other factors probably management processes, are critical in driving this trend. Distribution of ‘heathland’ bryophytes was found to be associated more with the structure of their ‘host’ vascular communities rather than with abiotic factors. Finally, this investigation considers the practical implications with regard to the future encouragement of heather and the control of bracken. Cutting rather than burning appears to be the ecologically most suitable method for heather regeneration and bracken control.
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Peckett, Haley Rose. "Land use and climate change in Miami-Dade County." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/50113.
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Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009.Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-77).
Miami-Dade County, Florida, was one of the earliest jurisdictions to adopt a climate change plan in 1993. Land use features prominently in this plan as a means to reduce greenhouse gases through development patterns that allow people to lower their Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). Travel data show that average per capita VMT for the Miami area increased approximately 24% between 1993 and 2005, signifying that the land-use policies are not meeting their goal of VMT reduction. One apparent explanation is that land-use policies are not adequately implemented and enforced. The Board of County Commissioners is the most powerful decision-making body and holds responsibility for land-use policy enforcement. The Board is constrained by a governmental structure in which each commissioner is accountable only to residents of his or her district. Commissioners make decisions based on immediate benefits for their districts with little incentive to consider the long-term issues of land use and climate change. The Urban Development Boundary illustrates how the competing agendas of economic development and affordable housing compel commissioners to approve developments that contradict existing land-use policies. The financial crisis of the Miami-Dade Transit system was exacerbated by district-based conflicts and limited commissioner accountability. The district-based structure evolved from a history of racial and ethnic under-representation, which complicates the introduction of structural change.
(cont.) Instead, the County should introduce incentives that encourage commissioners to include long-term County needs in policy enforcement decisions. Recommendations include: * Strengthened land-use advisory board * Transparent calculation of the long-term impacts of proposed developments * Temporary moratorium on 2011 UDB applications * Strategic funding allocation to promote smart growth land use.
by Haley Rose Peckett.
M.C.P.
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Oyewole, Ayodeji. "Implementation of Land Use and Land Use Change and its Effects on Biodiversity in Life Cycle Assessment." Thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Energy and Process Engineering, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-10962.
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Land use refers to the use of land for intensive human activities aiming at exclusive use of land for certain purposes and adapting the properties of land areas in view of these purposes. Environmental problems are, however, generated as a result of these human activities which modify the shape and properties of large land areas according to the requirements of human activities and thereby excluding wild animals and plants from coexisting on such land areas and in their neighbourhoods. Land use also leads to the degradation of the natural environment. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is used for evaluating the environmental burdens associated with products or processes while taking their whole life cycle into consideration. LCA is a comprehensive assessment method which considers all aspects of natural environment, human health, and resources. Land use is regarded as an impact category in Life Cycle Assessment and is treated as such. However, the environmental impacts associated with land use and land use change are not being adequately considered in LCA, if considered at all.Life Cycle Impact Assessment is a part of LCA and is aimed at understanding and evaluating the magnitude and significance of the potential environmental impacts of products or processes and this involves developing characterization factors which link an environmental impact to a category indicator. In the assessment of land use impacts, characterization factors are developed so as to weigh the magnitude of environmental interventions such as land occupation and land transformation on the potentially affected attributes of ecosystem quality such as biodiversity, ecological functions and natural resources.The goal of this study is to review the progress of the implementation of land use and land use change as an impact category in LCA with a particular focus on biodiversity, recognize limitations, and indicate future prospects for the development of land use impact assessment methodologies and subsequent integration into LCA. Land use impacts are not being widely integrated into LCA because they are dependent on the regional or local situation which is not well known in LCA and land use as an environmental intervention is very complex. However, the importance of land use cannot be overemphasized when assessing products or processes which make use of raw materials that originate from land extensive activities. Despite this importance, there have been diverse arguments on how to include land use impacts, for example, on biodiversity in LCA so as to provide a common and acceptable methodology for this assessment.This study focuses on how land use impacts can be included in LCA. With a particular focus on land use impacts on biodiversity, the result of this review shows that only a few studies have been carried out. The problem of non-convergence of the methodology for the assessment of land use in LCA still persists because most of the proposed methodologies deal with different aspects of land use impacts and are therefore conflicting.Most of the studies reviewed stress the importance of biodiversity measured in terms of vascular plant species diversity. However, there are other methodologies which consider other impact pathways such as life support functions. The number of studies thereby correlates with an increase in the interest in the research area. However, it is difficult to identify any trend of convergence. Different methods are being proposed which do not actually agree with one another. Some of these methods are not closely related to the use of land in the normal usage sense. Most of the methods being proposed are exemplified in different regions and these have not been found to be applicable to global cases. This could be a limiting factor for the applicability of the proposed methodologies in LCA. In order to overcome these shortcomings, more research work would be needed before these methodologies could be incorporated into LCA which is presumed to be a global assessment methodology. This will enhance the credibility of the results provided by an LCA and the subsequent acceptability of the LCA methodology.
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Hermansson, Liza. "Land Use Change : Complexities in the initial phase of a Malagasy land deal." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsvetenskaper, SV, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-22037.
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Land deals are common in resource-rich countries and have increased during the past years. Contributing factors to the augmentation of land investments in agriculture and forestry are known to be climate change, rising global food prices, rising income levels and changing diets. The international debate on the topic points at the fact that these types of investments create not only great opportunities but also risks and challenges to the host countries, which often have high poverty rates. In order for land deals to be beneficial for all involved actors there is a voiced need for information about the performances and processes of large-scale land deals already at early stages. The objective of this study is to identify and understand the complexities at household level in relation to a new land deal and to explain how these complexities might hinder positive impacts on rural development that this land deal can entail. This thesis draws on a field study of one particular new land deal, Rainbow Oil, in Madagascar where the phenomenon has become substantial during the past few years. The material has been collected through semi-structured interviews and observations as part of an ethnographic approach. Interviews have been made with the investor and authorities at multiple levels but mainly with peasants in the concerned villages. The findings of the study have been analyzed using the sustainable livelihoods framework which permits the analysis to be both holistic and people-centered. Results from the study indicate that hopes for rural development due to the land deal of Rainbow Oil are evident but that certain factors in the peasants’ access to livelihood assets seem to hinder them from engaging in the land use change. Concluding remarks from the results of the study demonstrate that the investor might not have recognized the necessary prerequisites for a successful involvement of the local populations. Deficiencies in the communication between the actors seem to have created uncertainties and skepticism that can further impede both the development of the land use change itself and in turn also the possible development of particularly the concerned villages.
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Anputhas, Markandu. "Simulating land use change for assessing future dynamics of land and water resources." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/56181.
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Models of land use change fall into two broad categories: pattern based and process based. This thesis focuses on pattern based land use change models, expanding our understanding of these models in three important ways.
First, it is demonstrated that some driving variables do not have a smooth impact on the land use transition process. Our example variable is access to water. Land managers with access to piped water do not have any need for surface or groundwater. For variables like this, a model needs to change the way that driving variables are represented. The second important result is that including a variable which captures spatial correlation between land use types significantly increases the explanatory power of the prediction model. A major weakness of pattern based land use models is their inability to model interactions between neighbouring land parcels; the method proposed in this study can be an alternative to account for spatial neighbourhood association.
These innovations are applied using the CLUE-S (Conversion of Land Use and its Effects at Small regional extent) system to the Deep Creek watershed in the Southern Interior of British Columbia. The results highlight the challenge of balancing the protection of agricultural land and conserving forest and natural areas when population and economic growth are inevitable. The results also demonstrate the implications of land use change on existing land use policies.
The calibrated model was validated using remote sensing data. A series of discriminant functions were estimated for each land use type in the recent period and these functions were then used to classify. The calibrated model was run in reverse, back to the generated land use classification, and results compared. Fit was reasonable with error rates falling below ten percent when radii beyond 2.5 km were considered.
Another important contribution is demonstrating the importance of modelling dynamic variables. Some important drivers are changing continuously and others depend on land use change itself. Failure to update these variables will bias model forecasts. Spatial neighbourhood association, an endogenous variable governed by land use change itself, is again used as the example dynamic variable. The study demonstrates the importance of updating all associated information.Graduate Studies, College of (Okanagan)
Graduate
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Haft, Michael. "Global and European soil carbon fluxes from land use and land management change." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2007. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk/R?func=search-advanced-go&find_code1=WSN&request1=AAIU238551.
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One of the methods of mitigation against climate change is to offset CO2 emissions by using Carbon (C) sinks based on the Kyoto Protocol Articles 3.3 and 3.4 (UNFCCC 1997). One potential C sink is the terrestrial soil organic carbon (SOC) pool which can be affected by a wide variety of environmental factors across a range of time and spatial scales. Soil carbon models RothC, DNDC, Century and the IPCC method were assessed and compared to measured site data in order to determine accuracy. Simpler models such as RothC and the IPCC method were found to perform better [In the absence of abundant input data]. The uncertainty of these models was assessed and found to be +/-15% for the RothC model, +/-19% for the DNDC model and +/-26% for the Century model all with 95% confidence. Post-hoc application of mitigation factors were derived using the IPCC method to provide estimates of carbon mitigation potential. These were applied on a pan-European scale using projected land-use changes. The estimates were compared to trends simulated using an adapted regional scale version of the RothC model, which estimated that 3.1% (+/-0.5%) of the 8% Kyoto EU 15 emissions reduction target (from 1990 levels) could be achieved using these measures.
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Mancini, Adriano. "A new methodological framework for land use/land cover mapping and change detection." Doctoral thesis, Università Politecnica delle Marche, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/11566/242247.
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Lawal, Olanrewaju M. "Analysis of land use changes in the Thames Gateway : the change-pattern approach." Thesis, University of East London, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.532918.
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Land use models are valuable in helping land mangers and policy makers to assess changes and predict the impact of these changes in land use on the resource base. However, the incorporation of the relevant factors still presents a major challenge in modelling of land use. This research proposed and tested a new approach to land use change modelling which incorporates socio-economic and biophysical aspects of land use. The study made use of spatial morphological indices in combination with socio-economic factors to model dynamics of urban land use. This approach adopts neural network for the modelling operation while drawing socio-economic data from census survey to represent some of the human dimensions. Bio-physical and environmental information relevant for land use changes was represented in the model by the land use pattern attributes. In order to determine the appropriate set of input variables for the modelling tow methods of feature selections was employed - factor analysis and genetic algorithm. Inputs selected by both methods were tested extensively In different models and the model with the best selection performance was explored for the final land use modelling. This model explored the propensity for change across three different land use classes within the each landscape units across the study area. Overall, spatio-temporal analyses revealed the existence of constant exchange between ecological infrastructure and cultivated land across the study area. These two land use classes are found to going through two fragmentation phases. Furthermore, land use change analysis revealed that socio-economic variables such as means of transport to work and demographic characteristics are relevant identifying the direction of land use change in the study area. In addition to these variables, grain, connectivity, diversity related attributes of the landscape elements are also found to be important explanatory variables. ANN model result shows that two major change associations have the highest tendencies across the study area. They include decreases in cultivated and built-up lands coupled with increases in ecological infrastructures and decreases and/or little (or no) change in cultivated land and ecological infrastructures coupled with increases In built-up land. The results provide insight into the interaction between pattern of land use and socio-economic characteristics and the implication of these interactions for changes in land use.
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Hackett, William. "Changing Land Use, Climate, and Hydrology in the Winooski." ScholarWorks @ UVM, 2009. http://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/99.
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This study analyzes temporal trends and periodicity in seventy years of publicly available stream discharge and climate data for the Winooski River Basin of northern Vermont as well as lake level data for adjacent Lake Champlain. We also use random sampling and manual, point-based classification of recent and historical aerial imagery to quantify land use change over the past seventy years in the 2,704 km2 Winooski River Basin of northern Vermont. We find a general increase in annual precipitation, discharge, and mean lake level with time in the basin; discharge increases 18% over the period of record while precipitation increases by 14%. Over the last 70 years, mean annual temperature has increased at the Burlington Vermont station by 0.78 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit). Four sets of aerial photographs, taken at intervals of 12 to 29 years between 1937 and 2003 at thirty randomly selected sites, demonstrate that actively cleared land area has decreased by 14%, while forested land and impervious surfaces increased by 10% and 5%, respectively. Spectral analysis of precipitation, discharge and lake level data show a ~7.6 year periodicity, which is in phase with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO); higher than average precipitation and discharge are most likely when the NAO is in a positive mode. The NAO relationship demonstrates that discharge is largely controlled by precipitation; anthropogenic changing climate and changing land use over the past 70 years appear to have subtly changed the seasonality of discharge and caused an increase in base flow.
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Phahlane, Motsepe Herbert. "Effect of land-use change on traffic peak hour factor." Thesis, Vaal University of Technology, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10352/385.
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M. Tech. (Department of Civil Engineering and Building, Faculty of Engineering and Technology), Vaal University of TechnologyGrowth in land development in South Africa resulted in large increase in traffic volumes. A Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA), as a traffic engineering tool, is commonly used to assess the possible effects of a land development project on the transportation and traffic system. During the TIA process, capacity analysis is performed to indicate the measures of effectiveness of the intersection. Intersection capacity analysis in South Africa by engineers is done on the basis of default values of the Peak Hour Factor (PHF) provided by the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) or limited traffic counts. However, the default value of PHF may be significantly affected by new developments in the neighbourhood of the intersection. This study aimed at investigating the impact land-use change has on the existing intersection PHF, thus predicting values per land-use type. Intersections with traffic counts conducted before and after land-use change in vicinity were selected and investigated. The results showed that change in land-use has an impact on the existing PHF. They also assist in identifying the appropriate intersections to predict the PHF per land-use type. Intersections were identified and analysed, and this led to the development of a design chart showing the predicted PHF per land-use type selected and measures to consider during traffic analysis. Intersection capacity analysis was performed to compare the results using the predicted PHF and the HCM default values. The results showed that traffic flow rate was adjusted by up to 26% when using the default values, 0.92 and 0.95. The results also showed that the default values could overestimate the volume to capacity ratio and the average delay by up to 15% and 35%, respectively. It was then concluded that the use of HCM default values of the PHF for every land-use type will have an effect of the final roadway design results. The computed PHF values for each land-use type were then recommended to be used to ensure fairness and consistency in traffic analysis.
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Ampomah, Richard Owusu. "Sediment Harvesting, Beneficial Use and the Impact of Climate and Land-Use/Land-Cover Change on Sediment Load." University of Akron / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1403478256.
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Liu, Qingling, and Fanting Gong. "Monitoring land use and land cover change: a combining approach of change detection to analyze urbanization in Shijiazhuang, China." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för Industriell utveckling, IT och Samhällsbyggnad, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-13715.
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Detecting the changes of land use and land cover of the earth’s surface is extremely important to achieve continual and precise information about study area for any kinds of planning of the development. Geographic information system and remote sensing technologies have shown their great capabilities to solve the study issues like land use and land cover changes. The aim of this thesis is to produce maps of land use and land cover of Shijiazhuang on year 1993, 2000 and 2009 to monitor the possible changes that may occur particularly in agricultural land and urban or built-up land, and detect the process of urbanization in this city. Three multi-temporal satellite image data, Thematic Mapper image data from year 1993, Enhanced Thematic Mapper image data from 2000 and China Brazil Earth Resource Satellite image data from 2009 were used in this thesis. In this study, supervised classification was the major classification approach to provide classified maps, and five land use and land cover categories were identified and mapped. Post-classification approach was used to improve the qualities of the classified map. The noises in the classified maps will be removed after post-classification process. Normalized difference vegetation index was used to detect the changes of vegetated land and non-vegetated land. Change detection function in Erdas Imagine was used to detect the urban growth and the intensity of changes surrounding the urban areas. Cellular automata Markov was used to simulate the trends of land use and cover change during the period of 1993 to 2000 and 2000 to 2009, and a future land use map was simulated based on the land use maps of year 2000 and 2009. From this performance, the cross-tabulation matrices between different periods were produced to analyze the trends of land use and cover changes, and these statistic data directly expressed the change of land use and land cover. The results show that the agricultural land and urban or built-up land were changed a lot, approximately half of agricultural land was converted into urban or built-up land. This indicates that the loss of agricultural land is associated with the growth of urban or built-up land. Thus, the urbanization took place in Shijiazhuang, and the results of this urban expansion lead to the loss of agricultural land and environmental problems. During the process of detecting the land use and cover change, obtaining of high-precision classified maps was the main problem.
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Gretton, Jud Lorna. "Supporting sustainable change : executive summary." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1999. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2618/.
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A review of modern business literature demonstrates that despite a proliferation of best practice models for managing change, none leads to consistent and sustainable success. In this work, action research within three separate projects leads to a model that facilitates change at a project level. Three main arguments for success are made: individuals and their relationships are more critical to success than technology and structure; an ability to look at problems from a systems point of view provides the key to identify excellent solutions; and making room for individuals to use their uniqueness leads to sustainable change. The final model developed is an innovative, content free support framework for change that guides the change team in creating options and making choices throughout the change process. Its role is to support the application of existing tools and techniques. The framework can lead to consistent and sustainable success because its use ensures congruence with the needs of the individuals and the business.
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Alavi, Shoushtari Niloofar. "Land Use and Land Cover Change Detection in Isfahan, Iran Using Remote Sensing Techniques." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/22848.
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Rapid urban growth and unprecedented rural to urban transition, along with a huge population growth are new phenomena for both high and low income countries, which started in the mid-20th century. However, urban growth rates and patterns are different in developed countries and developing ones. In less developed countries, urbanization and rural to urban transition usually takes place in an unmanaged way and they are associated with a series of socioeconomical and environmental issues and problems. Identification of the city growth trends in past decades can help urban planners and managers to minimize these negative impacts. In this research, urban growth in the city of Isfahan, Iran, is the subject of study. Isfahan the third largest city in Iran has experienced a huge urban growth and population boom during the last three decades. This transition led to the destruction of natural and agricultural lands and environmental pollutions.
Historical and recent remotely sensed data, along with different remote sensing techniques and methods have been used by researchers for urban land use and land cover change detection. In this study three Landsat TM and ETM+ images of the study site, acquired in 1985, 2000 and 2009 are used. Before starting processing, radiometric normalization is done to minimize the atmospheric effects. Then, processing methods including principal component analysis (PCA), vegetation indices and supervised classification are implemented on the images. Accuracy assessment of the PCA method showed that the first PC was responsible for more than 81% of the total variance, and therefore used for analysis of PCA differencing. ΔPC1t1-t2 shows the amount of changes in land use and land cover during the period of study. In this study ten vegetation indices were selected to be applied to the 1985 image. Accuracy assessments showed that Transformed Differencing Vegetation Index (TDVI) is the most sensitive and accurate index for mapping vegetation in arid and semi-arid urban areas. Hence, TDVI was applied to the 2000 and 2009 images. ΔTDVIt1-t2 showed the changes in land use and land cover especially the land use transformation from vegetation cover into the urban class. Supervised classification is the last method applied to the images. Training sites were assigned for the selected classes and accuracy was monitored during the process of training site selection. The results of classification show the expansion of urban class and diminishment in natural and agricultural lands.
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Carneiro, Tiago Garcia de Senna. "Nested-ca: a foundation for multiscale modelling of land use and land cover change." Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, 2006. http://urlib.net/sid.inpe.br/mtc-m17@80/2007/01.03.11.57.
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Este trabalho apresenta a base matemática do modelo chamado Autômatos Celulares Aninhados (Nested-CA), um modelo de computação destinado ao desenvolvimento de modelos de mudança de uso e cobertura do solo em múltiplas escalas. As principais propriedades do modelo nested-CA são descritas e comparadas aos modelos de computação baseados em agentes e em autômatos celulares. O modelo nested-CA foi implementado em uma ambiente computacional, chamado TerraME, que oferece uma linguagem de alto nível para a descrição de modelos, um conjunto de estruturas de dados espaço-temporais para a representação e simulação dos modelos, um modulo para o gerenciamento e análise de dados espaço-temporais integrado a um sistema de informações geográficas, e um conjunto de funções para calibração e validação dos modelos. As decisões de projetos envolvidas no desenvolvimento do ambiente de modelagem TerraME são descritas. A arquitetura do ambiente é detalhada e suas principais propriedades são comparadas com outras plataformas de modelagem: Swarm, STELLA, e GEONAMICA. Finalmente, o conceito de nested-CA e o ambiente TerraME são demonstrados em duas aplicações de mudança de cobertura do solo para a Amazônia brasileira.This work presents the mathematical foundations of the Nested Cellular Automata (nested-CA) model, a model of computation for multiple scale Land Use and Land Cover Change studies. The main properties of nested-CA model are described and compared to the agent-based and cellular automata models of computation. The nested- CA model has been implemented in a software environment, called TerraME (Terra Modeling Environment), which provides a high-level modeling language for model description, a set of spatiotemporal data structures for model representation and simulation, a module for spatiotemporal data management and analysis integrated to a geographic information system, and a set of functions for model calibration and validation. We describe the main design choices involved in the development of the TerraME modeling environment. Its architecture is detailed and the main properties are compared with other modeling tools: Swarm, STELLA, and GEONAMICA. Finally, the concept of nested-CA and the TerraME architecture are demonstrated in two applications of land cover change in the Brazilian Amazon.
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Lopez, Robert Daniel. "Land-cover change, fragmentation, and agriculture in southwest Puerto Rico 1982-2002 /." [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2006. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0013702.
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