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Special Issue "Land Use Change in the Changing Environment"

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Keywords
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A special issue of Environments (ISSN 2076-3298).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2016)

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Special Issue Editor

Guest Editor

Prof. Dr. Teiji Watanabe

Group of Environmental Geography, Section of Integrated Environmental Science, Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University W-5, N-10, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan
Website | E-Mail
Phone: +81 11 706 2213
Interests: conservation and sustainable use of natural resources; protected-area management; terrestrial environment; land use and land cover change; geodiversity analysis and geoconservation; mountain geography; South Asia; Central Asia; Southwest Asia

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Land-use changes are discussed in relation to, not only climate change, but also political and socio-economic changes. Such interactions, between humans and environments, are receiving more attentions nowadays. Because of its complexity, land science involves broad communities. This Special Issue is seeking original, unpublished papers that describe recent advances and efforts in various land-use and land-cover change issues in relation to changing environments, not only from a GLP (Global Land Project) community but also from non-GLP communities. This Special Issue invites research papers addressing the state-of-the-art in developing the concepts and tools for an effective analysis at different scales. Research results and discussions, especially those targeting contributions to exploring research framework with co-design and co-production for Future Earth (http://www.futureearth.org/), are highly welcomed. Papers selected for this Special Issue are subjected to a rigorous peer review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications in the area of environment.

Prof. Dr. Teiji Watanabe
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Environments is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) is waived for well-prepared manuscripts submitted to this issue. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

accumulation of case studies on land use change and sustainability, resilience, and vulnerability
land use change in protected areas
trade-offs between development/land use change and conservation
land use change and climate change, societal change, or policy change as a driver
land use change and poverty, marginality, and gender
models and analytical tools for environmental management and sustainability

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

Open AccessArticle Land-Use Change Modelling in the Upper Blue Nile Basin

by Seleshi G. Yalew, Marloes L. Mul, Ann van Griensven, Ermias Teferi, Joerg Priess, Christian Schweitzer and Pieter van Der Zaag

Environments 2016, 3(3), 21; doi:10.3390/environments3030021

Received: 29 April 2016 / Revised: 3 August 2016 / Accepted: 9 August 2016 / Published: 17 August 2016

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Land-use and land-cover changes are driving unprecedented changes in ecosystems and environmental processes at different scales. This study was aimed at identifying the potential land-use drivers in the Jedeb catchment of the Abbay basin by combining statistical analysis, field investigation and remote sensing. To do so, a land-use change model was calibrated and evaluated using the SITE (SImulation of Terrestrial Environment) modelling framework. SITE is cellular automata based multi-criteria decision analysis framework for simulating land-use conversion based on socio-economic and environmental factors. Past land-use trajectories (1986–2009) were evaluated using a reference Landsat-derived map (agreement of 84%). Results show that major land-use change drivers in the study area were population, slope, livestock and distances from various infrastructures (roads, markets and water). It was also found that farmers seem to increasingly prefer plantations of trees such as Eucalyptus by replacing croplands perhaps mainly due to declining crop yield, soil fertility and climate variability. Potential future trajectory of land-use change was also predicted under a business-as-usual scenario (2009–2025). Results show that agricultural land will continue to expand from 69.5% in 2009 to 77.5% in 2025 in the catchment albeit at a declining rate when compared with the period from 1986 to 2009. Plantation forest will also increase at a much higher rate, mainly at the expense of natural vegetation, agricultural land and grasslands. This study provides critical information to land-use planners and policy makers for a more effective and proactive management in this highland catchment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change in the Changing Environment)

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Open AccessArticle Forest-Cover Change and Participatory Forest Management of the Lembus Forest, Kenya

by Donald Kipruto Kimutai and Teiji Watanabe

Environments 2016, 3(3), 20; doi:10.3390/environments3030020

Received: 30 April 2016 / Revised: 11 July 2016 / Accepted: 18 July 2016 / Published: 26 July 2016

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Forests are a vital resource supporting the livelihoods of rural communities in Kenya. In spite of this significant role, human activities have put increased pressure on this resource, leading to continued forest-cover decline. To address forest-cover decline, the Kenyan government introduced Participatory Forest Management (PFM) through its Forest Department in the early 2000s, enabling local communities to form and register Community Forest Associations (CFAs). This study was conducted to examine the impacts of the PFM approach on the Lembus Forest-cover change. Three Landsat satellite images (Landsat 5 TM acquired on 9 January 1985; Landsat 7 ETM+ acquired on 1 February 2002; and Landsat 8 OLI (Operational Land Imager) acquired on 1 March 2015) were used to analyse forest-cover change in the 1st period (1985–2002) and the 2nd period (2002–2015). In analysing the contribution of CFAs in conservation and management of the Lembus Forest, questionnaire sheets were distributed randomly to various residents living adjacent to the Lembus Forest; 327 valid responses were obtained from heads of households. The results of the land-cover change show a decrease in the percentage of forest-cover decline from 11.2%, registered in the 1st period, to 8.2% in the 2nd period. This led to the decrease of the annual rate of the forest-cover decline from 0.4 in the 1st period to 0.2 in the 2nd period. Three CFAs operate in this area, and 75% of the respondents participated in tree planting and 16% participated in tree pruning. This type of community participation is thought to most likely be the cause of the decline of the recent decreasing annual rate of forest-cover loss in the study area. Conversely, we found out that important initiatives, such as a forest patrol, had not been implemented due to lack of funding, and that CFAs and Kenya Forest Service had not yet signed any management agreement. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change in the Changing Environment)

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Open AccessArticle Green Economy Modelling of Ecosystem Services along the “Road to Dawei”

by Andrea M. Bassi, Louise A. Gallagher and Hanna Helsingen

Environments 2016, 3(3), 19; doi:10.3390/environments3030019

Received: 9 February 2016 / Revised: 8 July 2016 / Accepted: 14 July 2016 / Published: 20 July 2016

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This review of the study “Road to Dawei”, conducted by WWF Greater Mekong, seeks to assess economic, social and environmental impacts of road construction between Kanchanaburi, Thailand and Dawei, Myanmar. It also aims to identify relevant Green Economy policy interventions that would enhance the sustainable use and conservation of natural capital, which is considered to be a foundation for sustainable and inclusive economic development. In particular, the study concentrates on the identification of feedback loops, delays and nonlinearity in order to properly map the socio-economic and environmental system analysed and inform decision making. Results are presented for three different scenarios both for Myanmar and for Thailand. Simulation results show that a conventional approach to road construction is likely to have positive economic impacts in the region, especially in the short term, but also negative consequences for the integrity of the ecosystem, which in turn might also negatively impact on the investment itself and its economic outcomes in the medium and longer term. Further, results indicate that green economy interventions would mitigate environmental risks by creating synergies across sectors, systemically. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change in the Changing Environment)

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Open AccessArticle Classification of Land Use on Sand-Dune Topography by Object-Based Analysis, Digital Photogrammetry, and GIS Analysis in the Horqin Sandy Land, China

by Takafumi Miyasaka, Toshiya Okuro, Xueyong Zhao and Kazuhiko Takeuchi

Environments 2016, 3(3), 17; doi:10.3390/environments3030017

Received: 1 May 2016 / Revised: 23 June 2016 / Accepted: 5 July 2016 / Published: 12 July 2016

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Previous field research on the Horqin Sandy Land (China), which has suffered from severe desertification during recent decades, revealed how land use on a sand-dune topography affects both land degradation and restoration. This study aimed to depict the spatial distribution of local land use in order to shed more light on previous field findings regarding policies on a broader scale. We performed the following analyses with Panchromatic Remote-sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM) and Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type 2 (AVNIR-2) images of Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS): (1) object-based classification to discriminate preliminary classification of land-use types that were approximately differentiated by ordinary pixel-based analysis with spectral information; (2) digital photogrammetry to generate a digital surface model (DSM) with adequately high accuracy to represent undulating sand-dune topography; (3) geographic information system (GIS) analysis to classify major topographic types with the digital surface model (DSM); and (4) overlay of the two classification results to depict the local land-use types. The overall accuracies of the object-based and GIS-based classifications were high, at 93% (kappa statistic: 0.84) and 89% (kappa statistic: 0.81), respectively. The resultant local land-use map represents areas covered in previous field studies, showing where and how land degradation and restoration are likely to occur. This research can contribute to future environmental surveys, models, and policies in the study area. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change in the Changing Environment)

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Open AccessArticle Quantifying the Driving Forces of Informal Urbanization in the Western Part of the Greater Cairo Metropolitan Region

by Taher Osman, Prasanna Divigalpitiya and Takafumi Arima

Environments 2016, 3(2), 13; doi:10.3390/environments3020013

Received: 17 February 2016 / Revised: 20 April 2016 / Accepted: 19 May 2016 / Published: 2 June 2016

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This paper discusses the driving forces (DFs) of informal urbanization (IU) in the greater Cairo metropolitan region (GCMR) using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The IU patterns in the GCMR have been extremely influenced by seven DFs: geographical characteristics, availability of life facilities, economic incentives, land demand and supply, population increase, administrative function, and development plans. This research found that these forces vary significantly in how they influence urban growth in the three study sectors, namely, the middle, north, and south areas in the western part of the GCMR. The forces with the highest influence were economic incentives in the middle sector, population increase in the north sector, and the administrative function in the south sector. Due to the lower availability of buildable land in the middle sector, the land demand and supply force had a lesser influence in this sector compared to in the north and south sectors. The development plans force had medium influence in all sectors. The geographical characteristics force had little influence in both the middle and the north sectors, but higher influence than economic incentives, availability of life facilities, and development plans in the south sector. Because of the spatial variances in life facilities organizations in the GCMR, the life facilities availability force had little effect on IU in the south sector. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change in the Changing Environment)

Open AccessArticle Protected Area Monitoring in the Niger Delta Using Multi-Temporal Remote Sensing

by Alex Okiemute Onojeghuo and Ajoke Ruth Onojeghuo

Environments 2015, 2(4), 500-520; doi:10.3390/environments2040500

Received: 12 July 2015 / Revised: 25 September 2015 / Accepted: 10 October 2015 / Published: 26 October 2015

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Despite their importance, available information on the dynamics of forest protected areas and their management in the Niger delta are insufficient. We present results showing the distribution and structure of forest landscapes across protected areas in two states (Cross River and Delta) within the Niger Delta using multi-temporal remote sensing. Satellite images were classified and validated using ground data, existing maps, Google Earth, and historic aerial photographs over 1986, 2000 and 2014. The total area of forest landscape for 1986, 2000 and 2014 across the identified protected areas were 535,671 ha, 494,009 ha and 469,684 ha (Cross River) and 74,631 ha, 68,470 ha and 58,824 ha (Delta) respectively. The study showed annual deforestation rates for protected areas across both states from 1986 to 2000 were 0.8%. However, the overall annual deforestation rate between 2000 and 2014 was higher in Delta (1.9%) compared to Cross River (0.7%). This study shows accelerated levels of forest fragmentation across protected areas in both states as a side effect of the prevalence of agricultural practices and unsupervised urbanisation. The results show the need for government intervention and policy implementation, in addition to efforts by local communities and conservation organisations in protected area management across ecologically fragile areas of Nigeria. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Use Change in the Changing Environment)

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