LCLUC Newsletter Fall 2021 |
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Greetings!
We are pleased to share the latest developments from our LCLUC projects, Science Team members, and related land cover and land use change research.
This edition includes a detailed programmatic update from our Program Manager Dr. Garik Gutman, hot off the press publications from our team and related projects, recent and upcoming satellite missions and data products, news highlights, books, calls for papers, webinars, and much more.
Be sure to check out the LCLUC Hotspot Mapper product on our website that shows the geographical distribution of high impact land use and land cover change hotspots identified by various LCLUC projects.
We invite you to sign up for our mailing list to receive the LCLUC program updates!
Enjoy the updates!
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Message from the Program Manager |
Dear LCLUCers,
As you see, my wishes a year ago for the virus-free 2021 were not fulfilled. The second year has passed with restrictions varying from stricter to softer and back to stricter, the new variants coming in waves. We all adjusted to the changes in our personal life and work mode, became experts in virtual meetings, giving up international travel, but started some socializing and participating in limited holiday celebrations.
In keeping with the LCLUC tradition, I will herein summarize achievements of the second strange year – 2021 - list our plans and convey my best wishes to the whole LCLUC family and our friends around the world.
LCLUC-19 and -2021 selections brought many Early Career Scientists and diversity in geographic areas for studies all over the world. The hotspots map is getting populated as new projects get accepted. It has been developed by the joint effort of LCLUC support team members Indrani and Meghavi (kudos to them). During the past few years, the Program has invested a lot of time and money in South/Southeast Asia Research Initiative (SARI) and now is in good position to synthesize the accumulated knowledge. The amended call of LCLUC-21 (A.47) directed at developing SARI synthesis is out now. Large teams are expected to submit proposals. Only two teams will be selected: one for South Asia and one for Southeast Asia. ROSES-2022 will be announced as usual around Valentine Day (mid Feb). The LCLUC-2022 solicitation will have two elements: 1) to continue identifying high-impact LCLUC "hotspot" areas around the globe, where human-induced LCLUC is occurring at a landscape scale; and 2) to undertake research on land-use adaptation to climate change. Read More
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ROSES 2021 Selections : Identifying High impact LCLUC Hotspots Project Pages
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Amended ROSES 2021 Call: LCLUC SARI Synthesis - Due February 16, 2022 Find More
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ROSES 2022 Call: Will be out in February with the due dates for Step-1 and Step-2 in April and July, respectively. |
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Check out the new LCLUC Hotspots interactive map here
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For those, wondering about the new LCLUC logo, below are some explanations. The background was not chosen arbitrarily – the quadrants of the ellipse were selected based on the research foci in the program. Going clockwise from the left:
The fires have been a topic in many LCLUC projects. During the last few years they has been studied in Africa and Asia, e.g., by David Roy and Krishna Vadrevu, and in most recent projects on Californian fires. But in earlier LCLUC studies, especially in NEESPI projects, Siberian fires were analyzed in detail in several projects, like those by Amber Soja, Sue Conard and others. The studies consisted of researching both the wildfires and the prescribed burns, the fire extent and emissions, and the fire occurrence as related to the climate change during the past couple of decades.
The top right quadrant shows a segment of the red-green-blue composite image of night lights over Europe (red – 2009, green – 2000, blue – 1992). The blueish colors over Ukraine and Moldova manifest the serious economic decline (green and red are not contributing to the composite) experienced by those Former Soviet Union republics after the break-up of the USSR, which happened exactly 30 years ago. The time series of night lights data from DMSP/OLI and more recent data from Terra/VIIRS provide an rich source of information that has been used in various research projects, like those by Chris Elvidge, Volker Radeloff and others, ranging from urban expansion to changes in economy to monitoring fishing boats and gas flares.
The bottom right quadrant shows the agricultural area in Kansas, USA. Farmers in this region are using an efficient irrigation method - central pivot irrigation, which draws water out of a single well in the center of the field. The fields show various crops at different stages of their development. The program has many agriculture projects and some of them, such as Martha Anderson’s project and the team, have focused on the evapotranspiration in the US Midwest.
Finally, the left bottom quadrant shows the well-known deforestation pattern in the state of Rondonia, Brazil, looking like a fish skeleton (clearing up a main road and then going off to the side). The deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon was one of the major foci in the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA): 1998-2006, specifically the LBA-Eco component – the field campaign in several sites to help answering questions on forest conversion, re-growth, selective logging, and the sustainable land use, in a synthesis publication “Amazonia and Global Change” (2013) edited by Michael Keller and LBA team leaders.
-Garik Gutman
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Special Issue "Monitoring Land Cover Change: Towards Sustainability" Find More
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Greenhouse Gases, Short-Lived Climate Pollutants and Aerosol Pollution in South/Southeast Asia – Drivers, States and Impacts Find More
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Our Changing Planet: Half-a-Century Landscape Dynamics Observed From Space Find More
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Recent And Upcoming Missions And Data |
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USGS Releases the Landsat 9 Images
Landsat 9, a joint mission between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that launched September 27, 2021, has collected its first light images of Earth. The images, all acquired Oct. 31, are available online. They provide a preview of how the mission will help people manage vital natural resources and understand the impacts of climate change, adding to Landsat’s unparalleled data record that spans nearly 50 years of space-based Earth observation. Read More
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MSU Team Expands their LCLUC Project to Share US Curriculums with Central Asian Faculty in Ecology and environmental Sciences |
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Based on the LCLUC project Interdependent dynamics of food, energy and water in Kazakhstan and Mongolia: Connecting LULCC to the transitional socioecological systems (PIs: Jiquan Chen, Jinhua Zhao and Ranjeet John), Dr. Jiquan Chen expanded the project to share curriculums with junior faculty members from Central Asian countries in ecology and environmental sciences. These initiatives were funded by the American Councils for 2020. Nine US faculty members from five universities, mostly NASA investigators and collaborators (Peilei Fan, Ranjeet John, Colt Knight, Ginger Allington) shared key curriculums of 20 key courses in 2021 through collaborations with the Kazakh National Agrarian Research University in Almaty. Over 200 faculty members, agency professionals, and graduate students attended the training workshop (http://workshopkzusa.tilda.ws).
The team continued their success with a renewed proposal for the American Councils by “Advancing Key Curriculums of Ecology and Environmental Sciences for Regional Universities in Kazakhstan & Beyond”. The goal of this project is to develop detailed course content and to convey how core ecology (or broadly defined environmental science) classes are taught in US universities to junior faculty members in rural Kazakhstan universities. The team will focus on five major classes that are required courses for ecology majors in most US universities. Each of the courses will be covered fully as taught in the USA, with hands-on exercises in the classroom and in the field, and through a hybrid of in-person and online lectures. A team of seven US faculty members will strengthen to enhance the core courses by: (1) covering all detailed materials for each course is taught in the US; (2) including field exercises as essential components of the classes; and (3) targeting junior faculty members from regional universities. Since the curriculums and course materials used at various US institutions of higher education are different, input from multiple universities from the US is an essential feature of this effort. They will organize an 11-day workshop in the summer of 2022 that brings together faculty members from multiple institutions of higher education from the US and Kazakhstan. The lectures will include:
1) Community Ecology, with field exercise (Fang)
2) Rangeland Ecology, with field exercise (Knight)
3) Landscape Ecology, with field exercise (Allington)
4) Urban Ecology and Sustainability (Fan)
5) Remote Sensing of Environment & UAS Applications, with field exercise (John)
6) Sustainable Development in a Disrupted Global Economy (Graham)
7) Global Change Science (Chen)
- Jiquan Chen, Michigan State University
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Central Asia Regional Information Network updates |
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T he Central Asia Regional Information Network (CARIN) hosted two Research Webinars in the Fall to bring together investigators working and interested in Central Asia. In November, Prof. Sagynbek Orunbaev, Department of Applied Geology, Environmental Sustainability, and Climate Science of American University of Central Asia, spoke on Remote Sensing and Ground-based Geophysical Studies in Mountainous Regions: Local Experiences, and Dr. Munavar Zhumanova, Center for Global Change and Earth Observations of Michigan State University, spoke on Ecological Implications of Long-term Vegetation Changes in the Mountain Pastures of Kyrgyzstan. In December, Dr. Zafar Gafurov, International Water Management Institute, Uzbekistan, spoke on Data Sharing and Water Productivity Mapping using Earth Observation in Central Asia, and Prof. Kim Vanselow, Institute of Geography, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, spoke on Landsat Time Series Analysis of Land Cover Change in the Western Pamirs, Tajikistan. The CARIN Research Webinar series will resume in February. Visit the CARIN website for more information: https://centralasiarin.net.
-Geoffrey M Henebry, Michigan State University
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Land Cover and Land Use Transformation and Impacts from Dragon Fruit Farming in Southern Vietnam |
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Bình Thuận Province in Vietnam has been undergoing an intensive agriculture transformation by the development of extensive dragon fruit plantations, considered as the “Dragon Fruit Kingdom” (or the “Dragon Kingdom” in short). The dragon fruit farming in rural regions together with rapid urbanization due to the tourism boom in the city are creating the conditions for a dual rural-urban hotspot where both city areas and farmlands have been intensively and contemporaneously developed. Such transformation has profoundly altered the socioeconomic fabric of the region. Farmers in Bình Thuận use high-intensity artificial lights shinning up toward the dragon-fruit cactus canopy at night to drive the photo-conversion process of phytochromes and increase the yield of dragon fruit production to multiple times per year (billion-dollar cash crop). The nighttime light (NTL) from regions of dragon fruit plantations is far exceeding in both extent and intensity compared to the NTL from Phan Thiết city (capital of Bình Thuận) that is rapidly urbanized by the tourism industry. In fact, Figure above shows that NTL from the Dragon Kingdom in Bình Thuận is brighter by far compared to NTL of Hồ Chí Minh City (a mega city) or to NTL of Paris (known as the City of Light). This leads to an extremely excessive overestimation of fossil fuel CO2 (FFCO2) emission currently using NTL as a proxy indicator of human settlements, which must be corrected to obtain accurate FFCO2 assessment to lend support to the Paris Agreement. The case of Bình Thuận highlights a crucial significance for the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) , which has to be fairly and correctly implemented, not only for Vietnam but also for many countries where extensive and intensive lighting is being used for agricultural activities in rural regions, rather than in cities that are major contributors to FFCO2 emission. Read More
- Son. V. Nghiem, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Recent and upcoming meetings |
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Krakow, Poland
09/12/2022 to 09/16/2022
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Fortaleza, Brazil
08/15/2022 to 08/19/2022
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Bonn, Germany
05/23/2022 to 05/27/2022
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Bethesda, MD
04/18/2022 to 04/20/2022
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Virtual
01/12/2022 to 01/13/2022
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Virtual
07/28/2021 to 07/29/2021
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Virtual
05/06/2021 to 05/07/2021
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Virtual
04/22/2021 to 04/23/2021
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Virtual
03/24/2021 - 03/25/2021
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Virtual
02/25/2021 to 02/25/2021
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Virtual
01/21/2021 to 01/22/2021
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Affek A.N., Wolski J., Zachwatowicz M., Ostafin K., Radeloff V.C.
Landscape and Urban Planning, Volume 214 (2021)
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Highlights
- Post-WWII forced displacement caused major forest increase in Polish Carpathians.
- 115k of 181k (63%) of forest increase until 1970 due to displacement.
- Land-use regime switched from agricultural to forest-dominated stable state.
- Displacement caused more forest increase than post-socialist abandonment.
- Displacement areas now one of the largest wilderness areas in Central Europe.
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Ishtiaque A., Singh S., Lobell D., Singh B., Fishman R., Jain M.
Science of Total Environment, Volume 807, Part 2 (2021)
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Highlights
- Climate change induced heat stress is predicted to negatively impact wheat yields across the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) of India.
- We examined the timing of wheat sowing across the IGP and which factors are associated with delayed sowing.
- We found that variables related to how wheat fields are prepared prior to sowing are associated with wheat sowing date.
- We also found that management practices during the monsoon season influence the timing of wheat sowing in the winter season.
- Policies that promote improved access to irrigation and direct seeding machinery can help farmers across the IGP sow wheat earlier.
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Choksi, P., Singh D., Singh J., Mondal P, Nagendra H, Urpelainen J., DeFries R.
Environmental Research Letters , Volume 16 , Number 6 (2021)
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Extreme climatic events and variability are on the rise around the world, with varying implications for populations across socio-economic conditions. Effective strategies for climate adaptation and development depend on understanding these differential sensitivities to climatic variability. This study focuses on a vulnerable population living in forest-fringe villages of central India, where seasonal migration is a common livelihood strategy for poor households to supplement their incomes with remittances. We quantify the relative sensitivity of a decision to migrate for the first time to climate and socio-economic variables and how the sensitivities vary for different segments of the population.
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Van Den Hoek J., Smith A.C., Hurni K., Saksena S., Fox J.
Remote Sensing 13 (2021)
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Accurate remote sensing of mountainous forest cover change is important for myriad social and ecological reasons, but is challenged by topographic and illumination conditions that can affect detection of forests. This study characterizes the previously undocumented effects of topographic illumination correction (TIC) on forest cover and forest cover change mapping in Nepal from 1992–2016 using Landsat surface reflectance time series. We developed parallel TIC and nonTIC assessments on classifier model accuracy, long-term trends, and forest cover conversion and quantified the differences introduced by TIC. We summarized results at national, physiographic zone, and IL stratum levels and over various time periods to account for the ways in which TIC affects our understanding of forest cover change in different regions at different times due to different socioeconomic drivers.
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Worden J., de Beurs K.M., Koch, J., Owsley B.C.
Remote Sensing 13 (2021)
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The Caucasus is a diverse region with many climate zones that range from subtropical lowlands to mountainous alpine areas. The region is marked by irrigated croplands fed by irrigation canals, heavily vegetated wetlands, lakes, and reservoirs. In this study, we demonstrate the development of an improved surface water map based on a global water dataset to get a better understanding of the spatial distribution of small water bodies. Our approach produced surface water extent maps with higher accuracy (89.2%) and detected 392 km2 more water than the global product (86.7% accuracy). We demonstrate that the newly developed method enables surface water detection of small ponds and lakes, flooded agricultural fields, and narrow irrigation channels, which are particularly important for mosquito-borne diseases.
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Mack A.E., Henebry G.M., Mongeon E.
Applied Geography Vol. 136 (2021)
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Highlights
- Investigate remittance network vulnerability when inflows are undiversified.
- Focus analysis on newly independent states (NIS) from dissolution of Soviet Union.
- Remittances do not enhance economic vitality of NIS relative to other countries.
- NIS remittances from the Russian Federation more significant than other countries.
- NIS remittances more susceptible to shocks to Russian Federation than other countries.
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