Sample records for abandoned agricultural lands

  1. The global potential of bioenergy on abandoned agriculture lands.

    PubMed

    Campbell, J Elliott; Lobell, David B; Genova, Robert C; Field, Christopher B

    2008-08-01

    Converting forest lands into bioenergy agriculture could accelerate climate change by emitting carbon stored in forests, while converting food agriculture lands into bioenergy agriculture could threaten food security. Both problems are potentially avoided by using abandoned agriculture lands for bioenergy agriculture. Here we show the global potential for bioenergy on abandoned agriculture lands to be less than 8% of current primary energy demand, based on historical land use data, satellite-derived land cover data, and global ecosystem modeling. The estimated global area of abandoned agriculture is 385-472 million hectares, or 66-110% of the areas reported in previous preliminary assessments. The area-weighted mean production of above-ground biomass is 4.3 tons ha(-1) y(-1), in contrast to estimates of up to 10 tons ha(-1) y(-1) in previous assessments. The energy content of potential biomass grown on 100% of abandoned agriculture lands is less than 10% of primary energy demand for most nations in North America, Europe, and Asia, but it represents many times the energy demand in some African nations where grasslands are relatively productive and current energy demand is low.

  2. Agricultural land abandonment in Mediterranean environment provides ecosystem services via soil carbon sequestration.

    PubMed

    Novara, Agata; Gristina, Luciano; Sala, Giovanna; Galati, Antonino; Crescimanno, Maria; Cerdà, Artemi; Badalamenti, Emilio; La Mantia, Tommaso

    2017-01-15

    Abandonment of agricultural land leads to several consequences for ecosystem functions. Agricultural abandonment may be a significant and low cost strategy for carbon sequestration and mitigation of anthropogenic CO 2 emissions due to the vegetation recovery and increase in soil organic matter. The aim of this study was to: (i) estimate the influence of different Soil Regions (areas characterized by a typical climate and parent material association) and Bioclimates (zones with homogeneous climatic regions and thermotype indices) on soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics after agricultural land abandonment; and (ii) to analyse the efficiency of the agri-environment policy (agri-environment measures) suggested by the European Commission in relation to potential SOC stock ability in the Sicilian Region (Italy). In order to quantify the effects of agricultural abandonment on SOC, a dataset with original data that was sampled in Sicily and existing data from the literature were analysed according to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) methodology. Results showed that abandonment of cropland soils increased SOC stock by 9.03MgCha -1 on average, ranging from 5.4MgCha -1 to 26.7MgCha -1 in relation to the Soil Region and Bioclimate. The estimation of SOC change after agricultural use permitted calculation of the payments for ecosystem service (PES) of C sequestration after agricultural land abandonment in relation to environmental benefits, increasing in this way the efficiency of PES. Considering the 14,337ha of abandoned lands in Sicily, the CO 2 emission as a whole was reduced by 887,745Mg CO 2 . Therefore, it could be concluded that abandoned agricultural fields represents a valid opportunity to mitigate agriculture sector emissions in Sicily. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Assessing the effect of agricultural land abandonment on bird communities in southern-eastern Europe.

    PubMed

    Zakkak, Sylvia; Radovic, Andreja; Nikolov, Stoyan C; Shumka, Spase; Kakalis, Lefteris; Kati, Vassiliki

    2015-12-01

    Agricultural land abandonment is recognized as a major environmental threat in Europe, being particularly pronounced in south-eastern Europe, where knowledge on its effects is limited. Taking the Balkan Peninsula as a case study, we investigated agricultural abandonment impact on passerine communities at regional level. We set up a standard methodology for site selection (70 sites) and data collection, along a well-defined forest-encroachment gradient that reflects land abandonment in four countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Greece. Regardless the different socio-economic and political histories in the Balkans that led to diverse land abandonment patterns in space and time, rural abandonment had a consistent negative effect on bird communities, while regional-level analysis revealed patterns that were hidden at local level. The general trends were an increase of forest-dwelling bird species at the expense of farmland birds, the decline of overall bird species richness, as well as the decline of Species of European Conservation Concern (SPECs) richness and abundance. Many farmland bird species declined with land abandonment, whereas few forest species benefited from the process. In conclusion, our results support CAP towards hampering rural land abandonment and preserving semi-open rural mosaics in remote upland areas, using a suite of management measures carefully tailored to local needs. The maintenance of traditional rural landscapes should be prioritized in the Balkans, through the timely identification of HNV farmland that is most prone to abandonment. We also suggest that coordinated transnational research is needed, for a better assessment of conservation options in remote rural landscapes at European scale, including the enhancement of wild grazers' populations as an alternative in areas where traditional land management is rather unlikely to be re-established. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Factors associated with succession of abandoned agricultural lands along the Lower Missouri River, U.S.A

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Thogmartin, W.E.; Gallagher, M.; Young, N.; Rohweder, J.J.; Knutson, M.G.

    2009-01-01

    The 1993 flood of the Missouri River led to the abandonment of agriculture on considerable land in the floodplain. This abandonment led to a restoration opportunity for the U.S. Federal Government, purchasing those lands being sold by farmers. Restoration of this floodplain is complicated, however, by an imperfect understanding of its past environmental and vegetative conditions. We examined environmental conditions associated with the current placement of young forests and wet prairies as a guide to the potential successional trajectory for abandoned agricultural land subject to flooding. We used Bayesian mixed-effects logistic regression to examine the effects of flood frequency, soil drainage, distance from the main channel, and elevation on whether a site was in wet prairie or in forest. Study site was included as a random effect, controlling for site-specific differences not measured in our study. We found, after controlling for the effect of site, that early-successional forest sites were closer to the river and at a lower elevation but occurred on drier soils than wet prairie. In a regulated river such as the lower Missouri River, wet prairie sites are relatively isolated from the main channel compared to early-successional forest, despite occurring on relatively moister soils. The modeled results from this study may be used to predict the potential successional fate of the acquired agricultural lands, and along with information on wildlife assemblages associated with wet prairie and forest can be used to predict potential benefit of these acquisitions to wildlife conservation. ?? 2009 Society for Ecological Restoration International.

  5. Restoring abandoned agricultural lands in cold desert shrublands: Tradeoffs between water availability and invasive species

    Treesearch

    Jeanne C. Chambers; Eric P. Eldredge; Keirith A. Snyder; David I. Board; Tara Forbis de Queiroz; Vada Hubbard

    2014-01-01

    Restoration of abandoned agricultural lands to create resilient ecosystems in arid and semi-arid ecosystems typically requires seeding or transplanting native species, improving plant-soil-water relations, and controlling invasive species. We asked if improving water relations via irrigation or surface mulch would result in negative tradeoffs between native species...

  6. The USGS Abandoned Mine Lands Initiative: Protecting and restoring the environment near abandoned mine lands

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    ,

    1999-01-01

    The Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) Initiative is part of a larger strategy of the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to clean up Federal lands contaminated by abandoned mines.Thousands of abandond hard-rock metal mines (such as gold, copper, lead, and zinc) have left a dual legacy across the Western United States. They reflect the historic development of the west, yet at the same time represent a possible threat to human health and local ecosystems.Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) are areas adjacent to or affected by abandoned mines. AML's often contain unmined mineral deposits, mine dumps (the ore and rock removed to get to the ore deposits), and tailings (the material left over from the ore processing) that contaminate the surrounding watershed and ecosystem. For example, streams near AML's can contain metals and (or) be so acidic that fish and aquatic insects cannot live in them.Many of these abandoned hard-rock mines are located on or adjacent to public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and U.S. Forest Service. These federal land management agencies and the USGS are committed to mitigating the adverse effects that AML's can have on water quality and stream habitats.The USGS AML Initiative began in 1997 and will continue through 2001 in two pilot watersheds - the Boulder River basin in southwestern Montana and the upper Animas River basin in southwestern Colorado. The USGS is providing a wide range of scientific expertise to help land managers minimize and, where possible, eliminate the adverse environmental effects of AML's. USGS ecologists, geologists, water quality experts, hydrologists, geochemists, and mapping and digital data collection experts are collaborating to provide the scientific knowledge needed for an effective cleanup of AML's.

  7. Fire Regime and Land Abandonment in European Russia: Case Study of Smolensk Oblast

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Krylov, A.; McCarty, J. L.; Potapov, P.; Turubanova, S.; Prishchepov, A. V.; Manisha, A.; Romanenkov, V.; Rukhovitch, D.; Koroleva, P.; Hansen, M.

    2014-12-01

    Fires in anthropogenically-dominated landscapes are generally attributed to ecosystem management, agriculture, and policy drivers. In European Russia, fire mainly occurring on agricultural lands, wetlands, and abandoned lands. In the agricultural practice in Russia prescribed fires are believed to increase pasture and hay productivity, suppress trees and shrub expansion, and reduce fire hazards, with fire frequency fire dependent on land use and agricultural practices. The large-scale socio-economic transition since the fall of the Soviet Union has led to changes in land use and land management, including land abandonment and changing agricultural practices. In June 2014, an extensive field campaign was completed in the Smolensk Oblast, located approximately two hundred kilometers west of Moscow on the border with Belarus. Our field sampling was based on circa 1985 Landsat-based forest cover map (Potapov et al., 2014). Points were randomly selected from the non-forested class of the 1985 classification, prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Of total field collects, 55% points were sampled on land in either early or late stage of abandonment, 15% from actively cropped fields, and 30% from hay or pasture. Fire frequency was calculated for the 108 field points using 1 km Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) active fire data for years 2000-2014. Also we calculated percent of points burned in spring 2014 using 30 m Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) data to derive burn scars. Actively cropped fields had lowest burn frequency while abandoned lands - early and late stage abandonment - had highest frequency. Fire frequency was significantly higher on wet soils than dry soils, with no relationship between fire frequency and tree canopy cover. We hypothesize, higher fire frequency on abandoned lands was likely due to greater fuel loads and because of traditional belief in rural Russia that fire is efficient way to suppress tree and shrub expansion.

  8. Major pollutants in soils of abandoned agricultural land contaminated by e-waste activities in Hong Kong.

    PubMed

    Lopez, Brenda Natalia; Man, Yu Bon; Zhao, Yin Ge; Zheng, Jin Shu; Leung, Anna Oi Wah; Yao, Jun; Wong, Ming Hung

    2011-07-01

    Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) compounds and five heavy metals (cadmium, copper, chromium, lead, and zinc) were determined in soil samples collected from six sites of abandoned agricultural land affected by electronic-waste: e-waste dismantling workshop [EW (DW)], e-waste open burning site [EW (OBS)], e-waste storage [EW (S)], and agricultural (A) in the New Territories, Hong Kong. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and heavy metals were detected in all soil samples. EW (DW) contained the highest concentrations of PAHs, Cr, Cu, and Zn, whereas EW (OBS) had the highest concentrations of PCBs, PBDEs, Cd, and Pb. PAH at EW (DW) and EW (OBS) and PCB concentrations at EW (OBS) exceeded the target values of the New Dutch list, whereas Cd, Cu, Cr, Pb, and Zn levels exceeded the Chinese legislation for the protection of agricultural production and safeguarding of human health, by 3-11 times at EW (OBS) and 5-8 times at EW (DW). Lead at EW (OBS) and EW (DW) and Cr at EW (DW) greatly exceeded the Canadian Soil Quality Guidelines by 46 and 20 times and 27 times, respectively. Concentrations of POPs and heavy metals at EW (DW) and EW (OBS) were significantly higher than at EW (S) and A. It was concluded that e-waste activities led to increases of toxic chemicals at these abandoned agricultural land, which would hinder the redevelopment of the land.

  9. Secondary Forests from Agricultural Abandonment in Amazonia 2000-2009

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Morton, Douglas

    2010-01-01

    Ongoing negotiations to include reducing emissions from tropical deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) in a post-Kyoto climate agreement highlight the critical role of satellite data for accurate and transparent accounting of forest cover changes. In addition to deforestation and degradation, knowledge of secondary forest dynamics is essential for full carbon accounting under REDD+. Land abandonment to secondary forests also frames one of the key tradeoffs for agricultural production in tropical forest countries-whether to incentivize secondary forest growth (for carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation) or low-carbon expansion of agriculture or biofuels production in areas of secondary forests. We examined patterns of land abandonment to secondary forest across the arc of deforestation in Brazil and Bolivia using time series of annual Landsat and MODIS data from 2000-2009. Rates of land abandonment to secondary forest during 2002-2006 were less than 5% of deforestation rates in these years. Small areas of new secondary forest were scattered across the entire arc of deforestation, rather than concentrated in any specific region of the basin. Taken together, our analysis of the satellite data record emphasizes the difficulties of addressing the pool of new secondary forests in the context of REDD+ in Amazonia. Due to the small total area of secondary forests, land sparing through agricultural intensification will be an important element of efforts to reduce deforestation rates under REDD+ while improving agricultural productivity in Amazonia.

  10. Impacts of land-use history on the recovery of ecosystems after agricultural abandonment

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Krause, Andreas; Pugh, Thomas A. M.; Bayer, Anita D.; Lindeskog, Mats; Arneth, Almut

    2016-09-01

    Land-use changes have been shown to have large effects on climate and biogeochemical cycles, but so far most studies have focused on the effects of conversion of natural vegetation to croplands and pastures. By contrast, relatively little is known about the long-term influence of past agriculture on vegetation regrowth and carbon sequestration following land abandonment. We used the LPJ-GUESS dynamic vegetation model to study the legacy effects of different land-use histories (in terms of type and duration) across a range of ecosystems. To this end, we performed six idealized simulations for Europe and Africa in which we made a transition from natural vegetation to either pasture or cropland, followed by a transition back to natural vegetation after 20, 60 or 100 years. The simulations identified substantial differences in recovery trajectories of four key variables (vegetation composition, vegetation carbon, soil carbon, net biome productivity) after agricultural cessation. Vegetation carbon and composition typically recovered faster than soil carbon in subtropical, temperate and boreal regions, and vice versa in the tropics. While the effects of different land-use histories on recovery periods of soil carbon stocks often differed by centuries across our simulations, differences in recovery times across simulations were typically small for net biome productivity (a few decades) and modest for vegetation carbon and composition (several decades). Spatially, we found the greatest sensitivity of recovery times to prior land use in boreal forests and subtropical grasslands, where post-agricultural productivity was strongly affected by prior land management. Our results suggest that land-use history is a relevant factor affecting ecosystems long after agricultural cessation, and it should be considered not only when assessing historical or future changes in simulations of the terrestrial carbon cycle but also when establishing long-term monitoring networks and

  11. The trajectories and determinants of agricultural land-use change over the last two decades in post-Soviet European Russia

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Prishchepov, A. V.; Müller, D.; Sieber, A.; Kuemmerle, T.; Radeloff, V. C.; Hostert, P.

    2012-04-01

    The transition from state-command to market-driven economies in Russia in 1991 triggered fundamental political, economic and institutional changes, which in turn drastically affected agricultural land use. Large tracks of agricultural lands became abandoned, particularly during the first decade of the transition. However, it is not clear how the changing socio-economic and political conditions in post-Soviet Russia changed abandonment trajectories over the last two decades. We analyzed agricultural land-use change, both agricultural land abandonment and recultivation of once abandoned agricultural lands, with multitemporal Landsat TM/ETM+ images for 1990-2000-2009 to study Ryazan province in the forest-steppe transition zone and Rostov province in the steppe zone of European Russia. We classified agricultural land use change over 1990-2000-2009 with Support Vector Machines and assessed classification accuracies with independently of training datasets collected validation data. Overall accuracies were over 80%. We summarized the rates of agricultural land use change, and quantified the spatial determinants of these land use change processes using logistic regressions. Results indicated that 28% of agricultural land managed in 1990 were abandoned by the year 2000 in Ryazan province. From 2000 to 2009, agricultural land abandonment increased by another half what was abandoned from 1990 to 2000 and comprised 42% of abandoned agricultural that was managed in 1990 while only 1.4% of previously abandoned agricultural land was recultivated. In other words, agricultural abandonment was a continuous and permanent land use change in Ryazan province. In Rostov province, abandonment rates were substantially lower at nearly 10% of the agricultural land managed in 1990 and only minor additional abandonment from 2000 to 2009. The pattern of agricultural land abandonment in Ryazan province was largely determined by a mix of socio-economic and environmental factors (e.g. increased

  12. Mapping Secondary Forest Succession on Abandoned Agricultural Land in the Polish Carpathians

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kolecka, N.; Kozak, J.; Kaim, D.; Dobosz, M.; Ginzler, Ch.; Psomas, A.

    2016-06-01

    Land abandonment and secondary forest succession have played a significant role in land cover changes and forest cover increase in mountain areas in Europe over the past several decades. Land abandonment can be easily observed in the field over small areas, but it is difficult to map over the large areas, e.g., with remote sensing, due to its subtle and spatially dispersed character. Our previous paper presented how the LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and topographic data were used to detect secondary forest succession on abandoned land in one commune located in the Polish Carpathians by means of object-based image analysis (OBIA) and GIS (Kolecka et al., 2015). This paper proposes how the method can be applied to efficiently map secondary forest succession over the entire Polish Carpathians, incorporating spatial sampling strategy supported by various ancillary data. Here we discuss the methods of spatial sampling, its limitations and results in the context of future secondary forest succession modelling.

  13. Spatially differentiated trends in urbanization, agricultural land abandonment and reclamation, and woodland recovery in Northern China.

    PubMed

    Wang, Chao; Gao, Qiong; Wang, Xian; Yu, Mei

    2016-11-22

    Uncovering magnitude, trend, and spatial pattern of land cover/land use changes (LCLUC) is crucial for understanding mechanisms of LCLUC and assisting land use planning and conservation. China has been undergoing unprecedented economic growth, massive rural-to-urban migration, and large-scale policy-driven ecological restoration, and therefore encountering enormous LCLUC in recent decades. However, comprehensive understandings of spatiotemporal LCLUC dynamics and underlying mechanisms are still lacking. Based on classification of annual LCLU maps from MODIS satellite imagery, we proposed a land change detection method to capture significant land change hotspots over Northern China during 2001-2013, and further analyzed temporal trends and spatial patterns of LCLUC. We found rapid decline of agricultural land near urban was predominantly caused by urban expansion. The process was especially strong in North China Plain with 14,057 km 2 of urban gain and -21,017 km 2 of agricultural land loss. To offset the loss of agricultural land, Northeast China Plain and Xinjiang were reclaimed. Substantial recovery of forests (49,908 km 2 ) and closed shrubland (60,854 km 2 ) occurred in mountainous regions due to abandoned infertile farmland, secondary succession, and governmental conservation policies. The spatial patterns and trends of LCLUC in Northern China provide information to support effective environmental policies towards sustainable development.

  14. Spatially differentiated trends in urbanization, agricultural land abandonment and reclamation, and woodland recovery in Northern China

    PubMed Central

    Wang, Chao; Gao, Qiong; Wang, Xian; Yu, Mei

    2016-01-01

    Uncovering magnitude, trend, and spatial pattern of land cover/land use changes (LCLUC) is crucial for understanding mechanisms of LCLUC and assisting land use planning and conservation. China has been undergoing unprecedented economic growth, massive rural-to-urban migration, and large-scale policy-driven ecological restoration, and therefore encountering enormous LCLUC in recent decades. However, comprehensive understandings of spatiotemporal LCLUC dynamics and underlying mechanisms are still lacking. Based on classification of annual LCLU maps from MODIS satellite imagery, we proposed a land change detection method to capture significant land change hotspots over Northern China during 2001–2013, and further analyzed temporal trends and spatial patterns of LCLUC. We found rapid decline of agricultural land near urban was predominantly caused by urban expansion. The process was especially strong in North China Plain with 14,057 km2 of urban gain and −21,017 km2 of agricultural land loss. To offset the loss of agricultural land, Northeast China Plain and Xinjiang were reclaimed. Substantial recovery of forests (49,908 km2) and closed shrubland (60,854 km2) occurred in mountainous regions due to abandoned infertile farmland, secondary succession, and governmental conservation policies. The spatial patterns and trends of LCLUC in Northern China provide information to support effective environmental policies towards sustainable development. PMID:27874092

  15. Spatially differentiated trends in urbanization, agricultural land abandonment and reclamation, and woodland recovery in Northern China

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Wang, Chao; Gao, Qiong; Wang, Xian; Yu, Mei

    2016-11-01

    Uncovering magnitude, trend, and spatial pattern of land cover/land use changes (LCLUC) is crucial for understanding mechanisms of LCLUC and assisting land use planning and conservation. China has been undergoing unprecedented economic growth, massive rural-to-urban migration, and large-scale policy-driven ecological restoration, and therefore encountering enormous LCLUC in recent decades. However, comprehensive understandings of spatiotemporal LCLUC dynamics and underlying mechanisms are still lacking. Based on classification of annual LCLU maps from MODIS satellite imagery, we proposed a land change detection method to capture significant land change hotspots over Northern China during 2001-2013, and further analyzed temporal trends and spatial patterns of LCLUC. We found rapid decline of agricultural land near urban was predominantly caused by urban expansion. The process was especially strong in North China Plain with 14,057 km2 of urban gain and -21,017 km2 of agricultural land loss. To offset the loss of agricultural land, Northeast China Plain and Xinjiang were reclaimed. Substantial recovery of forests (49,908 km2) and closed shrubland (60,854 km2) occurred in mountainous regions due to abandoned infertile farmland, secondary succession, and governmental conservation policies. The spatial patterns and trends of LCLUC in Northern China provide information to support effective environmental policies towards sustainable development.

  16. Abandoned Mine Lands

    EPA Pesticide Factsheets

    Abandoned Mine Lands are those lands, waters, and surrounding watersheds where extraction, beneficiation, or processing of ores and minerals (excluding coal) has occurred. These lands also include areas where mining or processing activity is inactive.

  17. Factors of land abandonment in mountainous Mediterranean areas: the case of Montenegrin settlements.

    PubMed

    Kerckhof, Annelies; Spalevic, Velibor; Van Eetvelde, Veerle; Nyssen, Jan

    2016-01-01

    Land use changes have been investigated in the surroundings of 14 rural Montenegrin settlements in order to get specific information about trends in land abandonment since around 1950. Permanently, seasonally and less inhabited settlements with different geographic conditions were studied. This was done by interviewing local inhabitants, which enabled a holistic approach to reveal the underlying processes of land abandonment. According to the observed patterns of land use change, the study sites can be categorized into intensified, urbanized, extensified, overgrown and forested cases. The category of extensified settlements is characterized by a highly reduced agricultural management intensity, resulting in an increase in grasslands and fruit trees at the expense of cropland. This land use change is mainly related to emigrating and aging inhabitants, having less livestock. Such extensive land use is found in both permanently inhabited and abandoned villages. Only some studied settlements became largely overgrown by bushes and forest. The steep average slope gradients and a large distance to the nearest city are explanatory factors of such land abandonment. Land use intensification takes place in low-lying areas located nearby towns.

  18. Carbon implications of Virgin Lands Campaign cropland expansion and post-Soviet agricultural land abandonment in Russia and Kazakhstan

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Prishchepov, A. V.; Kurganova, I.; Schierhorn, F.; Lopes de Gerenyu, V.; Müller, D.; Kuzyakov, Y.

    2015-12-01

    Political economy and institutional changes regarding land use play crucial role in shaping land cover worldwide. Among such events was the Soviet Virgin Lands Campaign, when 45.2 million ha of virgin steppes were ploughed up from 1954 to 1963 in northern Eurasia. We took opportunity to evaluate carbon (C) costs of this Campaign, particularly with the account of massive cropland abandonment in the former Campaign area after demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. Within cropland mask produced with remotely sensed data, we spatially disaggregated historical annual sown area statistics at the provincial level for Russia and Kazakhstan based on cropland suitability assessment. We also adjusted our cropland allocation model with the use of 1:3,000,000 map depicting cropland expansion in Northern Kazakhstan. We used C bookkeeping approach to assess C dynamics based on soil stratification and C field measurements. The Campaign resulted in huge C losses from soils, which accounted for 611±47 Mt C in Russia and 241±11 Mt C in Kazakhstan for upper 0-50 cm soil layer during the first 20 years of cultivation. Such C losses could be compared with C losses due to plowing up the prairies in the mid-1930s in USA. Despite the huge C losses from soils during the Campaign, the total C budget in soils of both countries at national level was positive after 1991 due to sequestered C on abandoned lands, albeit the patterns of C loss during the Campaign and C sink in post-Soviet period differed. The C sink from 1991 to 2010 on abandoned croplands in Russia (45.5Mha) comprised 976±108Mt C and Kazakhstan (12.9Mha) comprised 240±34Mt C. However, already ongoing recultivation of abandoned cropland in Kazakhstan and already planned such activities in Russia, can release stored C on abandoned lands. Our study highlights the importance of environmental evaluation of such governmental programs and their alternatives, particularly, since such programs are not rare events in modern land

  19. Plant pathogens but not antagonists change in soil fungal communities across a land abandonment gradient in a Mediterranean landscape

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Bosso, L.; Lacatena, F.; Varlese, R.; Nocerino, S.; Cristinzio, G.; Russo, D.

    2017-01-01

    We assessed whether the presence and abundance of plant pathogens and antagonists change in soil fungal communities along a land abandonment gradient. The study was carried out in the Cilento area (Southern Italy) at a site with three different habitats found along a land abandonment gradient: agricultural land, Mediterranean shrubland and woodland. For all microbiological substrates the colony forming units were about 3.1 × 106 g-1 soil for agricultural land and about 1.1 × 106 g-1 soil for Mediterranean shrubland and woodland. We found the following genera in all habitats: Cladosporium, Mortierella, Penicillium and Trichoderma. In agricultural land, the significantly most abundant fungus genera were Aspergillus, Fusarium, Cylindrocarpon and Nectria; in Mediterranean shrubland, Rhizopus and Trichoderma; and in woodland, Bionectria, Mortierella, Cladosporium, Diplodia, Paecilomyces, Penicillium and Trichoderma. We found a total of 8, 8 and 9 species of fungal antagonist, and 16, 6 and 6 species of fungal plant pathogens in agricultural land, Mediterranean shrubland and woodland respectively. Fungal plant pathogens decreased significantly over a land abandonment gradient, while we no found significant differences among fungal antagonists in the three habitats. We conclude that a decrease in the number of fungal pathogen species occurs when formerly cultivated areas are abandoned. On the other hand, fungal antagonists seem not to be affected by this process.

  20. Spatial distribution of arable and abandoned land across former Soviet Union countries

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lesiv, Myroslava; Schepaschenko, Dmitry; Moltchanova, Elena; Bun, Rostyslav; Dürauer, Martina; Prishchepov, Alexander V.; Schierhorn, Florian; Estel, Stephan; Kuemmerle, Tobias; Alcántara, Camilo; Kussul, Natalia; Shchepashchenko, Maria; Kutovaya, Olga; Martynenko, Olga; Karminov, Viktor; Shvidenko, Anatoly; Havlik, Petr; Kraxner, Florian; See, Linda; Fritz, Steffen

    2018-04-01

    Knowledge of the spatial distribution of agricultural abandonment following the collapse of the Soviet Union is highly uncertain. To help improve this situation, we have developed a new map of arable and abandoned land for 2010 at a 10 arc-second resolution. We have fused together existing land cover and land use maps at different temporal and spatial scales for the former Soviet Union (fSU) using a training data set collected from visual interpretation of very high resolution (VHR) imagery. We have also collected an independent validation data set to assess the map accuracy. The overall accuracies of the map by region and country, i.e. Caucasus, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation and Ukraine, are 90±2%, 84±2%, 92±1%, 78±3%, 95±1%, 83±2%, respectively. This new product can be used for numerous applications including the modelling of biogeochemical cycles, land-use modelling, the assessment of trade-offs between ecosystem services and land-use potentials (e.g., agricultural production), among others.

  1. Spatial distribution of arable and abandoned land across former Soviet Union countries.

    PubMed

    Lesiv, Myroslava; Schepaschenko, Dmitry; Moltchanova, Elena; Bun, Rostyslav; Dürauer, Martina; Prishchepov, Alexander V; Schierhorn, Florian; Estel, Stephan; Kuemmerle, Tobias; Alcántara, Camilo; Kussul, Natalia; Shchepashchenko, Maria; Kutovaya, Olga; Martynenko, Olga; Karminov, Viktor; Shvidenko, Anatoly; Havlik, Petr; Kraxner, Florian; See, Linda; Fritz, Steffen

    2018-04-03

    Knowledge of the spatial distribution of agricultural abandonment following the collapse of the Soviet Union is highly uncertain. To help improve this situation, we have developed a new map of arable and abandoned land for 2010 at a 10 arc-second resolution. We have fused together existing land cover and land use maps at different temporal and spatial scales for the former Soviet Union (fSU) using a training data set collected from visual interpretation of very high resolution (VHR) imagery. We have also collected an independent validation data set to assess the map accuracy. The overall accuracies of the map by region and country, i.e. Caucasus, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation and Ukraine, are 90±2%, 84±2%, 92±1%, 78±3%, 95±1%, 83±2%, respectively. This new product can be used for numerous applications including the modelling of biogeochemical cycles, land-use modelling, the assessment of trade-offs between ecosystem services and land-use potentials (e.g., agricultural production), among others.

  2. Spatial distribution of arable and abandoned land across former Soviet Union countries

    PubMed Central

    Lesiv, Myroslava; Schepaschenko, Dmitry; Moltchanova, Elena; Bun, Rostyslav; Dürauer, Martina; Prishchepov, Alexander V.; Schierhorn, Florian; Estel, Stephan; Kuemmerle, Tobias; Alcántara, Camilo; Kussul, Natalia; Shchepashchenko, Maria; Kutovaya, Olga; Martynenko, Olga; Karminov, Viktor; Shvidenko, Anatoly; Havlik, Petr; Kraxner, Florian; See, Linda; Fritz, Steffen

    2018-01-01

    Knowledge of the spatial distribution of agricultural abandonment following the collapse of the Soviet Union is highly uncertain. To help improve this situation, we have developed a new map of arable and abandoned land for 2010 at a 10 arc-second resolution. We have fused together existing land cover and land use maps at different temporal and spatial scales for the former Soviet Union (fSU) using a training data set collected from visual interpretation of very high resolution (VHR) imagery. We have also collected an independent validation data set to assess the map accuracy. The overall accuracies of the map by region and country, i.e. Caucasus, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation and Ukraine, are 90±2%, 84±2%, 92±1%, 78±3%, 95±1%, 83±2%, respectively. This new product can be used for numerous applications including the modelling of biogeochemical cycles, land-use modelling, the assessment of trade-offs between ecosystem services and land-use potentials (e.g., agricultural production), among others. PMID:29611843

  3. Carbon dynamics on agricultural land reverting to woody land in Ontario, Canada.

    PubMed

    Voicu, Mihai F; Shaw, Cindy; Kurz, Werner A; Huffman, Ted; Liu, Jiangui; Fellows, Max

    2017-05-15

    The 2015 Paris Agreement reinforces the importance of the land sector and its contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. Thus, there is growing interest in improving estimates of the GHG balance in response to land-use changes (LUCs) involving agriculture and forestry, for national-scale reporting, and for carbon (C) offsets. Large agricultural areas in Europe, Russia and North America are reverting to forest, either naturally or through planting, after abandonment of agricultural land, and this trend may have a substantial impact on carbon budgets. We report results of a pilot project in the Mixedwood Plains ecozone of eastern Canada to analyze the change in the C budget on a landscape over 15 years on abandoned cropland where woody vegetation is regenerating. Thirty-six plots (2 km × 2 km) with paired aerial photographs taken circa 1994 and circa 2008 at a scale of 1:10,000 or larger were randomly selected from the 20 km × 20 km National Forest Inventory (NFI) grid. A spatially-explicit version of the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3) was used to estimate impacts of LUC on C stocks and fluxes. Polygons identifying areas of LUC within each photo plot were delineated, classified, and evaluated to provide input data for the model. The rate of C accumulation in our study area was found to be relatively constant over the entire simulation period, at 1.07 Mg C/ha/yr. Abandoned agricultural land reverting to woody lands could play an important role in regional and national C sequestration in Canada, but more research is required to quantify the areal extent of this LUC. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Monitoring of the risk of farmland abandonment as an efficient tool to assess the environmental and socio-economic impact of the Common Agriculture Policy

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Milenov, Pavel; Vassilev, Vassil; Vassileva, Anna; Radkov, Radko; Samoungi, Vessela; Dimitrov, Zlatomir; Vichev, Nikola

    2014-10-01

    Farmland abandonment (FLA) could be defined as the cessation of agricultural activities on a given surface of land (Pointereau et al., 2008). FLA, often associated with social and economic problems in rural areas, has significant environmental consequences. During the 1990s, millions of hectares of farmland in the new EU Member States, from Central and Eastern Europe, were abandoned as a result of the transition process from centralized and planned to market economy. The policy tools adopted gradually within the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union (EU CAP), as well as the EU environmental and structural policies, aimed to prevent further expansion of this phenomenon and to facilitate the revival of the agriculture land, being abandoned (ComReg 1122/2009). The Agri-Environment (AGRI-ENV) component of the Core Information Service (CIS), developed within the scope of the FP7-funded project "geoland2" were designed to support the agricultural user community at pan-European and national levels by contributing to the improvement of more accurate and timely monitoring of the status of agricultural land use in Europe and its change. The purpose of the product 'Farmland abandonment', as part of the AGRI-ENV package, is to detect potentially abandoned agriculture land, based on multi-annual SPOT data with several acquisitions per year. It provides essential independent information on the status of the agricultural land as recorded in the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS), which is one of the core instruments of the implementation of CAP. The production line is based on object-based image analysis and benefits from the extensive availability of Biophysical parameters derived from the satellite data (geoland2). The method detects/tracks those land (or so-called reference) parcels in the LPIS, holding significant amount of land agriculture found as potentially abandoned. Reference parcels with such change are flagged and reported, enabling the National

  5. Agricultural land-use change in a Mexican oligotrophic desert depletes ecosystem stability

    PubMed Central

    Hernández-Becerra, Natali; Tapia-Torres, Yunuen; Beltrán-Paz, Ofelia; Blaz, Jazmín; Souza, Valeria

    2016-01-01

    Background Global demand for food has led to increased land-use change, particularly in dry land ecosystems, which has caused several environmental problems due to the soil degradation. In the Cuatro Cienegas Basin (CCB), alfalfa production irrigated by flooding impacts strongly on the soil. Methods In order to analyze the effect of such agricultural land-use change on soil nutrient dynamics and soil bacterial community composition, this work examined an agricultural gradient within the CCB which was comprised of a native desert grassland, a plot currently cultivated with alfalfa and a former agricultural field that had been abandoned for over 30 years. For each site, we analyzed C, N and P dynamic fractions, the activity of the enzyme phosphatase and the bacterial composition obtained using 16S rRNA clone libraries. Results The results showed that the cultivated site presented a greater availability of water and dissolved organic carbon, these conditions promoted mineralization processes mediated by heterotrophic microorganisms, while the abandoned land was limited by water and dissolved organic nitrogen. The low amount of dissolved organic matter promoted nitrification, which is mediated by autotrophic microorganisms. The microbial N immobilization process and specific phosphatase activity were both favored in the native grassland. As expected, differences in bacterial taxonomical composition were observed among sites. The abandoned site exhibited similar compositions than native grassland, while the cultivated site differed. Discussion The results suggest that the transformation of native grassland into agricultural land induces drastic changes in soil nutrient dynamics as well as in the bacterial community. However, with the absence of agricultural practices, some of the soil characteristics analyzed slowly recovers their natural state. PMID:27602304

  6. Agricultural land-use change in a Mexican oligotrophic desert depletes ecosystem stability.

    PubMed

    Hernández-Becerra, Natali; Tapia-Torres, Yunuen; Beltrán-Paz, Ofelia; Blaz, Jazmín; Souza, Valeria; García-Oliva, Felipe

    2016-01-01

    Global demand for food has led to increased land-use change, particularly in dry land ecosystems, which has caused several environmental problems due to the soil degradation. In the Cuatro Cienegas Basin (CCB), alfalfa production irrigated by flooding impacts strongly on the soil. In order to analyze the effect of such agricultural land-use change on soil nutrient dynamics and soil bacterial community composition, this work examined an agricultural gradient within the CCB which was comprised of a native desert grassland, a plot currently cultivated with alfalfa and a former agricultural field that had been abandoned for over 30 years. For each site, we analyzed C, N and P dynamic fractions, the activity of the enzyme phosphatase and the bacterial composition obtained using 16S rRNA clone libraries. The results showed that the cultivated site presented a greater availability of water and dissolved organic carbon, these conditions promoted mineralization processes mediated by heterotrophic microorganisms, while the abandoned land was limited by water and dissolved organic nitrogen. The low amount of dissolved organic matter promoted nitrification, which is mediated by autotrophic microorganisms. The microbial N immobilization process and specific phosphatase activity were both favored in the native grassland. As expected, differences in bacterial taxonomical composition were observed among sites. The abandoned site exhibited similar compositions than native grassland, while the cultivated site differed. The results suggest that the transformation of native grassland into agricultural land induces drastic changes in soil nutrient dynamics as well as in the bacterial community. However, with the absence of agricultural practices, some of the soil characteristics analyzed slowly recovers their natural state.

  7. Agricultural land change in the Carpathian ecoregion after the breakdown of socialism and expansion of the European Union

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Griffiths, Patrick; Müller, Daniel; Kuemmerle, Tobias; Hostert, Patrick

    2013-12-01

    Widespread changes of agricultural land use occurred in Eastern Europe since the collapse of socialism and the European Union’s eastward expansion, but the rates and patterns of recent land changes remain unclear. Here we assess agricultural land change for the entire Carpathian ecoregion in Eastern Europe at 30 m spatial resolution with Landsat data and for two change periods, between 1985-2000 and 2000-2010. The early period is characterized by post-socialist transition processes, the late period by an increasing influence of EU politics in the region. For mapping and change detection, we use a machine learning approach (random forests) on image composites and variance metrics which were derived from the full decadal archive of Landsat imagery. Our results suggest that cropland abandonment was the most prevalent change process, but we also detected considerable areas of grassland conversion and forest expansion on non-forest land. Cropland abandonment was most extensive during the transition period and predominantly occurred in marginal areas with low suitability for agriculture. Conversely, we observed substantial recultivation of formerly abandoned cropland in high-value agricultural areas since 2000. Hence, market forces increasingly adjust socialist legacies of land expansive production and agricultural land use clusters in favorable areas while marginal lands revert to forest.

  8. Modelling regional land change scenarios to assess land abandonment and reforestation dynamics in the Pyrenees (France)

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Vacquie, Laure; Houet, Thomas; Sohl, Terry L.; Reker, Ryan R.; Sayler, Kristi L.

    2015-01-01

    Over the last decades and centuries, European mountain landscapes have experienced substantial transformations. Natural and anthropogenic LULC changes (land use and land cover changes), especially agro-pastoral activities, have directly influenced the spatial organization and composition of European mountain landscapes. For the past sixty years, natural reforestation has been occurring due to a decline in both agricultural production activities and rural population. Stakeholders, to better anticipate future changes, need spatially and temporally explicit models to identify areas at risk of land change and possible abandonment. This paper presents an integrated approach combining forecasting scenarios and a LULC changes simulation model to assess where LULC changes may occur in the Pyrenees Mountains, based on historical LULC trends and a range of future socio-economic drivers. The proposed methodology considers local specificities of the Pyrenean valleys, sub-regional climate and topographical properties, and regional economic policies. Results indicate that some regions are projected to face strong abandonment, regardless of the scenario conditions. Overall, high rates of change are associated with administrative regions where land productivity is highly dependent on socio-economic drivers and climatic and environmental conditions limit intensive (agricultural and/or pastoral) production and profitability. The combination of the results for the four scenarios allows assessments of where encroachment (e.g. colonization by shrublands) and reforestation are the most probable. This assessment intends to provide insight into the potential future development of the Pyrenees to help identify areas that are the most sensitive to change and to guide decision makers to help their management decisions.

  9. Urban Expansion and the Loss of Prime Agricultural Lands in Puerto Rico

    Treesearch

    T. Mitchell Aide Tania del Mar López

    2001-01-01

    In many countries where the economy has shifted from mainly agricultural to industrial, abandoned agricultural lands are lost to urbanization. For more than 4 centuries the Puerto Rican economy depended almost entirely on agriculture, but sociopolitical changes early in the 20th century resulted in a shift to industry. This shift in the economy, and an increase in...

  10. 30 CFR 938.20 - Approval of Pennsylvania abandoned mine land reclamation plan.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Approval of Pennsylvania abandoned mine land... PENNSYLVANIA § 938.20 Approval of Pennsylvania abandoned mine land reclamation plan. The Pennsylvania Abandoned... are available at the following locations: (a) Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources...

  11. A change in landscape: Lessons learned from abandonment of ancient Wari agricultural terraces in Southern Peru.

    PubMed

    Londoño, Ana C; Williams, Patrick Ryan; Hart, Megan L

    2017-11-01

    Ancient agricultural terrace practices have survived for millennia, sustaining populations through extreme climatic shifts and political regime changes. In arid regions with abrupt relief such as Southern Peru, agricultural terracing is undergoing a resurgence, as has seen revitalization of once abandoned terrace and hydraulic systems. Wari terraces at Cerro Baul provide clues to past cultural practices. They also document sustainable farming practices by using resilient land management techniques which can help combat desertification and degradation of arable lands. Three abandoned Wari terrace systems were mapped using microtopographic methods, the erosion patterns examined, the states of preservation compared, and then the design contrasted with modern terracing practices in the Moquegua Valley. In order to negate the harmful effects of desertification, rehabilitation and reconstruction of these terraces using ancient knowledge and techniques may be necessary. Rehabilitation must be conducted with consideration for preservation of cultural patrimony that may be encountered within the terrace treads or riser structures. With future climatic shifts impacting vulnerable dryland areas more than others, the ability to resiliently respond to these changes may be found in the lessons learned from ancient farming techniques such as the Wari. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Linking Landsat observations with MODIS derived Land Surface Phenology data to map agricultural expansion and contraction in Russia

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Caliskan, S.; de Beurs, K.

    2010-12-01

    Direct human impacts on the land surface are especially pronounced in agricultural regions that cover a substantial portion of the global land surface: 12% of the terrestrial surface is under active agricultural management. Crops display phenologies distinct from natural vegetation; the growing seasons are often shifted in time, crop establishment is generally fast and the vegetation is rapidly removed at harvest. Previously we have demonstrated that agricultural land abandonment alters land surface phenology sufficiently to be detectable from a time series of coarse resolution imagery. With land surface phenology models based on accumulated growing degree-days (AGDD) and AVHRR NDVI, we demonstrated that abandoned croplands covered with native grasses and weeds typically greened-up and peaked sooner than active croplands. Here we present an expansion of these analyses for the MODIS time period with the ultimate goal to map agricultural abandonment and expansion in European Russia from 2000 to 2010. We used the 8-day, 1km L3 Land Surface Temperature data (MOD11A2) to generate the accumulated growing degree days and the 16-day L3 Nadir BRDF-Adjusted reflectance data at 500m resolution (MCD43A4) to calculate NDVI. We calculated phenological metrics based on three methods: 1) Double-logistic models such as those applied to produce the standard MODIS phenology product (MOD12Q2); 2) A combination of NDII and NDVI; this method has been shown to provide start/end of season measurement closest to field observations in snowy areas; and 3) A quadratic model linking accumulated growing degree days and vegetation indices which we successfully applied in agricultural areas of Kazakhstan and semi-arid Africa. We selected Landsat imagery for two vastly different regions in Russia and present a Landsat-guided probabilistic detection of abandoned and active croplands for all available years of the MODIS image time series (2000-2010). For each region, we selected at least two images

  13. How conflict affects land use: agricultural activity in areas seized by the Islamic State

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Eklund, Lina; Degerald, Michael; Brandt, Martin; Prishchepov, Alexander V.; Pilesjö, Petter

    2017-05-01

    Socio-economic shocks, technogenic catastrophes, and armed conflicts often have drastic impacts on local and regional food security through disruption of agricultural production and food trade, reduced investments, and deterioration of land and infrastructure. Recently, more research has focused on the effects of armed conflict on land systems, but still little is known about the processes and outcomes of such events. Here we use the case of Syria and Iraq and the seizure of land by the Islamic State (IS) since 2014 as an example of armed conflict, where we investigate the effects on agricultural land use. We apply a reproducible approach using 250 m satellite-based time-series data to quantify the areas under cultivation from 2000 to 2015. Despite a common belief about widespread land abandonment in areas under conflict, results point to multiple trajectories regarding cropland cultivation in the IS seized area: (1) expansion of cropland to formerly un-cultivated areas, (2) cropland abandonment, and (3) decrease of high-intensity cropland. Our study highlights the need to understand these diverse conflict-related and context-dependent changes to the land system.

  14. Successional trends in Sonoran Desert abandoned agricultural fields in northern Mexico

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Castellanos, A.E.; Martinez, M.J.; Llano, J.M.; Halvorson, W.L.; Espiricueta, M.; Espejel, I.

    2005-01-01

    Excessive ground-water use and saline intrusion to the aquifer led, in less than three decades, to an increase in abandoned agricultural fields at La Costa de Hermosillo, within the Sonoran Desert. Using a chronosequence from years since abandonment, patterns of field succession were developed. Contrary to most desert literature, species replacement was found, both in fields with and without saline intrusion. Seasonal photosynthetic capacity as well as water and nitrogen use efficiencies were different in dominant early and late successional plant species. These ecological findings provided a framework for a general explanation of species dominance and replacement within abandoned agricultural fields in the Sonoran Desert. ?? 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Nitrate Leaching From Intensive Forest Management on Abandonded Agricultural Land: Fifth-Year Results

    Treesearch

    Thomas M. Williams; Charles Gresham

    2002-01-01

    This report is on the fifth year results of a cooperative research project to examine water quality impacts of maximizing plantation growth on abandoned agricultural land, first reported after two years in the Ninth Southern Silvicultural Research Conference. The study, located on International Paper's Southland Experimental Forest at Bainbridge GA, examines...

  16. Comparison of water soil erosion on Spanish Mediterannean abandoned land and agricultural fields under vine, almond, olives and citrus

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Rodrigo-Comino, Jesús; Martínez-Hernández, Carlos; Iserloh, Thomas; Cerdà, Artemi

    2017-04-01

    The abandonment of agricultural lands is considered as a global dynamic with on- and off-site consequences on the soil mostly ignored (Vanmaercke et al., 2011), which enhance land degradation processes by increasing water soil erosion (Cammeraat et al., 2010; Keesstra et al., 2012) and by decreasing biodiversity (Brevik et al., 2015; Smith et al., 2015). However, there is a lack of information at pedon scale about the assessment and quantification of which environmental elements activate or avoid water soil erosion after its respective abandonment. Small portable rainfall simulators are considered as useful tool for measuring interrelated soil erosion processes such as splash, initial rainfall-runoff processes, infiltration, sediment yield, water turbidity or nutrient suspensions (Cerdà, 1999; Iserloh et al., 2013; Rodrigo Comino et al., 2016). 105 experiments were conducted with a small portable rainfall simulator (rainfall intensity of 40 mm h-1 in 30 minutes) in four different land uses and their respective abandoned land: i) citrus and olives (Valencia), almonds (Murcia) and vines (Málaga). We studied the main environmental factors that may determine water soil erosion during the performed experiments: slope, vegetation cover, rock fragment cover, soil properties (texture) and hydrological responses (time to runoff and infiltration generation). REFERENCES Brevik, E.C., Cerdà, A., Mataix-Solera, J., Pereg, L., Quinton, J.N., Six, J., Van Oost, K., 2015. The interdisciplinary nature of SOIL. SOIL 1, 117-129. doi:10.5194/soil-1-117-2015 Cammeraat, E.L.H., Cerdà, A., Imeson, A.C., 2010. Ecohydrological adaptation of soils following land abandonment in a semi-arid environment. Ecohydrology 3, 421-430. doi:10.1002/eco.161 Cerdà, A., 1999. Simuladores de lluvia y su aplicación a la Geomorfología: Estado de la cuestión. Cuad. Investig. Geográfica 45-84. Iserloh, T., Ries, J.B., Arnáez, J., Boix-Fayos, C., Butzen, V., Cerdà, A., Echeverría, M.T., Fern

  17. 30 CFR 938.25 - Approval of Pennsylvania abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Approval of Pennsylvania abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. 938.25 Section 938.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE PENNSYLVANIA § 938.25 Approval of Pennsylvania abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments...

  18. 30 CFR 906.25 - Approval of Colorado abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Approval of Colorado abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. 906.25 Section 906.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE COLORADO § 906.25 Approval of Colorado abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The...

  19. Long-term effect of land use change on soil quality: Afforestation and land abandonment in semi-arid Spain

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zethof, Jeroen; Cammeraat, Erik; Nadal-Romero, Estela

    2016-04-01

    Soils under the Mediterranean climate are vulnerable for degradation, especially after land abandonment. Abandonment is an important factor in the Mediterranean landscape as vegetation regeneration is hampered due to the characteristic semi-arid and sub-humid Mediterranean climate regime. During the past 70 year extensive afforestation projects have been conducted with the aim to protect landscapes and soils against degradation. While large investments are still being made, little is known about the impact of afforestation on soil quality on a longer time scale. During the past decade, there is a growing interest in qualifying and quantifying the carbon storage in soils by such afforestation projects, to get a better understanding of the carbon cycle and look for possibilities to fixate atmospheric CO2 in the soil. It is generally accepted that afforestation projects will increase the soil carbon pool, but data on this process is scarce. Therefore an intensive fieldwork has been carried out in Murcia, southeastern Spain to study the effects of land abandonment and afforestation on soil quality along a chronosequence and included two afforested areas (from the early '70s and 1993). The Pinus halepensis trees were planted in rows, for which the underlying calcrete was broken. Samples were taken to study changes in soil quality (Aggregate stability, Corg, N, P, K, Na), Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) stocks and soil hydraulic properties, such as infiltration and water retention, between the afforestation projects, abandoned agricultural plots of similar age, semi-natural vegetation, cereal crop fields and almond orchards. As the natural vegetation is characterized by a spotted pattern of bare areas and trees, forming so-called "islands of fertility", both bare and vegetation covered sub-sites were sampled. First results showed a positive effect of both land abandonment and afforestation on the soil aggregation. Especially the 40-year-old plots showed underneath trees

  20. 30 CFR 935.25 - Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-07-01

    ... Plan to provide for the reclamation of areas causing acid mine drainage AMD and to revise the project... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land... STATE OHIO § 935.25 Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The following is a...

  1. 30 CFR 935.25 - Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-07-01

    ... Plan to provide for the reclamation of areas causing acid mine drainage AMD and to revise the project... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land... STATE OHIO § 935.25 Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The following is a...

  2. 30 CFR 935.25 - Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-07-01

    ... Plan to provide for the reclamation of areas causing acid mine drainage AMD and to revise the project... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land... STATE OHIO § 935.25 Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The following is a...

  3. 30 CFR 935.25 - Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-07-01

    ... Plan to provide for the reclamation of areas causing acid mine drainage AMD and to revise the project... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land... STATE OHIO § 935.25 Approval of Ohio abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The following is a...

  4. [Heavy metal tolerance of Miscanthus plants and their phytoremediation potential in abandoned mine land].

    PubMed

    Wu, Dao Ming; Chen, Xiao Yang; Zeng, Shu Cai

    2017-04-18

    Miscanthus has been recognized as promising candidate for phytoremediation in abandoned mine land, because of its high tolerance to heavy metals and bioenergy potential. Miscanthus has been reported tolerant to several heavy metal elements. However, it has not been recognized as hyperaccumulator for these elements. The detailed mechanisms by which Miscanthus tolerates these heavy metal elements are still unclear. According to recent studies, several mechanisms, such as high metabolic capacity in root, an abundance of microbes in the root-rhizosphere, and high capacity of antioxidation and photosynthesis might contribute to enhance the heavy metal tolerance of Miscanthus. Miscanthus has a certain potential in the phytoremediation of abandoned mine land, because of its high suitability for the phytostabilization of heavy metals. Moreover, Miscanthus cropping is a promising practice to enhance the diversity of botanical species and soil organism, and to improve soil physical and chemical properties. Here we reviewed recent literatures on the biological characteristics and the heavy metal tolerance of Miscanthus, and its phytoremediation potential in abandoned mine land. A basic guideline for using Miscanthus in abandoned mine land phytoremediation and an outlook for further study on the mechanisms of heavy metals tolerance in Miscanthus were further proposed. We hoped to provide theoretical references for phytoremediation in abandoned mine land by using Miscanthus.

  5. 30 CFR 948.25 - Approval of West Virginia abandoned mine lands reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-07-01

    ... March 26, 1993 Amendments contained in House Bill 2492; Expanded eligibility criteria; Acid mine... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Approval of West Virginia abandoned mine lands... STATE WEST VIRGINIA § 948.25 Approval of West Virginia abandoned mine lands reclamation plan amendments...

  6. 30 CFR 948.25 - Approval of West Virginia abandoned mine lands reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-07-01

    ... March 26, 1993 Amendments contained in House Bill 2492; Expanded eligibility criteria; Acid mine... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Approval of West Virginia abandoned mine lands... STATE WEST VIRGINIA § 948.25 Approval of West Virginia abandoned mine lands reclamation plan amendments...

  7. 30 CFR 948.25 - Approval of West Virginia abandoned mine lands reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-07-01

    ... March 26, 1993 Amendments contained in House Bill 2492; Expanded eligibility criteria; Acid mine... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Approval of West Virginia abandoned mine lands... STATE WEST VIRGINIA § 948.25 Approval of West Virginia abandoned mine lands reclamation plan amendments...

  8. 77 FR 5740 - Tennessee Abandoned Mine Land Program

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2012-02-06

    ... DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement 30 CFR Part 942... Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM), Interior. ACTION: Proposed rule; public comment period and... amendment to the Tennessee Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Reclamation Plan under the Surface Mining Control and...

  9. The Impact of Land Abandonment on Species Richness and Abundance in the Mediterranean Basin: A Meta-Analysis

    PubMed Central

    Plieninger, Tobias; Hui, Cang; Gaertner, Mirijam; Huntsinger, Lynn

    2014-01-01

    Land abandonment is common in the Mediterranean Basin, a global biodiversity hotspot, but little is known about its impacts on biodiversity. To upscale existing case-study insights to the Pan-Mediterranean level, we conducted a meta-analysis of the effects of land abandonment on plant and animal species richness and abundance in agroforestry, arable land, pastures, and permanent crops of the Mediterranean Basin. In particular, we investigated (1) which taxonomic groups (arthropods, birds, lichen, vascular plants) are more affected by land abandonment; (2) at which spatial and temporal scales the effect of land abandonment on species richness and abundance is pronounced; (3) whether previous land use and current protected area status affect the magnitude of changes in the number and abundance of species; and (4) how prevailing landforms and climate modify the impacts of land abandonment. After identifying 1240 potential studies, 154 cases from 51 studies that offered comparisons of species richness and abundance and had results relevant to our four areas of investigation were selected for meta-analysis. Results are that land abandonment showed slightly increased (effect size  = 0.2109, P<0.0001) plant and animal species richness and abundance overall, though results were heterogeneous, with differences in effect size between taxa, spatial-temporal scales, land uses, landforms, and climate. In conclusion, there is no “one-size-fits-all” conservation approach that applies to the diverse contexts of land abandonment in the Mediterranean Basin. Instead, conservation policies should strive to increase awareness of this heterogeneity and the potential trade-offs after abandonment. The strong role of factors at the farm and landscape scales that was revealed by the analysis indicates that purposeful management at these scales can have a powerful impact on biodiversity. PMID:24865979

  10. The effects of war on land-use/land-cover change: An analysis of Landsat imagery for northeast Bosnia

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Witmer, Frank D. W.

    The use of satellite technology by military planners has a relatively long history as a tool of warfare, but little research has used satellite technology to study the effects of war. This research addresses this gap by applying satellite remote sensing imagery to study the effects of war on land-use/land-cover change in northeast Bosnia. The war in Bosnia, 1992-1995, resulted in over 100,000 deaths, many more wounded, and the mass displacement of nearly half the population of 4.2 million. When combined with the destruction of much of the transportation infrastructure and housing stock, widespread mine placement, and loss of agricultural machinery, the impacts to both the people and land were dramatic. Though the most severe war impacts are visible at local scales (e.g. destroyed buildings), this study focuses on impacts to agricultural land, a larger scale visible to satellite sensors. Multispectral Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data (30m pixels) from before and during the war in addition to recent imagery from 2004/05 were used to detect abandoned agricultural land. The satellite images were co-registered to enable a perpixel analysis of changes based on the statistical properties of the pixels using multiple change detection methods. Ground reference data were collected in May of 2006 at survey sites selected using a stratified random sampling approach based on the derived map of abandoned agricultural land. Fine resolution (60cm) Quickbird imagery was also used to verify the accuracy of the classification. The remote sensing analysis results were then used to test two hypotheses related to war outcomes: (a) land abandonment is due to wartime minefields and (b) land abandonment is greater in pre-war Croat areas and areas where ethnic cleansing was heaviest. The effects of minefields on land abandonment was first tested in a geographic information system (GIS), and then by using multiple regression models that account for spatial autocorrelation among observations

  11. 30 CFR 931.25 - Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. 931.25 Section 931.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE NEW MEXICO § 931.25 Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The...

  12. 30 CFR 931.25 - Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. 931.25 Section 931.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE NEW MEXICO § 931.25 Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The...

  13. 30 CFR 931.25 - Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. 931.25 Section 931.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE NEW MEXICO § 931.25 Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The...

  14. 30 CFR 931.25 - Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. 931.25 Section 931.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE NEW MEXICO § 931.25 Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The...

  15. 30 CFR 931.25 - Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. 931.25 Section 931.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE NEW MEXICO § 931.25 Approval of New Mexico abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The...

  16. Redistributive land and tenancy reform in Bangladesh agriculture.

    PubMed

    Taslim, M A

    1993-04-01

    Land is scarce and population dense in Bangladesh. Accordingly, there is great need to maximize agricultural production with intensive cultivation and the diffusion of modern technology. The realization of this goal, however, is impeded by the prevailing inequitable and inefficient structure of agricultural land tenure in which a few rural households hold the bulk of cultivatable land. Cropsharing and the system of land tenancy perpetuates low productivity and stagnation throughout the country. Development professionals, ruling politicians, and general populations in many countries under similar circumstances often suggest that share tenancy be abolished and tenants given ownership of tenanted plots, with large farms broken into smaller ones with an ultimate ceiling on farm size. The political and undertaken by new governments coming to power after violent social upheavals. Careful review reveals that such reform has hardly ever led to the establishment of prosperous and independent peasantries. Small family farms have instead become more dependent on the state and on off-farm employment. The rural elite is destroyed and a small peasant proprietorship dependent on the state is established which is ultimately controlled by the urban elite of the country; control over rural populations is reinforced. The dubious historical motivation for and results of land reform suggest that Bangladesh abandon its consideration in favor of promoting vocational training and education; providing research and extension services to agriculture for more rapid diffusion of high-yield innovations; mobilizing domestic resources to build up the infrastructure; fostering the development of private initiatives; and informing and advising about sustainable development practices to encourage their adoption so that an ecological balance may be maintained.

  17. 30 CFR 904.25 - Approval of Arkansas abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ...; Management accounting; and Abandoned mine land problem description. September 22, 1999 January 14, 2000... management and disposition of land and water; Reclamation on private land; Rights of entry; Public...

  18. Agriculture: Land Use

    EPA Pesticide Factsheets

    Land Use and agriculture. Information about land use restrictions and incentive programs.Agricultural operations sometimes involve activities regulated by laws designed to protect water supplies, threatened or endangered plants and animals, or wetlands.

  19. Historical U.S. cropland areas and the potential for bioenergy production on abandoned croplands.

    PubMed

    Zumkehr, A; Campbell, J E

    2013-04-16

    Agriculture is historically a dominant form of global environmental degradation, and the potential for increased future degradation may be driven by growing demand for food and biofuels. While these impacts have been explored using global gridded maps of croplands, such maps are based on relatively coarse spatial data. Here, we apply high-resolution cropland inventories for the conterminous U.S. with a land-use model to develop historical gridded cropland areas for the years 1850-2000 and year 2000 abandoned cropland maps. While the historical cropland maps are consistent with generally accepted land-use trends, our U.S. abandoned cropland estimates of 68 Mha are as much as 70% larger than previous gridded estimates due to a reduction in aggregation effects. Renewed cultivation on the subset of abandoned croplands that have not become forests or urban lands represents one approach to mitigating the future expansion of agriculture. Potential bioenergy production from these abandoned lands using a wide range of biomass yields and conversion efficiencies has an upper-limit of 5-30% of the current U.S. primary energy demand or 4-30% of the current U.S. liquid fuel demand.

  20. Socioeconomic Dimensions of Changes in the Agricultural Landscape of the Mediterranean Basin: A Case Study of the Abandonment of Cultivation Terraces on Nisyros Island, Greece

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Petanidou, Theodora; Kizos, Thanasis; Soulakellis, Nikolaos

    2008-02-01

    Agricultural landscapes illustrate the impact of human actions on physical settings, and differential human pressures cause these landscapes to change with time. Our study explored changes in the terraced landscapes of Nisyros Island, Greece, focusing on the socioeconomic aspects during two time periods using field data, cadastral research, local documents, and published literature, as well as surveys of the islanders. Population increases during the late 19th to early 20th centuries marked a significant escalation of terrace and dry stone wall construction, which facilitated cultivation on 58.4% of the island. By the mid-20th century, the economic collapse of agricultural activities and consequent emigration caused the abandonment of cultivated land and traditional management practices, dramatically reducing farm and field numbers. Terrace abandonment continued in recent decades, with increased livestock grazing becoming the main land management tool; as a result, both farm and pasture sizes increased. Neglect and changing land use has led to deterioration and destruction of many terraces on the island. We discuss the socioeconomic and political backgrounds responsible for the land-use change before World War II (annexation of Nisyros Island by the Ottoman Empire, Italy, and Greece; overseas migration opportunities; and world transportation changes) and after the war (social changes in peasant societies; worldwide changes in agricultural production practices). The adverse landscape changes documented for Nisyros Island appear to be inevitable for modern Mediterranean rural societies, including those on other islands in this region. The island’s unique terraced landscapes may qualify Nisyros to become an archive or repository of old agricultural management techniques to be used by future generations and a living resource for sustainable management.

  1. Socioeconomic dimensions of changes in the agricultural landscape of the Mediterranean basin: a case study of the abandonment of cultivation terraces on Nisyros Island, Greece.

    PubMed

    Petanidou, Theodora; Kizos, Thanasis; Soulakellis, Nikolaos

    2008-02-01

    Agricultural landscapes illustrate the impact of human actions on physical settings, and differential human pressures cause these landscapes to change with time. Our study explored changes in the terraced landscapes of Nisyros Island, Greece, focusing on the socioeconomic aspects during two time periods using field data, cadastral research, local documents, and published literature, as well as surveys of the islanders. Population increases during the late 19th to early 20th centuries marked a significant escalation of terrace and dry stone wall construction, which facilitated cultivation on 58.4% of the island. By the mid-20th century, the economic collapse of agricultural activities and consequent emigration caused the abandonment of cultivated land and traditional management practices, dramatically reducing farm and field numbers. Terrace abandonment continued in recent decades, with increased livestock grazing becoming the main land management tool; as a result, both farm and pasture sizes increased. Neglect and changing land use has led to deterioration and destruction of many terraces on the island. We discuss the socioeconomic and political backgrounds responsible for the land-use change before World War II (annexation of Nisyros Island by the Ottoman Empire, Italy, and Greece; overseas migration opportunities; and world transportation changes) and after the war (social changes in peasant societies; worldwide changes in agricultural production practices). The adverse landscape changes documented for Nisyros Island appear to be inevitable for modern Mediterranean rural societies, including those on other islands in this region. The island's unique terraced landscapes may qualify Nisyros to become an archive or repository of old agricultural management techniques to be used by future generations and a living resource for sustainable management.

  2. Spatio-temporal analysis of agricultural land-use intensity across the Western Siberian grain belt.

    PubMed

    Kühling, Insa; Broll, Gabriele; Trautz, Dieter

    2016-02-15

    The Western Siberian grain belt covers 1millionkm² in Asiatic Russia and is of global importance for agriculture. Massive land-use changes took place in that region after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the state farm system. Decreasing land-use intensity (LUI) in post-Soviet Western Siberia was observed on grassland due to declining livestock whilst on cropland trends of land abandonment reversed in the early 2000s. Recultivation of abandoned cropland as well as increasing fertilizer inputs and narrowing crop rotations led to increasing LUI on cropland during the last two decades. Beyond that general trend, no information is available about spatial distribution and magnitude but a crucial precondition for the development of strategies for sustainable land management. To quantify changes and patterns in LUI, we developed an intensity index that reflects the impacts of land-based agricultural production. Based on subnational yearly statistical data, we calculated two separate input-orientated indices for cropland and grassland, respectively. The indices were applied on two spatial scale: at seven provinces covering the Western Siberian grain belt (Altay Kray, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen) and at all districts of the central province Tyumen. The spatio-temporal analysis clearly showed opposite trends for the two land-use types: decreasing intensity on grassland (-0.015 LUI units per year) and intensification on cropland (+0.014 LUI units per year). Furthermore, a spatial concentration towards intensity centres occurred during transition from a planned to a market economy. A principal component analysis enabled the individual calculations of both land-use types to be combined and revealed a strong link between biophysical conditions and LUI. The findings clearly showed the need for having a different strategy for future sustainable land management for grassland (predominantly used by livestock of households

  3. Using Landscape metrics to analyze the landscape evolution under land abandonment

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Pelorosso, Raffaele; Della Chiesa, Stefano; Gobattoni, Federica; Leone, Antonio

    2010-05-01

    The human actions and the human-linked land use changes are the main responsible of the present landscapes and vegetation patterns (Antrop, 2005; Pelorosso et al., 2009). Hence, revised concept of potential natural vegetation has been developed in landscape ecology. In fact, it cannot more be considered as the optimum for a certain landscape, but only as a general indication never widely reached. In particular Ingegnoli and Pignatti (2007) introduced the concept of fittest vegetation as "the most suitable or suited vegetation for the specific climate and geomorphic conditions, in a limited period of time and in a certain defined place with a particular range of incorporable disturbances (including man's) under natural or not natural conditions". Anthropic exploitation of land and its resources to obtain goods and services (Willemen et al, 2008) can be considered therefore the main cause of landscape change as an integrant part of nature, not external. The abandon of the land by farmers or other users it is one of the more felt problems for the marginal territories of Mediterranean basin. It is therefore caused by socio-economic changes of last decades and cause several impact on biodiversity (Geri et al. 2010) and hydro-geological assessment. A mountain landscape has however the capacity to provide goods like timber and services like aesthetic pleasure or regulation of water system. The necessity of a conservation strategy and the development of sustainable socio-economic management plan play a very important role in governing land and quality of life for people and ecosystems also for marginal territory. After a land abandonment, soil conditions and several climatic and orographic characteristic plus human disturbance affect the length of time required by secondary succession, throwing the establishment of vegetation with different association, structure and composition until a (stable or meta-stable) equilibrium is reached (Ingegnoli and Pignatti, 2007). In this

  4. Rates and potentials of soil organic carbon sequestration in agricultural lands in Japan: an assessment using a process-based model and spatially-explicit land-use change inventories

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Yagasaki, Y.; Shirato, Y.

    2013-11-01

    In order to develop a system to estimate a country-scale soil organic carbon stock change (SCSC) in agricultural lands in Japan that enables to take account effect of land-use changes, climate, different agricultural activity and nature of soils, a spatially-explicit model simulation system using Rothamsted Carbon Model (RothC) integrated with spatial and temporal inventories was developed. Future scenarios on agricultural activity and land-use change were prepared, in addition to future climate projections by global climate models, with purposely selecting rather exaggerated and contrasting set of scenarios to assess system's sensitivity as well as to better factor out direct human influence in the SCSC accounting. Simulation was run from year 1970 to 2008, and to year 2020, with historical inventories and future scenarios involving target set in agricultural policy, respectively, and subsequently until year 2100 with no temporal changes in land-use and agricultural activity but with varying climate to investigate course of SCSC. Results of the country-scale SCSC simulation have indicated that conversion of paddy fields to croplands occurred during past decades, as well as a large conversion of agricultural fields to settlements or other lands that have occurred in historical period and would continue in future, could act as main factors causing greater loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) at country-scale, with reduction organic carbon input to soils and enhancement of SOC decomposition by transition of soil environment to aerobic conditions, respectively. Scenario analysis indicated that an option to increase organic carbon input to soils with intensified rotation with suppressing conversion of agricultural lands to other land-use types could achieve reduction of CO2 emission due to SCSC in the same level as that of another option to let agricultural fields be abandoned. These results emphasize that land-use changes, especially conversion of the agricultural lands

  5. Land abandonment, fire recurrence and soil carbon content in the Macizo del Caroig, Eastern Spain

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Cerdá, A.; González Peñaloza, F.; Santín, C.; Doerr, S. H.

    2012-04-01

    During the last 50 years two main forces have driven the fate of Mediterranean landscapes: land abandonment and forest fires (MacDonald et al., 2000; Moreira et al., 2001). Due to the economical changes suffered by the of the Mediterranean countries after the Second World War, the population migrated from the rural to the urban areas, and from South to North Europe. The land abandonment allowed the vegetation to recover and, as a consequence, an increase in forest fire took place. The soils of the abandoned land recovered the vegetation and litter layers, and consequently changes in soil properties have being found. One of these changes is the increase of soil carbon content, which is due both to vegetation recovery and to fire occurrence that increases the ash and pyrogenic carbon content in soils. Twenty plots were selected in the Macizo del Caroig in Eastern Spain on soils developed on limestone. The period of abandonment and the forest fires that had affected each plot were determined by interviews with the owners, farmers and shepherds. In addition, six (three + three) plots were selected as forest (no plough) and cultivated control plots. Each plot was sampled (10 random samples) and the organic carbon content determined. The results show that the cultivated plots have organic matter contents of 1.02 %, and the forest (Quercus ilex sp.) plots reach the highest value: 14.98 %. Within those we found values that range from 2.34 %, in the recently abandoned plots (10 year abandonment), to values of 8.23 % in the 50 year old abandoned fields.The results demonstrate that there is a recovery of the organic carbon in abandoned soils and that the forest fires do no affect this trend. The increase of soil organic matter after abandonment is a result of the recovery of vegetation(Debussche et al., 2001), which is the consequence of the end of the disturbance of forest that have affected the Mediterranean for millennia (Barbero et al., 1990). The colonization of the

  6. How do soil properties and soil carbon stocks change after land abandonment in Mediterranean mountain areas?

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Nadal Romero, Estela; Cammeraat, Erik; Pérez Cardiel, Estela; Lasanta, Teodoro

    2016-04-01

    Land abandonment and subsequent revegetation processes (due to secondary succession and afforestation practices) are global issues with important implications in Mediterranean mountain areas. Moreover, the effects of land use changes on soil carbon stocks are a matter of concern stated in international policy agendas on the mitigation of greenhouse emissions, and afforestation practices are increasingly viewed as an environmental restorative land use change prescription and are considered one of the most efficient carbon sequestration strategies currently available. The MED-AFFOREST project aims to gain more insight into the discussion by exploring the following central research questions: (i) what is the impact of land abandonment on soil properties? and (ii) how do soil organic carbon change after land abandonment? The main objective of this study is to assess the effects of land abandonment, land use change and afforestation practices on soil properties and soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics. For this aim, five different land covers (bare soil, meadows, secondary succession, Pinus sylvestris (PS) and Pinus nigra (PN) afforestation), in the Central Spanish Pyrenees were analysed. Results showed that changes in soil properties after land abandonment were limited, even if afforestation practices were carried out and no differences were observed between natural succession and afforestation. The results on SOC dynamics showed that: (i) SOC contents were higher in the PN sites in the topsoil (10 cm), (ii) when all the profile was considered no significant differences were observed between meadows and PN, (iii) SOC accumulation under secondary succession is a slow process, and (iv) meadows should also be considered due to the relative importance in SOC stocks. The first step of SOC stabilization after afforestation is the formation of macro-aggregates promoted by large inputs of SOC, with a high contribution of labile organic matter. However, our respiration

  7. Spatially quantifying and attributing 17 years of land cover change to examine post-agricultural forest transition in Hawai`i

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lucas, M.; Trauernicht, C.; Carlson, K. M.; Miura, T.; Giambelluca, T. W.; Chen, Q.

    2017-12-01

    The past decades in Hawaii have seen large scale land use change and land cover shifts. However, much these dynamics are only described anecdotally or studied at a single locale, with little information on the extent, rate, or direction of change. This lack of data hinders any effort to assess, plan, and prioritize land management. To improve assessments of statewide vegetation and land cover change, this project developed high resolution, sub-pixel, percent cover maps of forest, grassland and bare earth at annual time steps from 1999 to 2016. Vegetation cover was quantified using archived LANDSAT imagery and a custom remote-sensing algorithm developed in the Google Earth Engine platform. A statistical trend analysis of annual maps of the these three proportional land covers were then used to detect land cover transitions across the archipelago. The aim of this work focused on quantifying the total area of change, annual rates of change and final vegetation cover outcomes statewide. Additionally these findings were attributed to past and current land uses and management history by compiling spatial datasets of development, agriculture, forest restoration sites and burned areas statewide. Results indicated that nearly 10% of the state's land surfaces are suspected to have transitioned between the three cover classes during the study period. Total statewide net change resulted in a gain in forest cover with largest areas of change occurring in unmanaged areas, current and past pastoral land, commercial forestry and abandoned cultivated land. The fastest annual rates of change were forest increases that occurred in restoration areas and commercial forestry. These findings indicate that Hawaii is going through a forest transition, primarily driven by agricultural abandonment with likely feedbacks from invasive species, but also influenced by the establishment of forestry production on former agricultural lands that show potential for native forest restoration. These

  8. Science for watershed decisions on abandoned mine lands; review of preliminary results, Denver, Colorado, February 4-5, 1998

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Nimick, David A.; Von Guerard, Paul

    1998-01-01

    From the Preface: There are thousands of abandoned or inactive mines on or adjacent to public lands administered by the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service. Mine wastes from many of these abandoned mines adversely affect resources on public lands. In 1995, an interdepartmental work group within the Federal government developed a strategy to address remediation of the many abandoned mines on public lands. This strategy is based on using a watershed approach to address the abandoned mine lands (AML) problem. The USGS, working closely with the Federal land-management agencies (FLMAs), is key for the success of this watershed approach. In support of this watershed approach, the USGS developed an AML Initiative with pilot studies in the Boulder River in Montana and the Animas River in Colorado. The goal of these studies is to design and implement a reliable strategy that will supply the scientific information to the FLMAs so that land managers can develop efficient and cost-effective remediation of AML. The symposium 'Science for Watershed Decisions on Abandoned Mine Lands: Review of Preliminary Results' held in Denver, Colorado, on February 4-5, 1998, provided the FLMAs a first look at the techniques, data, and interpretations being generated by the USGS pilot studies. This multidisciplined effort already is proving very valuable to land managers in making science-based AML cleanup decisions and will continue to be of increasing value as additional and more complete information is obtained. Ongoing interaction between scientists and land managers is essential to insure the efficient continuation and success of AML cleanup efforts.

  9. Characterizing human-environment interactions in the Galapagos Islands: A case study of land use/land cover dynamics in Isabela Island

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    McCleary, Amy L.

    This dissertation examines contemporary land use and land cover (LULC) change in the communities and protected areas of Isabela Island to provide insights into human-environment interactions in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador. The growing human presence in Galapagos over the last four decades has been accompanied by significant changes in LULC on inhabited islands in the archipelago. Local stakeholders and decision-makers have recently called for a more integrative approach to understanding interactions between people and the environment in the archipelago. This study is guided by two complementary bodies of work situated within the human-environment tradition of Geography---land change science and landscape ecology. First, support Vector Machine (SVM) and Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA) classifiers are evaluated for mapping LULC from high spatial resolution satellite images. The results show that thematic LULC classifications produced by OBIA are more accurate overall than those generated by SVM. However, important tradeoffs exist between improvements in classification accuracy and processing requirements. The composition and spatial configuration of LULC change are then mapped and quantified from a time series of QuickBird and WorldView-2 satellite images from 2003 to 2010. The pattern metric and change detection analyses reveal that land use change is extensive within the communities due to the expansion and consolidation of built-up areas, and fragmentation of and declines in agriculture. The Galapagos National Park is primarily transformed by exotic plant invasion, forests expansion, and shrinking coastal lagoons. Patterns of agricultural land abandonment, plant invasion, and forest expansion over the same period are described from pattern metric and overlay analyses. Potential drivers of these LULC transitions are identified from logistic regression models, descriptive statistics of agricultural surveys and population censuses, and interviews with

  10. Land Grabbing and the Commodification of Agricultural Land in Africa

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    D'Odorico, P.; Rulli, M. C.

    2014-12-01

    The increasing global demand for farmland products is placing unprecedented pressure on the global agricultural system. The increasing demand can be met through either the intensification or the expansion of agricultural production at the expenses of other ecosystems. The ongoing escalation of large scale land acquisitions in the developing world may contribute to both of these two processes. Investments in agriculture have become a priority for a number of governments and corporations that are trying to expand their agricultural production while securing good profits. It is unclear however to what extent these investments are driving the intensification or the expansion of agriculture. In the last decade large scale land acquisitions by external investors have increased at unprecedented rates. This global land rush was likely enhanced by recent food crises, when prices skyrocketed in response to crop failure, new bioenergy policies, and the increasing demand for agricultural products by a growing and increasingly affluent human population. Corporations recognized the potential for high return investments in agricultural land, while governments started to enhance their food security by purchasing large tracts of land in foreign countries. It has been estimated that, to date, about 35.6 million ha of cropland - more than twice the agricultural land of Germany - have been acquired by foreign investors worldwide. As an effect of these land deals the local communities lose legal access to the land and its products. Here we investigate the effect of large scale land acquisition on agricultural intensification or expansion in African countries. We discuss the extent to which these investments in agriculture may increase crop production and stress how this phenomenon can greatly affect the local communities, their food security, economic stability and the long term resilience of their livelihoods, regardless of whether the transfer of property rights is the result of an

  11. Emerging forests on abandoned land: Puerto Rico’s new forests

    Treesearch

    Ariel E. Lugo; Eileen Helmer

    2004-01-01

    The species composition of forests change continuously as the earth’s biota evolves and adjusts to environmental change. Humans are accelerating the rate of species turnover by moving species around the planet and dramatically changing environmental conditions. Our focus is on new forests in Puerto Rico that emerge naturally on abandoned lands previously converted to...

  12. 'Underutilised' agricultural land: its definitions, potential use for future biomass production and its environmental implications

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Miyake, Saori; Bargiel, Damian

    2017-04-01

    A growing bioeconomy and increased demand for biomass products on food, health, fibre, industrial products and energy require land resources for feedstock production. It has resulted in significant environmental and socio-economic challenges on a global scale. As a result, consideration of such effects of land use change (LUC) from biomass production (particularly for biofuel feedstock) has emerged as an important area of policy and research, and several potential solutions have been proposed to minimise such adverse LUC effects. One of these solutions is the use of lands that are not in production or not suitable for food crop production, such as 'marginal', 'degraded', 'abandoned' and 'surplus' agricultural lands for future biomass production. The terms referring to these lands are usually associated with the potential production of 'marginal crops', which can grow in marginal conditions (e.g. poor soil fertility, low rainfall, drought) without much water and agrochemical inputs. In our research, we referred to these lands as 'underutilised' agricultural land and attempted to define them for our case study areas located in Australia and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Our goal is to identify lands that can be used for future biomass production and to evaluate their environmental implications, particularly impacts related to biodiversity, water and soil at a landscape scale. The identification of these lands incorporates remote sensing and spatially explicit approaches. Our findings confirmed that there was no universal or single definition of the term 'underutilised' agricultural land as the definitions significantly vary by country and region depending not only on the biophysical environment but also political, institutional and socio-economic conditions. Moreover, our results highlighted that the environmental implications of production of biomass on 'underutilised' agricultural land for biomass production are highly controversial. Thus land use change

  13. Terraced landscape: from an old best practice to a rising land abandoned-related soil erosion risk

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Tarolli, Paolo; Preti, Federico; Romano, Nunzio

    2013-04-01

    Among the most evident landscape signatures of human fingerprint during the Holocene, the terraces related to agricultural activities deserve a great importance. Landscape terracing probably represents one of the oldest best practice primarily for crop production, but also for mitigating soil erosion and stabilizing hillslopes in landforms dominated by steep slopes. This technique is widely used in various parts of the world even under different environmental conditions. In some zones, terraced landscapes, because of their history and locations, can also be considered a historical heritage and a sort of "cultural landscape" to preserve, an absolutely value for tourism. To preserve their original role of soil erosion prevention, terraces should be properly designed built according to specific and sustainable engineering rules. Then, their maintenance is the most critical issue to deal with. It is well known from literature that terraced landscapes subject to abandonment would result in an increasing of terrace failure and related land degradation. If not maintained, a progressively increasing of gully erosion affects the structure of the walls. The results of this process is the increasing of connectivity and runoff. During the last few years and partly because of changing in the society perspective and migration toward metropolitan areas, some Countries have been affected by a serious and wider land abandonment with an increasing of soil erosion and derived landslide risk. Italy is one example. In this work, we consider three typical case studies of a terraced landscape where the lack of maintenance characterizing the last few years, increased the landslide risk with several problems to the population. The first case study is located along the renowed "Amalfi Coast" (a portion of land located near Salerno, southern Italy), the second is placed in the north of Toscana (a region located in Central Italy), and the third one along the so-called "Cinque Terre" (a region

  14. Conversion of prime agricultural land to urban land uses in Kansas City

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Shaklee, R. V.

    1976-01-01

    In an expanding urban environment, agriculture and urban land uses are the two primary competitors for regional land resources. As a result of an increasing awareness of the effects which urban expansion has upon the regional environment, the conversion of prime agricultural land to urban land uses has become a point of concern to urban planners. A study was undertaken for the Kansas City Metropolitan Region, to determine the rate at which prime agricultural land has been converted to urban land uses over a five year period from 1969 to 1974. Using NASA high altitude color infrared imagery acquired over the city in October, 1969 and in May, 1974 to monitor the extent and location of urban expansion in the interim period, it was revealed that 42% of that expansion had occurred upon land classified as having prime agricultural potential. This involved a total of 10,727 acres of prime agricultural land and indicated a 7% increase over the 1969 which showed that 35% of the urban area had been developed on prime agricultural land.

  15. Carbon pool and biomass dynamics associated with deforestation, land use, and agricultural abandonment in the neotropics.

    PubMed

    Kauffman, J Boone; Hughes, R Flint; Heider, Chris

    2009-07-01

    Current rates of deforestation and the resulting C emissions in the tropics exceed those of secondary forest regrowth and C sequestration. Changing land-use strategies that would maintain standing forests may be among the least expensive of climate change mitigation options. Further, secondary tropical forests have been suggested to have great value for their potential to sequester atmospheric C. These options require an understanding of and capability to quantify C dynamics at landscape scales. Because of the diversity of physical and biotic features of tropical forests as well as approaches and intensities of land uses within the neotropics, there are tremendous differences in the capacity of different landscapes to store and sequester C. Major gaps in our current knowledge include quantification of C pools, rates and patterns of biomass loss following land-cover change, and quantification of the C storage potential of secondary forests following abandonment. In this paper we present a synthesis and further analyses from recent studies that describe C pools, patterns of C decline associated with land use, and rates of C accumulation following secondary-forest establishment--all information necessary for climate-change mitigation options. Ecosystem C pools of Neotropical primary forests minimally range from approximately 141 to 571 Mg/ha, demonstrating tremendous differences in the capacity of different forests to store C. Most of the losses in C and nutrient pools associated with conversion occur when fires are set to remove the slashed forest to prepare sites for crop or pasture establishment. Fires burning slashed primary forests have been found to result in C losses of 62-80% of prefire aboveground pools in dry (deciduous) forest landscapes and 29-57% in wet (evergreen) forest landscapes. Carbon emissions equivalent to the aboveground primary-forest pool arise from repeated fires occurring in the first 4 to 10 years following conversion. Feedbacks of climate

  16. 30 CFR 913.20 - Approval of Illinois abandoned mine land reclamation plan.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... approved plan are available at: (a) Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Office of Mines and Minerals, Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Division, One Natural Resources Way, Springfield, Illinois 62701-1787. (b... Building, 575 North Pennsylvania Street, Room 301, Indianapolis, IN 46204-1521. [64 FR 20166, Apr. 26, 1999...

  17. 12 CFR 619.9025 - Agricultural land.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Agricultural land. 619.9025 Section 619.9025 Banks and Banking FARM CREDIT ADMINISTRATION FARM CREDIT SYSTEM DEFINITIONS § 619.9025 Agricultural land. Land improved or unimproved which is devoted to or available for the production of crops and other...

  18. 30 CFR 904.20 - Approval of Arkansas abandoned mine land reclamation plan.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Approval of Arkansas abandoned mine land reclamation plan. 904.20 Section 904.20 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND ENFORCEMENT.... Box 8913, Little Rock, AR 72219-8913. (b) Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Tulsa...

  19. 30 CFR 904.20 - Approval of Arkansas abandoned mine land reclamation plan.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Approval of Arkansas abandoned mine land reclamation plan. 904.20 Section 904.20 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND ENFORCEMENT.... Box 8913, Little Rock, AR 72219-8913. (b) Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Tulsa...

  20. 30 CFR 904.20 - Approval of Arkansas abandoned mine land reclamation plan.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Approval of Arkansas abandoned mine land reclamation plan. 904.20 Section 904.20 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND ENFORCEMENT.... Box 8913, Little Rock, AR 72219-8913. (b) Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Tulsa...

  1. 30 CFR 904.20 - Approval of Arkansas abandoned mine land reclamation plan.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Approval of Arkansas abandoned mine land reclamation plan. 904.20 Section 904.20 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND ENFORCEMENT.... Box 8913, Little Rock, AR 72219-8913. (b) Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Tulsa...

  2. 30 CFR 904.20 - Approval of Arkansas abandoned mine land reclamation plan.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Approval of Arkansas abandoned mine land reclamation plan. 904.20 Section 904.20 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND ENFORCEMENT.... Box 8913, Little Rock, AR 72219-8913. (b) Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Tulsa...

  3. 30 CFR 906.20 - Approval of Colorado abandoned mine land reclamation plan.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Approval of Colorado abandoned mine land reclamation plan. 906.20 Section 906.20 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND ENFORCEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR PROGRAMS FOR THE CONDUCT OF SURFACE MINING OPERATIONS WITHIN EACH STATE COLORADO...

  4. Aligning land use with land potential: The role of integrated agriculture

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    Contemporary agricultural land use is dominated by an emphasis on provisioning services by applying energy-intensive inputs through relatively uniform production systems across variable landscapes. This approach to agricultural land use is not sustainable. Achieving sustainable use of agricultural...

  5. 30 CFR 902.20 - Approval of Alaska abandoned mine land reclamation plan.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Approval of Alaska abandoned mine land reclamation plan. 902.20 Section 902.20 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND ENFORCEMENT..., Denver, Colorado 80202-5733. [60 FR 33724, June 29, 1995, as amended at 60 FR 54593, Oct. 25, 1995] ...

  6. Capabilities of Multispectral Satellite Data in an Assessment of the Status of Abandoned Fire Hazardous and Rewetting Peat Extraction Lands

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Medvedeva, M. A.; Vozbrannaya, A. E.; Sirin, A. A.; Maslov, A. A.

    2017-12-01

    The capabilities of several multispectral satellite data types to identify the status of peatlands affected by peat extraction and abandoned deposits are examined to assess potential fire dangers and rewetting effectiveness. The available level of detail of describing land/vegetation cover for monitoring abandoned peat extraction sites using Spot-5 HRG, Spot-6 HRG, and Landsat-7 ETM+ satellite images has been demonstrated using the example of peatlands in the Meschera National Park (Vladimir oblast). The results reflect the pros and cons of using different data types to analyze the status of abandoned peat-extraction lands for purposes of peatland inventory, land-cover monitoring, and the prioritization of sites subject to rewetting and mire restoration, as well as for an evaluation of the effectiveness of these measures.

  7. Patterns of plant diversity loss and species turnover resulting from land abandonment and intensification in semi-natural grasslands.

    PubMed

    Uchida, Kei; Koyanagi, Tomoyo F; Matsumura, Toshikazu; Koyama, Asuka

    2018-07-15

    Land-use changes cause biodiversity loss in semi-natural ecosystems worldwide. Biotic homogenization has led to biodiversity loss, mainly through declines in species composition turnover. Elucidating patterns of turnover in species composition could enhance our understanding of how anthropogenic activities affect community assembly. Here, we focused on whether the decreasing patterns in plant diversity and turnover of species composition resulting from land-use change vary in two regions. We estimated the species diversity and composition of semi-natural grasslands surrounding paddy fields in satoyama landscapes. We examined the differences in species diversity and composition across three land-use types (abandoned, traditional, and intensified) in two regions (Hyogo and Niigata Prefectures, Japan), which were characterized by different climatic conditions. We then assessed alpha-, beta-, and gamma-diversity to compare the patterns of diversity losses in the two regions as a result of land-use changes. In each region, gamma-diversity was consistently higher in the traditional sites compared to abandoned or intensified sites. The analyses revealed that most of the beta-diversity in traditional sites differed significantly from those of abandoned and intensified sites in both regions. However, the beta-diversity of total and perennial species did not differ between traditional and abandoned sites in the Hyogo region. We noted that the beta-diversity of total and perennial species in intensified sites was much lower than that in the traditional sites of the Niigata region. Overall, the patterns of alpha- and gamma-diversity loss were similar in both study regions. Although the biotic homogenization was caused by intensified land-use in the Niigata region, this hypothesis did not completely explain the loss of biodiversity in the abandoned sites in the Hyogo region. The present study contributes to the growing body of work investigating changes in biodiversity as a

  8. Temporal dynamics of plant succession in abandoned field in Mediterranean mountain areas: farming terraces and sloping fields (Iberian System, Spain)

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Nadal-Romero, Estela; Errea, Paz; Lasanta, Teodoro

    2017-04-01

    Cropland abandonment is an important problem in mountain areas worldwide. This process represents the change from an agricultural management to an abandoned land in which a complex plant succession process occurs, with important hydromorphological effects, and consequences in water resources availability and soil erosion. Literature indicates that plant succession depends on multiple natural factors (soil properties, topography, climate, lithology, and distance to natural covers…) and anthropogenic factors (age of abandonment, management of each field during the cultivation period and after the abandonment…). Despite the advances, much is unknown about the vegetation succession, due to the complexity of ecological and social conditions in which land abandonment occurs. Recently, it is shown that only local factors can explain the heterogeneity of the process (Burel and Baudry, 2002; Jouba and Alados, 2012). In this work, we analyze the diversity of vegetation cover in abandonment fields in Cameros Viejo (Iberian System, Spain), related to the different field patterns (terraces and sloping fields) and the age of abandonment. Agricultural lands were delimited using aerial photographs from 1956 and 1978. The current land cover was obtained from SIOSE (Information System of Land Occupation in Spain). According to our cartography, cultivated land occupied as much as 15,491 ha (39% of the area), remaining abandoned 14,505 ha by 1978. Farming terraces occupied 55.9% of the abandoned area, and 44.1% as sloping fields. On the other hand, our cartography highlights the complexity of current land cover of abandoned fields in a landscape matrix of scrubland. Our results suggest that ecological succession is faster in farming terraces than in sloping fields, mostly until scrubland phase is attained. They also suggest that current land cover is better explained by the physical conditions of each field than by the abandonment age. Acknowledgement This research was supported

  9. A Comparison of Large-Scale Reforestation Techniques Commonly Used on Abandoned Fields in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Vally

    Treesearch

    Callie Jo Schweitzer; John A. Stanturf

    1999-01-01

    Reforesting abandoned land in the lower Mississippi alluvial valley has attracted heightened attention. Currently, federal cost share programs, such as the Wetland Reserve Program and the Conservation Reserve Program, are enticing landowners to consider reforesting lands that are marginally productive for agriculture. This study examined four reforestation techniques...

  10. A science-based, watershed strategy to support effective remediation of abandoned mine lands

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Buxton, Herbert T.; Nimick, David A.; Von Guerard, Paul; Church, Stan E.; Frazier, Ann G.; Gray, John R.; Lipin, Bruce R.; Marsh, Sherman P.; Woodward, Daniel F.; Kimball, Briant A.; Finger, Susan E.; Ischinger, Lee S.; Fordham, John C.; Power, Martha S.; Bunch, Christine M.; Jones, John W.

    1997-01-01

    A U.S. Geological Survey Abandoned Mine Lands Initiative will develop a strategy for gathering and communicating the scientific information needed to formulate effective and cost-efficient remediation of abandoned mine lands. A watershed approach will identify, characterize, and remediate contaminated sites that have the most profound effect on water and ecosystem quality within a watershed. The Initiative will be conducted during 1997 through 2001 in two pilot watersheds, the Upper Animas River watershed in Colorado and the Boulder River watershed in Montana. Initiative efforts are being coordinated with the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and other stakeholders which are using the resulting scientific information to design and implement remediation activities. The Initiative has the following eight objective-oriented components: estimate background (pre-mining) conditions; define baseline (current) conditions; identify target sites (major contaminant sources); characterize target sites and processes affecting contaminant dispersal; characterize ecosystem health and controlling processes at target sites; develop remediation goals and monitoring network; provide an integrated, quality-assured and accessible data network; and document lessons learned for future applications of the watershed approach.

  11. Shifting agriculture: the main cause of landscape degradation in the Central Spanish Pyrenees

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lasanta, Teodoro; Nadal-Romero, Estela; Errea, Paz

    2017-04-01

    Cereal agriculture occupied large areas in the Spanish Pyrenees to feed the population in a socio-economic system of limited exchanges with the outside. In the Western valleys, shifting agriculture constitutes the dominant field pattern, representing almost three-quarters of the traditional agricultural space (Lasanta et al., in press). These were cultivated at times of heavy population growth, necessitating steep and stony hillsides with poor soil to be tilled, or the ones that were far away from the village. The fields were created by clearing the vegetation from a slope, then burning it to use the ash as a fertilizer. Cereal was grown for 3-4 years, after which they were abandoned for 20-30 years to recover fertility, and the cycle was repeated. Almost all the fields (99%) using shifting agriculture had been abandoned by the 1950s. This study analyzes the role of the shifting agriculture in soil erosion and landscape degradation. For this purpose, (i) experimental plots, which reproduce the traditional agriculture in the Pyrenees and the abandonment processes, and (ii) the cartography made from the SIOSE (2009), which shows the present land cover 50 years after cropland abandonment, were used. The results show that shifting agriculture caused higher soil losses than other agricultural uses (1.36 kg m-2 yr-1): fallow land (0.87 kg m-2 yr-1), chemically fertilized cereal (0.86 kg m-2 yr-1) and meadow (0.14 kg m-2 yr-1). Also, after land abandonment, soil losses are higher in shifting agriculture (0.78 kg m-2 yr-1) than cereal lands (0.73 kg m-2 yr-1). The burning of the shrub cover and the use of ashes as fertilizer did not contribute to improve the soil quality, which explains both the higher soil losses during the cultivated period and after the abandonment, since slower plant succession occurs. The results obtained from the SIOSE confirm that the change from meadows to shrubland is relatively fast, as a consequence of the low relationship with livestock

  12. 30 CFR 902.25 - Approval of Alaska abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-07-01

    ... reclamation plan amendments. 902.25 Section 902.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE ALASKA § 902.25 Approval of Alaska abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The following... approving all, or portions of these amendments, were published in the Federal Register and the State...

  13. 30 CFR 914.25 - Approval of Indiana abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-07-01

    ... 26, 1994 Emergency response reclamation program. July 23, 1997 March 16, 1998 Indiana plan §§ 884.13... reclamation plan amendments. 914.25 Section 914.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE INDIANA § 914.25 Approval of Indiana abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The...

  14. 30 CFR 914.25 - Approval of Indiana abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-07-01

    ... 26, 1994 Emergency response reclamation program. July 23, 1997 March 16, 1998 Indiana plan §§ 884.13... reclamation plan amendments. 914.25 Section 914.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE INDIANA § 914.25 Approval of Indiana abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The...

  15. 30 CFR 902.25 - Approval of Alaska abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-07-01

    ... reclamation plan amendments. 902.25 Section 902.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE ALASKA § 902.25 Approval of Alaska abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The following... approving all, or portions of these amendments, were published in the Federal Register and the State...

  16. 30 CFR 902.25 - Approval of Alaska abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-07-01

    ... reclamation plan amendments. 902.25 Section 902.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE ALASKA § 902.25 Approval of Alaska abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The following... approving all, or portions of these amendments, were published in the Federal Register and the State...

  17. 30 CFR 914.25 - Approval of Indiana abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-07-01

    ... 26, 1994 Emergency response reclamation program. July 23, 1997 March 16, 1998 Indiana plan §§ 884.13... reclamation plan amendments. 914.25 Section 914.25 Mineral Resources OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND... STATE INDIANA § 914.25 Approval of Indiana abandoned mine land reclamation plan amendments. The...

  18. Spatial variability and response of soil organic carbon stocks to land abandonment and erosion in mountainous drylands (Invited)

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    De Baets, S. L.; Meersmans, J.; Vanacker, V.; Quine, T. A.; van oost, K.

    2013-12-01

    This research focuses on understanding the impact of human activities on C dynamics in a mountainous and semi-arid environment. Despite the low C status of drylands, soil organic carbon (SOC) is the largest C pool in these systems and hence possess a large restoration capacity. Still, regional estimates of SOC stocks and insights in their determining factors are lacking. This study therefore aims 1) to interpret the variability of soil organic carbon in relation to key soil, topographical and land use variables and 2) to quantify the effects of land regeneration following abandonment on SOC stocks. Soil profiles were taken in the Sierra de los Filabres (SE Spain) in different land units along geomorphic and degradation gradients. SOC contents were modelled using recovery period, soil and topographical variables. Sample depth, topographical position, altitude, recovery period and stone content are identified as the main factors for predicting SOC concentrations. SOC stocks in 1 m depth of soil vary between 3.16 and 76.44 t ha-1. Recovery period (years since abandonment), topographical position and altitude were used to predict and map SOC stocks in the top 0.2 m. The results show that C accumulates fast during the first 10-50 years following abandonment, whereafter the stocks evolve towards a steady state level. The erosion zones in the study area demonstrate a higher potential to increase their SOC stocks when abandoned. Deposition zones have higher SOC stocks, although their C accumulation rate is lower compared to erosion dominated landscapes in the first 10-50 years following abandonment. Therefore, full understanding of the C sequestration potential of land use change in areas of complex topography requires knowledge of spatial variability in soil properties and in particular SOC.

  19. Subsurface soil carbon losses offset surface carbon accumulation in abandoned agricultural fields

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Yang, Y.; Knops, J. M. H.

    2017-12-01

    Soil carbon is widely understood to accumulate after agricultural abandonment. However, most of the studies have been focused on shallow depths (10 to 30 cm), and there is a lack of deeper soil carbon data. It was reported that in temperate grasslands, 58% of the soil organic carbon in the first meter was stored between 20 and 100 cm, and organic matter in deeper soil might also be susceptible to agricultural disturbance. We used repeated sampling in 2001 and 2014 to directly measure rates of soil carbon change in both surface and subsurface soil in 21 abandoned agricultural fields at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, MN. Congruent with many other studies, we found carbon accumulated 384.2 C g/m2 in surface soil (0 - 20 cm) over the 13 years. However, we also found carbon pool declined 688.1 C g/m2 in the subsurface soil (40-100 cm), which resulted in a net total loss of soil carbon. We investigated the ecosystem carbon pools and fluxes to explore the mechanisms of the observed soil carbon changes. We found root carbon was not significantly correlated with soil carbon in any of the depth. In situ soil incubation showed nitrogen mineralization rates in subsurface soil are lower than that of surface soil. However, the estimated nitrogen and carbon output through decomposition is higher than inputs from roots, therefore leading to carbon loss in subsurface soil. These results suggest that the decomposition of soil organic matter by microorganisms in subsurface soil is significant, and should be incorporated in ecosystem carbon budget models.

  20. Soil Carbon Chronosequences From Post-Agricultural Land in Western New England.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Clark, J. D.; Johnson, A. H.; Richter, S.; Art, H. W.

    2007-12-01

    We used quantitatively excavated soil pits to sample chronosequences of post-agricultural northern hardwood forest soils in the Hopkins Memorial Forest, Williamstown, MA, to determine how much carbon was lost during the period of agricultural use, and the rates at which C accumulated after abandonment. We developed chronosequences (based on the time of abandonment) for the three main agricultural uses--cultivated cropland, pasture or hay, and woodlot. Active farms served as our theoretical zero time points and old-growth stands in the region served as the likely maximum. Our data show a significant direct relationship between time since abandonment and carbon amount for the organic horizons (Oe and Oa) of plots that were cultivated, hayed or pastured, but not for stands that were formerly woodlots. There was likewise a significant direct relationship between C content and time for the plowed horizons (0-10 cm) of cultivated ground, but not for the top 10 cm of mineral soils that were formerly in hay/pasture or woodlot. Our best estimates suggest that cultivation reduced the C content of plowed soils by 50% to a depth of 10 cm, and that complete recovery of the soil C pool requires about 120 years.

  1. The Impact of Land Use/Land Cover Changes on Land Degradation Dynamics: A Mediterranean Case Study

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Bajocco, S.; De Angelis, A.; Perini, L.; Ferrara, A.; Salvati, L.

    2012-05-01

    In the last decades, due to climate changes, soil deterioration, and Land Use/Land Cover Changes (LULCCs), land degradation risk has become one of the most important ecological issues at the global level. Land degradation involves two interlocking systems: the natural ecosystem and the socio-economic system. The complexity of land degradation processes should be addressed using a multidisciplinary approach. Therefore, the aim of this work is to assess diachronically land degradation dynamics under changing land covers. This paper analyzes LULCCs and the parallel increase in the level of land sensitivity to degradation along the coastal belt of Sardinia (Italy), a typical Mediterranean region where human pressure affects the landscape characteristics through fires, intensive agricultural practices, land abandonment, urban sprawl, and tourism concentration. Results reveal that two factors mainly affect the level of land sensitivity to degradation in the study area: (i) land abandonment and (ii) unsustainable use of rural and peri-urban areas. Taken together, these factors represent the primary cause of the LULCCs observed in coastal Sardinia. By linking the structural features of the Mediterranean landscape with its functional land degradation dynamics over time, these results contribute to orienting policies for sustainable land management in Mediterranean coastal areas.

  2. The impact of land use/land cover changes on land degradation dynamics: a Mediterranean case study.

    PubMed

    Bajocco, S; De Angelis, A; Perini, L; Ferrara, A; Salvati, L

    2012-05-01

    In the last decades, due to climate changes, soil deterioration, and Land Use/Land Cover Changes (LULCCs), land degradation risk has become one of the most important ecological issues at the global level. Land degradation involves two interlocking systems: the natural ecosystem and the socio-economic system. The complexity of land degradation processes should be addressed using a multidisciplinary approach. Therefore, the aim of this work is to assess diachronically land degradation dynamics under changing land covers. This paper analyzes LULCCs and the parallel increase in the level of land sensitivity to degradation along the coastal belt of Sardinia (Italy), a typical Mediterranean region where human pressure affects the landscape characteristics through fires, intensive agricultural practices, land abandonment, urban sprawl, and tourism concentration. Results reveal that two factors mainly affect the level of land sensitivity to degradation in the study area: (i) land abandonment and (ii) unsustainable use of rural and peri-urban areas. Taken together, these factors represent the primary cause of the LULCCs observed in coastal Sardinia. By linking the structural features of the Mediterranean landscape with its functional land degradation dynamics over time, these results contribute to orienting policies for sustainable land management in Mediterranean coastal areas.

  3. Quantitative analysis of agricultural land use change in China

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Chou, Jieming; Dong, Wenjie; Wang, Shuyu; Fu, Yuqing

    This article reviews the potential impacts of climate change on land use change in China. Crop sown area is used as index to quantitatively analyze the temporal-spatial changes and the utilization of the agricultural land. A new concept is defined as potential multiple cropping index to reflect the potential sowing ability. The impacting mechanism, land use status and its surplus capacity are investigated as well. The main conclusions are as following; During 1949-2010, the agricultural land was the greatest in amount in the middle of China, followed by that in the country's eastern and western regions. The most rapid increase and decrease of agricultural land were observed in Xinjiang and North China respectively, Northwest China and South China is also changed rapid. The variation trend before 1980 differed significantly from that after 1980. Agricultural land was affected by both natural and social factors, such as regional climate and environmental changes, population growth, economic development, and implementation of policies. In this paper, the effects of temperature and urbanization on the coverage of agriculture land are evaluated, and the results show that the urbanization can greatly affects the amount of agriculture land in South China, Northeast China, Xinjiang and Southwest China. From 1980 to 2009, the extent of agricultural land use had increased as the surplus capacity had decreased. Still, large remaining potential space is available, but the future utilization of agricultural land should be carried out with scientific planning and management for the sustainable development.

  4. Bayesian spatial modelling and the significance of agricultural land use to scrub typhus infection in Taiwan.

    PubMed

    Wardrop, Nicola A; Kuo, Chi-Chien; Wang, Hsi-Chieh; Clements, Archie C A; Lee, Pei-Fen; Atkinson, Peter M

    2013-11-01

    Scrub typhus is transmitted by the larval stage of trombiculid mites. Environmental factors, including land cover and land use, are known to influence breeding and survival of trombiculid mites and, thus, also the spatial heterogeneity of scrub typhus risk. Here, a spatially autoregressive modelling framework was applied to scrub typhus incidence data from Taiwan, covering the period 2003 to 2011, to provide increased understanding of the spatial pattern of scrub typhus risk and the environmental and socioeconomic factors contributing to this pattern. A clear spatial pattern in scrub typhus incidence was observed within Taiwan, and incidence was found to be significantly correlated with several land cover classes, temperature, elevation, normalized difference vegetation index, rainfall, population density, average income and the proportion of the population that work in agriculture. The final multivariate regression model included statistically significant correlations between scrub typhus incidence and average income (negatively correlated), the proportion of land that contained mosaics of cropland and vegetation (positively correlated) and elevation (positively correlated). These results highlight the importance of land cover on scrub typhus incidence: mosaics of cropland and vegetation represent a transitional land cover type which can provide favourable habitats for rodents and, therefore, trombiculid mites. In Taiwan, these transitional land cover areas tend to occur in less populated and mountainous areas, following the frontier establishment and subsequent partial abandonment of agricultural cultivation, due to demographic and socioeconomic changes. Future land use policy decision-making should ensure that potential public health outcomes, such as modified risk of scrub typhus, are considered.

  5. Land Use and Environmental Variability Impacts on the Phenology of Arid Agro-Ecosystems.

    PubMed

    Romo-Leon, Jose Raul; van Leeuwen, Willem J D; Castellanos-Villegas, Alejandro

    2016-02-01

    The overexploitation of water resources in arid environments often results in abandonment of large extensions of agricultural lands, which may (1) modify phenological trends, and (2) alter the sensitivity of specific phenophases to environmental triggers. In Mexico, current governmental policies subsidize restoration efforts, to address ecological degradation caused by abandonments; however, there is a need for new approaches to assess their effectiveness. Addressing this, we explore a method to monitor and assess (1) land surface phenology trends in arid agro-ecosystems, and (2) the effect of climatic factors and restoration treatments on the phenology of abandoned agricultural fields. We used 16-day normalized difference vegetation index composites from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer from 2000 to 2009 to derive seasonal phenometrics. We then derived phenoclimatic variables and land cover thematic maps, to serve as a set of independent factors that influence vegetation phenology. We conducted a multivariate analysis of variance to analyze phenological trends among land cover types, and developed multiple linear regression models to assess influential climatic factors driving phenology per land cover analyzed. Our results suggest that the start and length of the growing season had different responses to environmental factors depending on land cover type. Our analysis also suggests possible establishment of arid adapted species (from surrounding ecosystems) in abandoned fields with longer times since abandonment. Using this approach, we were able increase our understanding on how climatic factors influence phenology on degraded arid agro-ecosystems, and how this systems evolve after disturbance.

  6. Agricultural landscapes dynamic at the North-West of Russia

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Guzel, N.

    2012-04-01

    The process of reduction of agrolandscapes has taken place some decades in the North-Western European Russia. During 100 last years the area of agricultural lands have reduced in 1,4 times on the Karelian Isthmus. The most part of it had been abandoned after change of State border after of the Second World War. The processes of overgrowing of the former agricultural lands are studied on the landscapes base. The types of landscapes are distinguished on the based of the morphological relief symptoms, characteristics of the structure rock and the humid regime. Agricultural lands occupy landscapes such as kames, sandy, sandy-loam, clayey plains, sometimes with excess moistening, sandy fluvioglacial plains, loamy morainic plains, mesotrophic and evtrophic peat-bogs. Four stages can be revealed. I - (period to 20 years after termination of agricultural use) - grass-herb meadow with unclosed brush II - (20 - 40) - shrub layer with closed or low-closed canopy and unclosed or low closed small-leaved regrowth III - (40 - 80) - closed small-leaved forest, sometime including the coniferous trees IY - predomination of the coniferous on small-leaved trees Reestablish vegetation successions can be realised by different ways, with different rate, including various trees and ecological groups of species in different landscapes. In the different sites many traits in common are discovered during this processes. The processes taking place in soil of abandoned agricultural lands are expressed more poorly than in vegetation as soil is more "conservative" element of landscape. Now most area occupies former agricultural lands, inhering on III stage and presenting itself small-leaved forest. Over the last decade because of a change in the socio-political situation there has emerged a tendency towards an increase in the area of the cultivated land in the Karelian Isthmus including the secondary development of previously abandoned lands. However, this process is going on spontaneously; there

  7. 7 CFR 767.51 - Property abandonment.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-01-01

    ... AGRICULTURE SPECIAL PROGRAMS INVENTORY PROPERTY MANAGEMENT Property Abandonment and Personal Property Removal..., manage, and operate the abandoned security property, including marketing perishable security property on...

  8. 43 CFR 3400.3-3 - Department of Agriculture lands.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Department of Agriculture lands. 3400.3-3 Section 3400.3-3 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued) BUREAU OF LAND...: General § 3400.3-3 Department of Agriculture lands. Subject to the provisions of § 3400.3-1, the Secretary...

  9. 43 CFR 3400.3-3 - Department of Agriculture lands.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Department of Agriculture lands. 3400.3-3 Section 3400.3-3 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued) BUREAU OF LAND...: General § 3400.3-3 Department of Agriculture lands. Subject to the provisions of § 3400.3-1, the Secretary...

  10. 43 CFR 3400.3-3 - Department of Agriculture lands.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Department of Agriculture lands. 3400.3-3 Section 3400.3-3 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued) BUREAU OF LAND...: General § 3400.3-3 Department of Agriculture lands. Subject to the provisions of § 3400.3-1, the Secretary...

  11. 43 CFR 3400.3-3 - Department of Agriculture lands.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Department of Agriculture lands. 3400.3-3 Section 3400.3-3 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued) BUREAU OF LAND...: General § 3400.3-3 Department of Agriculture lands. Subject to the provisions of § 3400.3-1, the Secretary...

  12. Ecosystem N distribution and δ15N during a century of forest regrowth after agricultural abandonment

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Compton, J.E.; Hooker, T.D.; Perakis, S.S.

    2007-01-01

    Stable isotope ratios of terrestrial ecosystem nitrogen (N) pools reflect internal processes and input–output balances. Disturbance generally increases N cycling and loss, yet few studies have examined ecosystem δ15N over a disturbance-recovery sequence. We used a chronosequence approach to examine N distribution and δ15N during forest regrowth after agricultural abandonment. Site ages ranged from 10 to 115 years, with similar soils, climate, land-use history, and overstory vegetation (white pine Pinus strobus). Foliar N and δ15N decreased as stands aged, consistent with a progressive tightening of the N cycle during forest regrowth on agricultural lands. Over time, foliar δ15N became more negative, indicating increased fractionation along the mineralization–mycorrhizal–plant uptake pathway. Total ecosystem N was constant across the chronosequence, but substantial internal N redistribution occurred from the mineral soil to plants and litter over 115 years (>25% of ecosystem N or 1,610 kg ha−1). Temporal trends in soil δ15N generally reflected a redistribution of depleted N from the mineral soil to the developing O horizon. Although plants and soil δ15N are coupled over millennial time scales of ecosystem development, our observed divergence between plants and soil suggests that they can be uncoupled during the disturbance-regrowth sequence. The approximate 2‰ decrease in ecosystem δ15N over the century scale suggests significant incorporation of atmospheric N, which was not detected by traditional ecosystem N accounting. Consideration of temporal trends and disturbance legacies can improve our understanding of the influence of broader factors such as climate or N deposition on ecosystem N balances and δ15N.

  13. Tracking Agricultural Land Degradation with Landsat

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lam, K.; Jimenez, U.; Mclean, A.

    2013-12-01

    Land preservation and in particular, soil preservation, is key to maintaining the stability of wildlife on earth. The necessity to maintain land quality isn't unique to any specific area, it is a global issue. Land degradation can be witnessed across the globe, from the Heihe River Basin, China to the San Joaquin River in Central Valley, California. Large-scale 'traditional' agricultural practices such as widespread monoculture, overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and over-farming, have been found to cause significant land degradation in many regions. Once the causes of land degradation have been established, it is important to research preventative and rehabilitative measures. This is where the popularization of agricultural sustainability has proven wildly important, manifesting in a world-wide phenomenon. This research used Landsat and ENVI to: (1) identify changes in vegetation, over time, along the Heihe River, in an effort to measure the effectiveness of a new mandate focused on rehabilitating this desertification-prone area; and (2) show changes in the San Joaquin River through three droughts (1986 to present). The sudden spur of interest in agricultural sustainability and land preservation has led to changes in legislation, such as the Heihe River Basin Mandate, increased concern over the use of land degrading techniques, tools, chemicals, and more research on extreme weather events.

  14. From Okra to Oak: Reforestation of Abandoned Agricultural Fields in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley

    Treesearch

    Callie Jo Schweitzer; John A. Stanturf

    1997-01-01

    There has been a tremendous upsurge in interest in reforestation of bottomland hardwoods. In the lower Mississippi alluvial valley, reforestation projects are occurringon a large scale on abandoned agricultural fields, often in conjunction with state or federal cost-share programs. This paper describes some of the cost share programs used to establish bottomland...

  15. Agricultural land use change in the Northeast

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    The USDA Census of Agriculture (http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/) provides county-level estimates of farm numbers, land use area and livestock and crop production every five years. In 2007, only eight of the 299 counties that make up the twelve Northeastern states had no agricultural land use. About 20...

  16. Pre- and Post-Columbian Land Cover Changes and Associated Climate Impacts

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Cook, B. I.; Puma, M. J.; Kaplan, J. O.; Anchukaitis, K. J.

    2011-12-01

    Central America experienced extensive expansion of agricultural land during development of the major Central American societies, followed by widespread abandonment and regrowth of natural vegetation after the European conquest. Here we use a high resolution climate model, in combination with a new land cover reconstruction, to investigate the impact of pre- (1490 C.E.) and post- (1650 C.E.) Columbian land cover change on climate in this region. Pre-Columbian land cover causes significant precipitation reductions over coastal Mexico, the Yucatan, and southern Mexico during the wet season, as replacement of forests with agricultural land reduces evapotranspiration fluxes to the atmosphere. Conversely, precipitation over the Yucatan increases during the dry season, as increased surface warming moves additional moisture into this region from the surrounding oceans. With the post-Columbian period, during which major population declines led to large scale agricultural abandonment, the forest recovery results in a partial, though not complete, return to wetter conditions. Our study finds support for previous work speculating that land cover change associated with the Mayan civilizations may have amplified major droughts in the region, and points to the possibility of a direct biogeophysical response to the forest recovery following the arrival of Europeans.

  17. Agricultural Land Conversion: Background and Issues.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Furuseth, Owen J.

    1982-01-01

    Analyzes forces contributing to the conversion of agricultural land for other uses, causes for the depletion of the land, major issues surrounding the loss of farmland, and current policies designed to control haphazard land conversion. Concludes that the United States lacks a national farmland protection policy. (KC)

  18. The role of land use changes in the distribution of shallow landslides.

    PubMed

    Persichillo, Maria Giuseppina; Bordoni, Massimiliano; Meisina, Claudia

    2017-01-01

    The role of land use dynamics on shallow landslide susceptibility remains an unresolved problem. Thus, this work aims to assess the influence of land use changes on shallow landslide susceptibility. Three shallow landslide-prone areas that are representative of peculiar land use settings in the Oltrepò Pavese (North Apennines) are analysed: the Rio Frate, Versa and Alta Val Tidone catchments. These areas were affected by widespread land abandonment and modifications in agricultural practices from 1954 to 2012 and relevant shallow landslide phenomena in 2009, 2013 and 2014. A multi-temporal land use change analysis allows us to evaluate the degree of transformation in the three investigated areas and the influence of these changes on the susceptibility to shallow landslides. The results show that the three catchments were characterised by pronounced land abandonment and important changes in agricultural practices. In particular, abandoned cultivated lands that gradually recovered through natural grasses, shrubs and woods were identified as the land use change classes that were most prone to shallow landslides. Additionally, the negative qualities of the agricultural maintenance practices increased the surface water runoff and consequently intensified erosion processes and instability phenomena. Although the land use was identified as the most important predisposing factor in all the study areas, some cases existed in which the predisposition of certain areas to shallow landslides was influenced by the combined effect of land use changes and the geological conditions, as highlighted by the high susceptibility of slopes that are characterised by adverse local geological (thick soils derived from clayey-marly bedrocks) and geomorphological (slope angle higher than 25°) conditions. Thus, the achieved results are particularly useful to understand the best land conservation strategies to be adopted to reduce instability phenomena and the consequent economic losses in

  19. Aboveground and belowground legacies of native Sami land use on boreal forest in northern Sweden 100 years after abandonment.

    PubMed

    Freschet, Grégoire T; Ostlund, Lars; Kichenin, Emilie; Wardle, David A

    2014-04-01

    Human activities that involve land-use change often cause major transformations to community and ecosystem properties both aboveground and belowground, and when land use is abandoned, these modifications can persist for extended periods. However, the mechanisms responsible for rapid recovery vs. long-term maintenance of ecosystem changes following abandonment remain poorly understood. Here, we examined the long-term ecological effects of two remote former settlements, regularly visited for -300 years by reindeer-herding Sami and abandoned -100 years ago, within an old-growth boreal forest that is considered one of the most pristine regions in northern Scandinavia. These human legacies were assessed through measurements of abiotic and biotic soil properties and vegetation characteristics at the settlement sites and at varying distances from them. Low-intensity land use by Sami is characterized by the transfer of organic matter towards the settlements by humans and reindeer herds, compaction of soil through trampling, disappearance of understory vegetation, and selective cutting of pine trees for fuel and construction. As a consequence, we found a shift towards early successional plant species and a threefold increase in soil microbial activity and nutrient availability close to the settlements relative to away from them. These changes in soil fertility and vegetation contributed to 83% greater total vegetation productivity, 35% greater plant biomass, and 23% and 16% greater concentrations of foliar N and P nearer the settlements, leading to a greater quantity and quality of litter inputs. Because decomposer activity was also 40% greater towards the settlements, soil organic matter cycling and nutrient availability were further increased, leading to likely positive feedbacks between the aboveground and belowground components resulting from historic land use. Although not all of the activities typical of Sami have left visible residual traces on the ecosystem after

  20. Assessment on the rates and potentials of soil organic carbon sequestration in agricultural lands in Japan using a process-based model and spatially explicit land-use change inventories - Part 2: Future potentials

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Yagasaki, Y.; Shirato, Y.

    2014-08-01

    Future potentials of the sequestration of soil organic carbon (SOC) in agricultural lands in Japan were estimated using a simulation system we recently developed to simulate SOC stock change at country-scale under varying land-use change, climate, soil, and agricultural practices, in a spatially explicit manner. Simulation was run from 1970 to 2006 with historical inventories, and subsequently to 2020 with future scenarios of agricultural activity comprised of various agricultural policy targets advocated by the Japanese government. Furthermore, the simulation was run subsequently until 2100 while forcing no temporal changes in land-use and agricultural activity to investigate duration and course of SOC stock change at country scale. A scenario with an increased rate of organic carbon input to agricultural fields by intensified crop rotation in combination with the suppression of conversion of agricultural lands to other land-use types was found to have a greater reduction of CO2 emission by enhanced soil carbon sequestration, but only under a circumstance in which the converted agricultural lands will become settlements that were considered to have a relatively lower rate of organic carbon input. The size of relative reduction of CO2 emission in this scenario was comparable to that in another contrasting scenario (business-as-usual scenario of agricultural activity) in which a relatively lower rate of organic matter input to agricultural fields was assumed in combination with an increased rate of conversion of the agricultural fields to unmanaged grasslands through abandonment. Our simulation experiment clearly demonstrated that net-net-based accounting on SOC stock change, defined as the differences between the emissions and removals during the commitment period and the emissions and removals during a previous period (base year or base period of Kyoto Protocol), can be largely influenced by variations in future climate. Whereas baseline-based accounting, defined

  1. Aspects of agricultural land use in Ireland

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lee, J.

    1986-02-01

    Ireland's soil regions consist largely of Luvisols, Cambisols, and Gleysols. Approximately 60% of Ireland's land area is subject to varying degrees of soil limitations. Twenty-five percent of the land area comprises wet lowland mineral soils. Ninety percent of Ireland's agricultural area comprises pasture, hay, and silage. Approximately 30% of the agricultural area is devoted to dairying, and 55% to cattle production. is devoted to dairying, and 55% to cattle production. Trends in agricultural land use indicate that tillage declined substantially while livestock showed a substantial increase particularly in the decade 1965 1975. Research concludes that over 2.8 million ha has a capacity to carry at least 100 LU/40 ha (100 acres). Levels of fertilizer use in Ireland are below EEC levels. The highest fertilizer use levels are associated with the eastern and southern areas of Ireland. Tillage crops occupy only 10% of the agricultural area, while they account for 26% of tertilizer and lime use.

  2. National land-cover data and national agricultural census estimates of agricultural land use in the northeastern United States

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    The landscape of the northeastern United States is diverse and patchy, a complex mixture of forest, agriculture, and developed lands. Many urgent social and environmental issues require spatially-referenced information on land use, a need filled by the National Land-Cover Data (NLCD). The accuracy o...

  3. Planted and natural tree seedling survival and density in three floodplain restorations on abandoned agricultural fields

    Treesearch

    Allen E. Plocher

    2003-01-01

    In three floodplain forest restorations, established in abandoned agricultural fields in Illinois, permanent plots were sampled for 3 years to determine survivorship and density of planted tree seedlings, and species composition and density of natural regeneration. Planted tree survivorship decreased over time at all sites and after 3 years ranged from 32 to 61 percent...

  4. The importance of agricultural lands for Himalayan birds in winter.

    PubMed

    Elsen, Paul R; Kalyanaraman, Ramnarayan; Ramesh, Krishnamurthy; Wilcove, David S

    2017-04-01

    The impacts of land-use change on biodiversity in the Himalayas are poorly known, notwithstanding widespread deforestation and agricultural intensification in this highly biodiverse region. Although intact primary forests harbor many Himalayan birds during breeding, a large number of bird species use agricultural lands during winter. We assessed how Himalayan bird species richness, abundance, and composition during winter are affected by forest loss stemming from agriculture and grazing. Bird surveys along 12 elevational transects within primary forest, low-intensity agriculture, mixed subsistence agriculture, and intensively grazed pastures in winter revealed that bird species richness and abundance were greatest in low-intensity and mixed agriculture, intermediate in grazed pastures, and lowest in primary forest at both local and landscape scales; over twice as many species and individuals were recorded in low-intensity agriculture than in primary forest. Bird communities in primary forests were distinct from those in all other land-use classes, but only 4 species were unique to primary forests. Low-, medium-, and high-intensity agriculture harbored 32 unique species. Of the species observed in primary forest, 80% had equal or greater abundance in low-intensity agricultural lands, underscoring the value of these lands in retaining diverse community assemblages at high densities in winter. Among disturbed landscapes, bird species richness and abundance declined as land-use intensity increased, especially in high-intensity pastures. Our results suggest that agricultural landscapes are important for most Himalayan bird species in winter. But agricultural intensification-especially increased grazing-will likely result in biodiversity losses. Given that forest reserves alone may inadequately conserve Himalayan birds in winter, comprehensive conservation strategies in the region must go beyond protecting intact primary forests and ensure that low-intensity agricultural

  5. Modelling analysis of water and land effects on agricultural development in the Heihe Agricultural Production Area, China

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Wang, G.

    2017-12-01

    Water and land resources play vital roles in agricultural growth. They not only remarkably support overall economic growth, but may also restrict agricultural development. To document the influence of water and land on agriculture, we examined the "drag effects" of these two resources in limiting agricultural production. In this study, data from eight counties collected during 2000-2012 from the Heihe Agricultural Production Area in Gansu Province were used to analyze the drag effects of water and land resources on agricultural growth. These effects varied largely among the eight counties, which was consistent with the availability of these resources. This study will give scientific support to coordinating development with the availability of water and land resources in agricultural areas of China

  6. Agroforestry: working trees for sequestering carbon on agricultural lands

    Treesearch

    M.M. Schoeneberger

    2008-01-01

    Agroforestry is an appealing option for sequestering carbon on agricultural lands because it can sequester significant amounts of carbon while leaving the bulk of the land in agricultural production. Simultaneously, it can help landowners and society address many other issues facing these lands, such as economic diversification, biodiversity, and water quality....

  7. The Land Cover Dynamics and Conversion of Agricultural Land in Northwestern Bangladesh, 1973-2003.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Pervez, M.; Seelan, S. K.; Rundquist, B. C.

    2006-05-01

    The importance of land cover information describing the nature and extent of land resources and changes over time is increasing; this is especially true in Bangladesh, where land cover is changing rapidly. This paper presents research into the land cover dynamics of northwestern Bangladesh for the period 1973-2003 using Landsat satellite images in combination with field survey data collected in January and February 2005. Land cover maps were produced for eight different years during the study period with an average 73 percent overall classification accuracy. The classification results and post-classification change analysis showed that agriculture is the dominant land cover (occupying 74.5 percent of the study area) and is being reduced at a rate of about 3,000 ha per year. In addition, 6.7 percent of the agricultural land is vulnerable to temporary water logging annually. Despite this loss of agricultural land, irrigated agriculture increased substantially until 2000, but has since declined because of diminishing water availability and uncontrolled extraction of groundwater driven by population pressures and the extended need for food. A good agreement (r = 0.73) was found between increases in irrigated land and the depletion of the shallow groundwater table, a factor affecting widely practiced small-scale irrigation in northwestern Bangladesh. Results quantified the land cover change patterns and the stresses placed on natural resources; additionally, they demonstrated an accurate and economical means to map and analyze changes in land cover over time at a regional scale, which can assist decision makers in land and natural resources management decisions.

  8. Climate change impacts on global rainfed agricultural land availability

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zhang, X.; Cai, X.

    2010-12-01

    Global rainfed agricultural land availability can be subject to significant changes in both magnitude and spatial distribution due to climate change. We assess the possible changes using current and projected climate data from thirteen general circulation models (GCMs) under two emission scenarios, A1B & B1, together with global databases on land, including soil properties and slope. Two ensemble methods with the set of GCMs, Simple Average Method (SAM) and Root Mean Square Error Ensemble Method (RMSEMM), are employed to abate uncertainty involved in global GCM projections for assembling regional climate. Fuzzy logic, which handles land classification in an approximate yet efficient way, is adopted to estimate the land suitability through empirically determined membership functions and fuzzy rules chosen through a learning process based on remote sensed crop land products. Land suitability under five scenarios, which include the present-climate baseline scenario and four projected scenarios, A1B-SAM, A1B-RMSEMM, B1-SAM, and B1-RMSEMM, are assessed for both global and seven important agricultural regions in the world, Africa, China, India, Europe (excluding Russia), Russia, South America, and U.S. It is found that countries at the high latitudes of north hemisphere are more likely to benefit from climate change with respect to agricultural land availability; while countries at mid- and low latitudes may suffer different levels of loss of potential arable land. Expansions of the gross potential arable land are likely to occur in regions at the north high latitudes, including Russia, North China and U.S., while land shrinking can be expected in South America, Africa, India and Europe. Although the greatest potential for agricultural expansion lies in Africa and South America, with current cultivated land accounting for 20% and 13% respectively of the net potential arable land, negative effects from climate change may decline the potential. In summary, climate change

  9. 25 CFR 166.300 - How is Indian agricultural land managed?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false How is Indian agricultural land managed? 166.300 Section 166.300 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Land and Operations Management § 166.300 How is Indian agricultural land managed? Tribes, individual...

  10. 25 CFR 166.300 - How is Indian agricultural land managed?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2014-04-01 2014-04-01 false How is Indian agricultural land managed? 166.300 Section 166.300 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Land and Operations Management § 166.300 How is Indian agricultural land managed? Tribes, individual...

  11. Urbanization and agricultural land loss in India: comparing satellite estimates with census data.

    PubMed

    Pandey, Bhartendu; Seto, Karen C

    2015-01-15

    We examine the impacts of urbanization on agricultural land loss in India from 2001 to 2010. We combined a hierarchical classification approach with econometric time series analysis to reconstruct land-cover change histories using time series MODIS 250 m VI images composited at 16-day intervals and night time lights (NTL) data. We compared estimates of agricultural land loss using satellite data with agricultural census data. Our analysis highlights six key results. First, agricultural land loss is occurring around smaller cities more than around bigger cities. Second, from 2001 to 2010, each state lost less than 1% of its total geographical area due to agriculture to urban expansion. Third, the northeastern states experienced the least amount of agricultural land loss. Fourth, agricultural land loss is largely in states and districts which have a larger number of operational or approved SEZs. Fifth, urban conversion of agricultural land is concentrated in a few districts and states with high rates of economic growth. Sixth, agricultural land loss is predominantly in states with higher agricultural land suitability compared to other states. Although the total area of agricultural land lost to urban expansion has been relatively low, our results show that since 2006, the amount of agricultural land converted has been increasing steadily. Given that the preponderance of India's urban population growth has yet to occur, the results suggest an increase in the conversion of agricultural land going into the future. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Agriculture land suitability analysis evaluation based multi criteria and GIS approach

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Bedawi Ahmed, Goma; Shariff, Abdul Rashid M.; Balasundram, Siva Kumar; Abdullah, Ahmad Fikri bin

    2016-06-01

    Land suitability evaluation (LSE) is a valuable tool for land use planning in major countries of the world as well as in Malaysia. However, previous LSE studies have been conducted with the use of biophysical and ecological datasets for the design of equally important socio-economic variables. Therefore, this research has been conducted at the sub national level to estimate suitable agricultural land for rubber crops in Seremban, Malaysia by application of physical variables in combination with widely employed biophysical and ecological variables. The objective of this study has been to provide an up-to date GIS-based agricultural land suitability evaluation (ALSE) for determining suitable agricultural land for Rubber crops in Malaysia. Biophysical and ecological factors were assumed to influence agricultural land use were assembled and the weights of their respective contributions to land suitability for agricultural uses were assessed using an analytic hierarchical process. The result of this study found Senawang, Mambau, Sandakan and Rantau as the most suitable areas for cultivating Rubber; whereas, Nilai and Labu are moderately suitable for growing rubber. Lenggeng, Mantin and Pantai are not suitable for growing rubber as the study foresaw potential environmental degradation of these locations from agricultural intensification. While this study could be useful in assessing the potential agricultural yields and potential environmental degradation in the study area, it could also help to estimate the potential conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural uses.

  13. The Land Use Change From Agricultural to Non-Agricultural in Bungo Regency, Jambi Province, Indonesia

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Dolly, Fajar Ifan; Kismartini, Kismartini; Purnaweni, Hartuti

    2018-02-01

    This study aimed at observing the development of agricultural land use in Bungo Regency, Jambi Province, for other purposes, such as plantation, mining, and other commercial buildings. According to the sustainable agriculture supposed by the government, a change in land use has become an important issue to be taken into account as such that the change does not tend to damage the environment. The research findings from Bungo Regency demonstrated the change in agricultural land into copra and rubber plantation areas. Local people had changed their mindset towards reluctance to become farmers, which caused the loss of farmer regeneration and weakened the farmer exchange rate towards the agricultural commodities.

  14. Determinants of Urban Expansion and Agricultural Land Conversion in 25 EU Countries.

    PubMed

    Ustaoglu, Eda; Williams, Brendan

    2017-10-01

    Agricultural land conversion is resulting from ongoing complex interaction between the physical environment, policy settings and socio-economic factors. Case studies of the determinants of agricultural land conversion potentially contribute to the analysis of the main causes of land-use change. This can assist authorities and policy makers in understanding the relative importance of a wide range of factors on urban expansion and associated agricultural land-use change. This paper explores the determinants of agricultural land conversion to urban uses in the studied 25 European Union countries between 2000 and 2006. European-level as well as region-specific land-use changes are studied. The research is using the spatial data adapted from European Corine Land Cover maps of 2000 and 2006 and utilised other European sources regarding socio-economic, natural, geological, climate, and policy-related data. The differences in urbanisation processes observed in different regions in Europe emphasise the regional variations of urban conversion process of agricultural land use. This study identifies a combination of socio-economic drivers, policy-related factors, nature and location-based factors as key influences on agricultural land conversion processes in Europe. Specifically we found that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies were influential in curbing urbanisation and reducing agricultural land consumption.

  15. Determinants of Urban Expansion and Agricultural Land Conversion in 25 EU Countries

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ustaoglu, Eda; Williams, Brendan

    2017-10-01

    Agricultural land conversion is resulting from ongoing complex interaction between the physical environment, policy settings and socio-economic factors. Case studies of the determinants of agricultural land conversion potentially contribute to the analysis of the main causes of land-use change. This can assist authorities and policy makers in understanding the relative importance of a wide range of factors on urban expansion and associated agricultural land-use change. This paper explores the determinants of agricultural land conversion to urban uses in the studied 25 European Union countries between 2000 and 2006. European-level as well as region-specific land-use changes are studied. The research is using the spatial data adapted from European Corine Land Cover maps of 2000 and 2006 and utilised other European sources regarding socio-economic, natural, geological, climate, and policy-related data. The differences in urbanisation processes observed in different regions in Europe emphasise the regional variations of urban conversion process of agricultural land use. This study identifies a combination of socio-economic drivers, policy-related factors, nature and location-based factors as key influences on agricultural land conversion processes in Europe. Specifically we found that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies were influential in curbing urbanisation and reducing agricultural land consumption.

  16. Global land-water nexus: Agricultural land and freshwater use embodied in worldwide supply chains.

    PubMed

    Chen, B; Han, M Y; Peng, K; Zhou, S L; Shao, L; Wu, X F; Wei, W D; Liu, S Y; Li, Z; Li, J S; Chen, G Q

    2018-02-01

    As agricultural land and freshwater inextricably interrelate and interact with each other, the conventional water and land policy in "silos" should give way to nexus thinking when formulating the land and water management strategies. This study constructs a systems multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model to expound global land-water nexus by simultaneously tracking agricultural land and freshwater use flows along the global supply chains. Furthermore, land productivity and irrigation water requirements of 160 crops in different regions are investigated to reflect the land-water linkage. Results show that developed economies (e.g., USA and Japan) and major large developing economies (e.g., mainland China and India) are the overriding drivers of agricultural land and freshwater use globally. In general, significant net transfers of these two resources are identified from resource-rich and less-developed economies to resource-poor and more-developed economies. For some crops, blue water productivity is inversely related to land productivity, indicating that irrigation water consumption is sometimes at odds with land use. The results could stimulus international cooperation for sustainable land and freshwater management targeting on original suppliers and final consumers along the global supply chains. Moreover, crop-specific land-water linkage could provide insights for trade-off decisions on minimizing the environmental impacts on local land and water resources. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Impacts of incorporating land exchanges between forestry and agriculture in sector models.

    Treesearch

    Ralph J. Alig; Darius M. Adams; Bruce A. McCarl

    1998-01-01

    The forest and agriculture sectors are linked by having a portion of their land bases suitable for use in either sector. A substantial part of the southern land base is suitable for either forestry or agriculture use, with most of forestation on U.S. agriculture land in the South. We examine how land exchanges between forestry and agriculture are influenced by specific...

  18. Soil Carbon Chronosequnces from Post-Agricultural Land in Western New England

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Clark, J. D.; Johnson, A. H.; Richter, S. L.; Art, H. W.

    2008-12-01

    Using quantitative soil pits, we sampled chronosequences of post-agricultural northern hardwood forest soils in the Hopkins Memorial Forest (Williamstown, MA) to determine the amount of carbon lost during the period of agricultural use, as well as the rates at which C accumulates after abandonment. Chronosequences based on the time of abandonment were developed for the three main agricultural uses: cultivated cropland, pasture or hay, and woodlot. Active farms served as our theoretical zero time points and old growth stands in the region served as our likely maximum for C-accumulation. We then tested this chronosequence model throughout the three main physiographic provinces of the Berkshire-Taconic landscape: carbonate lowlands, Taconic uplands, and Berkshire highlands. Our data show a significant direct relationship between time since abandonment and carbon amount for the organic horizons (Oe and Oa) of cultivated as well as pastured or hayed plots but not for stands formerly used as woodlots. Likewise there was a significant relationship between C content and time for plowed horizons (0-20 cm) of cultivated ground, but not for the top 20 cm of mineral soils that were formerly pasture, hay, or woodlot. Our best estimate suggests that cultivation reduced the C-content of plowed soils by 50% to a depth of 20 cm, and that complete recovery of the C-pool requires approximately 120 years. Management practices of post-settlement New England farms differ significantly from those used by modern farms. These methodological differences complicate efforts to quantify the recovery of carbon in the western New England landscape.

  19. Natural succession impeded by smooth brome (Bromus inermis) and intermediate wheatgrass (Agropyron intermedium) in an abandoned agricultural field

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    Nelson, J.K.

    1997-11-01

    In 1975, an abandoned agricultural field at Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (Site) that had been cultivated for more than 38 years, was seeded with smooth brome (Bromus inermis) and intermediate wheatgrass (Agropyron intermedium). Although these species are commonly planted in reclamation and roadside seed mixtures, few studies have documented their impact on the re-establishment of native plant communities. In 1994, species richness, cover, and biomass were sampled in the agricultural field and compared to the surrounding mixed-grass prairie at the Site. The agricultural field contained only 61 plant species (62% native), compared to 143 species (81% native) in themore » surrounding mixed-grass prairie. Community similarity based on species presence/absence was 0.47 (Sorensen coefficient of similarity). Basal vegetative cover was 11.2% in the agricultural field and 29.1% in the mixed-grass prairie. Smooth brome and intermediate wheatgrass accounted for 93% of the relative foliar cover and 96% of the biomass in the agricultural field. The aggressive nature of these two planted species has impeded the natural succession of the agricultural field to a more native prairie community. Studies of natural succession on abandoned fields and roads in northeastern Colorado have indicated that if left alone, fields would return to their native climax state in approximately 50 years and would be approaching their native state after 20--25 years. Based on the results of this study, this agricultural field may take more than 100 years to return to a native mixed-grass prairie state and it may never achieve a native state without human intervention.« less

  20. Magnetic surveys for locating abandoned wells

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    ,

    1995-01-01

    Abandoned and unrecorded wells may act as conduits for the contamination of groundwater supplies by oil field brines and other pollutants. The casings of abandoned wells eventually develop leaks, which, if not properly plugged, can allow pollutants to reach freshwater aquifers that supply drinking water. Sources of pollutants include brine ponds, landfill sites, agricultural activities, industrial activities, illegal disposal sites, or accidental spills. The problem is particularly acute in regions where there are old petroleum fields or where water wells have been extensively used for agricultural irrigation. Even urban areas can contain wells that were abandoned and concealed during development. Carefully designed ground magnetic or aeromagnetic surveys can be used to locate abandoned wells by mapping the magnetic disturbances or "anomalies" produced by their steel well casings. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) can, at the request of other Federal, State, or local agencies, conduct, process, and interpret such surveys, or it can aid in the design and monitoring of contracts for such surveys.

  1. Implication of Agricultural Land Use Change on Regional Climate Projection

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Wang, G.; Ahmed, K. F.; You, L.

    2015-12-01

    Agricultural land use plays an important role in land-atmosphere interaction. Agricultural activity is one of the most important processes driving human-induced land use land cover change (LULCC) in a region. In addition to future socioeconomic changes, climate-induced changes in crop yield represent another important factor shaping agricultural land use. In feedback, the resulting LULCC influences the direction and magnitude of global, regional and local climate change by altering Earth's radiative equilibrium. Therefore, assessment of climate change impact on future agricultural land use and its feedback is of great importance in climate change study. In this study, to evaluate the feedback of projected land use changes to the regional climate in West Africa, we employed an asynchronous coupling between a regional climate model (RegCM) and a prototype land use projection model (LandPro). The LandPro model, which was developed to project the future change in agricultural land use and the resulting shift in natural vegetation in West Africa, is a spatially explicit model that can account for both climate and socioeconomic changes in projecting future land use changes. In the asynchronously coupled modeling framework, LandPro was run for every five years during the period of 2005-2050 accounting for climate-induced change in crop yield and socioeconomic changes to project the land use pattern by the mid-21st century. Climate data at 0.5˚ was derived from RegCM to drive the crop model DSSAT for each of the five-year periods to simulate crop yields, which was then provided as input data to LandPro. Subsequently, the land use land cover map required to run RegCM was updated every five years using the outputs from the LandPro simulations. Results from the coupled model simulations improve the understanding of climate change impact on future land use and the resulting feedback to regional climate.

  2. Agricultural lands preservation: a sociology of survival

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    White, T.S.

    1983-01-01

    This is a rural sociological study investigating the viability of agricultural lands use-values and rural communities in the context of the structure of US agriculture. It outlines the theoretical foundation, ideology, and praxis of a sociology of survival. It is undertaken within the framework of environmental sociology, which focuses on the dynamic interpenetration of social and biotic systems. The concepts of carrying capacity, sustained multiple-use yield, and land-use compatibility and their significance are discussed. The phenomenon of phantom carrying capacity is explored, and its ominous portent noted; but the astonishing potential of agricultural lands to produce huge net gains inmore » use values and in real carrying capacity is affirmed. The theory of unlimited resources, substitution, and market-allocation is falsified. Absolute shortages of renewable and nonrenewable resources are documented, and the necessity for population control, conservation, expanded sustained-yield production, and social allocation is established.« less

  3. 32 CFR 644.494 - Donation, abandonment or destruction.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... 32 National Defense 4 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 true Donation, abandonment or destruction. 644.494 Section 644.494 National Defense Department of Defense (Continued) DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY (CONTINUED) REAL... Land) § 644.494 Donation, abandonment or destruction. (a) General. Improvements may be abandoned...

  4. 32 CFR 644.494 - Donation, abandonment or destruction.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-07-01

    ... 32 National Defense 4 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Donation, abandonment or destruction. 644.494 Section 644.494 National Defense Department of Defense (Continued) DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY (CONTINUED) REAL... Land) § 644.494 Donation, abandonment or destruction. (a) General. Improvements may be abandoned...

  5. 32 CFR 644.494 - Donation, abandonment or destruction.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-07-01

    ... 32 National Defense 4 2012-07-01 2011-07-01 true Donation, abandonment or destruction. 644.494 Section 644.494 National Defense Department of Defense (Continued) DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY (CONTINUED) REAL... Land) § 644.494 Donation, abandonment or destruction. (a) General. Improvements may be abandoned...

  6. 32 CFR 644.494 - Donation, abandonment or destruction.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-07-01

    ... 32 National Defense 4 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Donation, abandonment or destruction. 644.494 Section 644.494 National Defense Department of Defense (Continued) DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY (CONTINUED) REAL... Land) § 644.494 Donation, abandonment or destruction. (a) General. Improvements may be abandoned...

  7. 32 CFR 644.494 - Donation, abandonment or destruction.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-07-01

    ... 32 National Defense 4 2014-07-01 2013-07-01 true Donation, abandonment or destruction. 644.494 Section 644.494 National Defense Department of Defense (Continued) DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY (CONTINUED) REAL... Land) § 644.494 Donation, abandonment or destruction. (a) General. Improvements may be abandoned...

  8. Effects of urban sprawl on agricultural land: a case study of Kahramanmaraş, Turkey.

    PubMed

    Doygun, Hakan

    2009-11-01

    The main objective of this study is to quantify areal loss of olive groves due to urban sprawl of the city of Kahramanmaraş, Turkey. Spatial changes were analysed by interpreting the digitized data derived from a black-white monoscopic aerial photograph taken in 1985, panchromatic IKONOS image of 2000 and two pan-sharpened Quickbird images of 2004 and 2006. Data obtained revealed that the area of olive groves decreased by 25% from 460.55 ha in 1985 to 344.46 in 2006, while the number of parcels increased from 170 to 445. Of the total areal loss, 60% was due to building constructions, with the rest being due to clear-cut for new residential gardens composed of exotic plants, new buildings, or new roads. Rapid population growth, increased land prices due to urban expansion, and abandonment of agricultural practices to construction of multi-storey buildings were the main causes of the process that transformed the olive groves into urbanized areas. Results pointed to an urgent need to (1) revise the national and municipal land management practices, (2) balance the gap between the short- and long-term economic benefits that urban and community development plans ignore, and (3) monitor land-use changes periodically by using high resolution satellite images.

  9. The American Land. Its History, Soil, Water, Wildlife, Agricultural Land Planning, and Land Problems of Today and Tomorrow.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Soil Conservation Service (USDA), Washington, DC.

    Presented in this booklet is the commentary for "The American Land," a television series prepared by the Soil Conservation Service and the Graduate School, United States Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with WETA - TV, Washington, D.C. It explores the resource of land in America, its history, soil, water, wildlife, agricultural land…

  10. Mapping environmental land use conflict potentials and ecosystem services in agricultural watersheds.

    PubMed

    Kim, Ilkwon; Arnhold, Sebastian

    2018-07-15

    In mountainous watersheds, agricultural land use cause changes in ecosystem services, with trade-offs between crop production and erosion regulation. Management of these watersheds can generate environmental land use conflicts among regional stakeholders with different interests. Although several researches have made a start in mapping land use conflicts between human activities and conservation, spatial assessment of land use conflicts on environmental issues and ecosystem service trade-offs within agricultural areas has not been fully considered. In this study, we went further to map land use conflicts between agricultural preferences for crop production and environmental emphasis on erosion regulation. We applied an agricultural land suitability index, based on multi-criteria analysis, to estimate the spatial preference of agricultural activities, while applying the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) to reflect the environmental importance of soil erosion. Then, we classified the agricultural catchment into four levels of land use conflicts (lowest, low, high and highest) according to preference and importance of farmland areas, and we compared the classes by crop type. Soil loss in agricultural areas was estimated as 45.1thayr, and agricultural suitability as 0.873; this indicated that land use conflicts in the catchment could arise between severe soil erosion (environmental importance) and agricultural suitability (land preferences). Dry-field farms are mainly located in areas of low land use conflict level, where land preference outweighs environmental importance. When we applied farmland management scenarios with consideration of services, conversion to highest-conflict areas (Scenario 1) as 7.5% of the total area could reduce soil loss by 24.6%, while fallow land management (Scenario 2) could decrease soil loss 19.4% more than the current scenario (Business as usual). The result could maximize land management plans by extracting issues of spatial

  11. 7 CFR 97.104 - Application or certificate abandoned.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-01-01

    ... 97.104 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing Practices), DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (CONTINUED) COMMODITY... abandoned certificates shall be published in the Official Journal, indicating that the variety has become...

  12. Reconstructing Land Use History from Landsat Time-Series. Case study of Swidden Agriculture Intensification in Brazil

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Dutrieux, L.; Jakovac, C. C.; Siti, L. H.; Kooistra, L.

    2015-12-01

    We developed a method to reconstruct land use history from Landsat images time-series. The method uses a breakpoint detection framework derived from the econometrics field and applicable to time-series regression models. The BFAST framework is used for defining the time-series regression models which may contain trend and phenology, hence appropriately modelling vegetation intra and inter-annual dynamics. All available Landsat data are used, and the time-series are partitioned into segments delimited by breakpoints. Segments can be associated to land use regimes, while the breakpoints then correspond to shifts in regimes. To further characterize these shifts, we classified the unlabelled breakpoints returned by the algorithm into their corresponding processes. We used a Random Forest classifier, trained from a set of visually interpreted time-series profiles to infer the processes and assign labels to the breakpoints. The whole approach was applied to quantifying the number of cultivation cycles in a swidden agriculture system in Brazil. Number and frequency of cultivation cycles is of particular ecological relevance in these systems since they largely affect the capacity of the forest to regenerate after abandonment. We applied the method to a Landsat time-series of Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) spanning the 1984-2015 period and derived from it the number of cultivation cycles during that period at the individual field scale level. Agricultural fields boundaries used to apply the method were derived using a multi-temporal segmentation. We validated the number of cultivation cycles predicted against in-situ information collected from farmers interviews, resulting in a Normalized RMSE of 0.25. Overall the method performed well, producing maps with coherent patterns. We identified various sources of error in the approach, including low data availability in the 90s and sub-object mixture of land uses. We conclude that the method holds great promise for

  13. Integration of strategic inventory and monitoring programs for the forest lands, wood lands, range lands and agricultural lands of the United States

    Treesearch

    Raymond L. Czaplewski

    1999-01-01

    The United States Department of Agriculture uses the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program to monitor the nation's forests and wood lands, and the National Resources Inventory (NRI) program to monitor the nation's agricultural and range lands. Although their measurement methods and sampling frames are very different, both programs are developing annual...

  14. Regional Climate Change Impact on Agricultural Land Use in West Africa

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ahmed, K. F.; Wang, G.; You, L.

    2014-12-01

    Agriculture is a key element of the human-induced land use land cover change (LULCC) that is influenced by climate and can potentially influence regional climate. Temperature and precipitation directly impact the crop yield (by controlling photosynthesis, respiration and other physiological processes) that then affects agricultural land use pattern. In feedback, the resulting changes in land use and land cover play an important role to determine the direction and magnitude of global, regional and local climate change by altering Earth's radiative equilibrium. The assessment of future agricultural land use is, therefore, of great importance in climate change study. In this study, we develop a prototype land use projection model and, using this model, project the changes to land use pattern and future land cover map accounting for climate-induced yield changes for major crops in West Africa. Among the inputs to the land use projection model are crop yield changes simulated by the crop model DSSAT, driven with the climate forcing data from the regional climate model RegCM4.3.4-CLM4.5, which features a projected decrease of future mean crop yield and increase of inter-annual variability. Another input to the land use projection model is the projected changes of food demand in the future. In a so-called "dumb-farmer scenario" without any adaptation, the combined effect of decrease in crop yield and increase in food demand will lead to a significant increase in agricultural land use in future years accompanied by a decrease in forest and grass area. Human adaptation through land use optimization in an effort to minimize agricultural expansion is found to have little impact on the overall areas of agricultural land use. While the choice of the General Circulation Model (GCM) to derive initial and boundary conditions for the regional climate model can be a source of uncertainty in projecting the future LULCC, results from sensitivity experiments indicate that the changes

  15. Climate change - Agricultural land use - Food security

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Nagy, János; Széles, Adrienn

    2015-04-01

    In Hungary, plougland decreased to 52% of its area by the time of political restructuring (1989) in comparison with the 1950s. Forested areas increased significantly (18%) and lands withdrawn from agricultural production doubled (11%). For today, these proportions further changed. Ploughlands reduced to 46% and forested areas further increased (21%) in 2013. The most significat changes were observed in the proportion of lands withdrawn from agricultural production which increased to 21%. Temperature in Hungary increased by 1°C during the last century and predictions show a further 2.6 °C increase by 2050. The yearly amount of precipitation significantly decreased from 640 mm to 560 mm with a more uneven temporal distribution. The following aspects can be considered in the correlation between climate change and agriculture: a) impact of agriculture on climate, b) future impact of climate change on agriculture and food supply, c) impact of climate change on food security. The reason for the significant change of climate is the accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) which results from anthropological activities. Between 2008 and 2012, Hungary had to reduce its GHG emission by 6% compared to the base period between 1985-1987. At the end of 2011, Hungarian GHG emission was 43.1% lower than that of the base period. The total gross emission was 66.2 million CO2 equivalent, while the net emission which also includes land use, land use change and forestry was 62.8 million tons. The emission of agriculture was 8.8 million tons (OMSZ, 2013). The greatest opportunity to reduce agricultural GHG emission is dinitrogen oxides which can be significantly mitigated by the smaller extent and more efficient use of nitrogen-based fertilisers (precision farming) and by using biomanures produced from utilised waste materials. Plant and animal species which better adapt to extreme weather circumstances should be bred and maintained, thereby making an investment in food security. Climate

  16. Patterns of land use, extensification, and intensification of Brazilian agriculture.

    PubMed

    Dias, Lívia C P; Pimenta, Fernando M; Santos, Ana B; Costa, Marcos H; Ladle, Richard J

    2016-08-01

    Sustainable intensification of agriculture is one of the main strategies to provide global food security. However, its implementation raises enormous political, technological, and social challenges. Meeting these challenges will require, among other things, accurate information on the spatial and temporal patterns of agricultural land use and yield. Here, we investigate historical patterns of agricultural land use (1940-2012) and productivity (1990-2012) in Brazil using a new high-resolution (approximately 1 km(2) ) spatially explicit reconstruction. Although Brazilian agriculture has been historically known for its extensification over natural vegetation (Amazon and Cerrado), data from recent years indicate that extensification has slowed down and was replaced by a strong trend of intensification. Our results provide the first comprehensive historical overview of agricultural land use and productivity in Brazil, providing clear insights to guide future territorial planning, sustainable agriculture, policy, and decision-making. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  17. Lessons learned from the U.S. Geological Survey abandoned mine lands initiative: 1997-2002

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Kimball, Briant A.; Church, Stan E.; Besser, John M.

    2006-01-01

    Growth of the United States has been facilitated, in part, by hard-rock mining in the Rocky Mountains. Abandoned and inactive mines cause many significant environmental concerns in hundreds of watersheds. Those who have responsibility to address these environmental concerns must have a basic level of scientific information about mining and mine wastes in a watershed prior to initiating remediation activities. To demonstrate what information is needed and how to obtain that information, the U.S. Geological Survey implemented the Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) Initiative from 1997 to 2002 with demonstration studies in the Boulder River watershed in Montana and the Animas River watershed in Colorado. The AML Initiative included collection and analysis of geologic, hydrologic, geochemical, geophysical, and biological data. The synergy of this interdisciplinary analysis produced a perspective of the environmental concerns that could not have come from a single discipline. Two examples of these perspectives include (1) the combination of hydrological tracer techniques, structural geology, and geophysics help to understand the spatial distribution of loading to the streams in a way that cannot be evaluated by monitoring at a catchment outlet, and (2) the combination of toxicology and hydrology combine to illustrate that seasonal variability of toxicity conditions occurs. Lessons have been learned by listening to and collaborating with land-management agencies to understand their needs and by applying interdisciplinary methods to answer their questions.

  18. Agricultural land use mapping. [Pennsylvania, Montana, and Texas

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Mcmurtry, G. J.; Petersen, G. W. (Principal Investigator); Wilson, A. D.

    1973-01-01

    The author has identified the following significant results. Agricultural areas were selected or analysis in southeastern Pennsylvania, north central Montana, and southern Texas. These three sites represent a broad range of soils, soil parent materials, climate, modes of agricultural operation, crops, and field sizes. In each of these three sites, ERTS-1 digital data were processed to determine the feasibility of automatically mapping agricultural land use. In Pennsylvania, forest land, cultivated land, and water were separable within a 25,000 acre area. Four classes of water were also classified and identified, using ground truth. A less complex land use pattern was analyzed in Hill County, Montana. A land use map was prepared shown alternating patterns of summer fallow and stubble fields. The location of farmsteads could be inferred, along with that of a railroad line. A river and a creek flowing into the river were discernible. Six categories of water, related to sediment content and depth, were defined in the reservoir held by the Fresno dam. These classifications were completed on a 150 square mile area. Analysis of the data from Texas is in its formative stages. A test site has been selected and a brightness map has been produced.

  19. Classification and Mapping of Agricultural Land for National Water-Quality Assessment

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Gilliom, Robert J.; Thelin, Gail P.

    1997-01-01

    Agricultural land use is one of the most important influences on water quality at national and regional scales. Although there is great diversity in the character of agricultural land, variations follow regional patterns that are influenced by environmental setting and economics. These regional patterns can be characterized by the distribution of crops. A new approach to classifying and mapping agricultural land use for national water-quality assessment was developed by combining information on general land-use distribution with information on crop patterns from agricultural census data. Separate classification systems were developed for row crops and for orchards, vineyards, and nurseries. These two general categories of agricultural land are distinguished from each other in the land-use classification system used in the U.S. Geological Survey national Land Use and Land Cover database. Classification of cropland was based on the areal extent of crops harvested. The acreage of each crop in each county was divided by total row-crop area or total orchard, vineyard, and nursery area, as appropriate, thus normalizing the crop data and making the classification independent of total cropland area. The classification system was developed using simple percentage criteria to define combinations of 1 to 3 crops that account for 50 percent or more or harvested acreage in a county. The classification system consists of 21 level I categories and 46 level II subcategories for row crops, and 26 level I categories and 19 level II subcategories for orchards, vineyards, and nurseries. All counties in the United States with reported harvested acreage are classified in these categories. The distribution of agricultural land within each county, however, must be evaluated on the basis of general land-use data. This can be done at the national scale using 'Major Land Uses of the United States,' at the regional scale using data from the national Land Use and Land Cover database, or at

  20. 43 CFR 3252.16 - How must I abandon a temperature gradient well?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false How must I abandon a temperature gradient well? 3252.16 Section 3252.16 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued... LEASING Conducting Exploration Operations § 3252.16 How must I abandon a temperature gradient well? (a...

  1. 43 CFR 3252.15 - When must I abandon a temperature gradient well?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false When must I abandon a temperature gradient well? 3252.15 Section 3252.15 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued... LEASING Conducting Exploration Operations § 3252.15 When must I abandon a temperature gradient well? When...

  2. 43 CFR 3252.16 - How must I abandon a temperature gradient well?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false How must I abandon a temperature gradient well? 3252.16 Section 3252.16 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued... LEASING Conducting Exploration Operations § 3252.16 How must I abandon a temperature gradient well? (a...

  3. 43 CFR 3252.16 - How must I abandon a temperature gradient well?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false How must I abandon a temperature gradient well? 3252.16 Section 3252.16 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued... LEASING Conducting Exploration Operations § 3252.16 How must I abandon a temperature gradient well? (a...

  4. 43 CFR 3252.15 - When must I abandon a temperature gradient well?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false When must I abandon a temperature gradient well? 3252.15 Section 3252.15 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued... LEASING Conducting Exploration Operations § 3252.15 When must I abandon a temperature gradient well? When...

  5. 43 CFR 3252.16 - How must I abandon a temperature gradient well?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false How must I abandon a temperature gradient well? 3252.16 Section 3252.16 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued... LEASING Conducting Exploration Operations § 3252.16 How must I abandon a temperature gradient well? (a...

  6. 43 CFR 3252.15 - When must I abandon a temperature gradient well?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false When must I abandon a temperature gradient well? 3252.15 Section 3252.15 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued... LEASING Conducting Exploration Operations § 3252.15 When must I abandon a temperature gradient well? When...

  7. 43 CFR 3252.15 - When must I abandon a temperature gradient well?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false When must I abandon a temperature gradient well? 3252.15 Section 3252.15 Public Lands: Interior Regulations Relating to Public Lands (Continued... LEASING Conducting Exploration Operations § 3252.15 When must I abandon a temperature gradient well? When...

  8. A small-scale land-sparing approach to conserving biological diversity in tropical agricultural landscapes

    Treesearch

    Richard B. Chandler; David I. King; Raul Raudales; Richard Trubey; Carlin Chandler; Víctor Julio Arce Chávez

    2013-01-01

    Two contrasting strategies have been proposed for conserving biological diversity while meeting the increasing demand for agricultural products: land sparing and land sharing production systems. Land sparing involves increasing yield to reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture, whereas land-sharing agricultural practices incorporate elements of native...

  9. Factors Influencing Farmers' Expectations to Sell Agricultural Land for Non-Agricultural Uses

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zollinger, Brett; Krannich, Richard S.

    2002-01-01

    In this study we identify factors that influence farmers' expectations to sell some or all of their farming operation in areas where the increase in the conversion of agricultural land has been relatively rapid. Findings indicate that the following factors increase farmers' propensity to sell some or all of the agricultural operation for…

  10. Computer-aided boundary delineation of agricultural lands

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Cheng, Thomas D.; Angelici, Gary L.; Slye, Robert E.; Ma, Matt

    1989-01-01

    The National Agricultural Statistics Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) presently uses labor-intensive aerial photographic interpretation techniques to divide large geographical areas into manageable-sized units for estimating domestic crop and livestock production. Prototype software, the computer-aided stratification (CAS) system, was developed to automate the procedure, and currently runs on a Sun-based image processing system. With a background display of LANDSAT Thematic Mapper and United States Geological Survey Digital Line Graph data, the operator uses a cursor to delineate agricultural areas, called sampling units, which are assigned to strata of land-use and land-cover types. The resultant stratified sampling units are used as input into subsequent USDA sampling procedures. As a test, three counties in Missouri were chosen for application of the CAS procedures. Subsequent analysis indicates that CAS was five times faster in creating sampling units than the manual techniques were.

  11. Historical cropland expansion and abandonment in the continental U.S. during 1850 to 2016

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Yu, Z.; Lu, C.

    2017-12-01

    Land use and land cover changes (LCLUC) are among the most important driving forces that alter terrestrial ecosystem functions and their feedbacks to climate system, but reliable spatially explicit dataset over century long period is still lacking for fine-scale earth system modeling. In this study, by harmonizing multiple sources of inventory data and high-resolution satellite images, we reconstructed cropland density maps to depict the annual percentage and distribution pattern of cultivated land (excluding summer idle/fallow, cropland pasture) in the conterminous U.S. during 1850 to 2016. We further examined the cropland expansion and abandonment in the U.S. using the newly-developed LCLUC data. In total, national cropland expansion is 104 million hectares (Mha) from 1850 to 2016 and peaked at about 127 Mha in 1920. Forests and shrublands were the dominant land cover types that croplands were converted from during 1850-1880, which may be primarily attributed to agriculture development in Northeast region. Croplands began to expand into grasslands since 1870 and the encroached area dramatically increased, mainly due to cultivation development in the Great Plain and Midwestern area. In comparison, the abandoned cropland in the U.S. is 65 Mha (34% of the maximum crop density) during the study period. We found cropland abandonment mostly occurred in the Central and Southeast U.S., while cropland expansion centered in the Midwestern states, the Central California, and the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. National cultivated lands have shifted from the Eastern to Midwestern U.S., which contributed to the increasingly important role of Midwest in the rise of food and biofuel productions, enhanced GHGs emission, and intensive nitrogen loads into the Gulf of Mexico. Our study provides a reliable database of historical cropland distribution, which is essential for modeling assessments of LCLUC impacts, crop production estimation, and social-economic analysis.

  12. The potential for land sparing to offset greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lamb, Anthony; Green, Rhys; Bateman, Ian; Broadmeadow, Mark; Bruce, Toby; Burney, Jennifer; Carey, Pete; Chadwick, David; Crane, Ellie; Field, Rob; Goulding, Keith; Griffiths, Howard; Hastings, Astley; Kasoar, Tim; Kindred, Daniel; Phalan, Ben; Pickett, John; Smith, Pete; Wall, Eileen; Zu Ermgassen, Erasmus K. H. J.; Balmford, Andrew

    2016-05-01

    Greenhouse gas emissions from global agriculture are increasing at around 1% per annum, yet substantial cuts in emissions are needed across all sectors. The challenge of reducing agricultural emissions is particularly acute, because the reductions achievable by changing farming practices are limited and are hampered by rapidly rising food demand. Here we assess the technical mitigation potential offered by land sparing--increasing agricultural yields, reducing farmland area and actively restoring natural habitats on the land spared. Restored habitats can sequester carbon and can offset emissions from agriculture. Using the UK as an example, we estimate net emissions in 2050 under a range of future agricultural scenarios. We find that a land-sparing strategy has the technical potential to achieve significant reductions in net emissions from agriculture and land-use change. Coupling land sparing with demand-side strategies to reduce meat consumption and food waste can further increase the technical mitigation potential--however, economic and implementation considerations might limit the degree to which this technical potential could be realized in practice.

  13. Spatially complex land change: The Indirect effect of Brazil's agricultural sector on land use in Amazonia

    PubMed Central

    Richards, Peter D.; Walker, Robert T.; Arima, Eugenio Y.

    2014-01-01

    Soybean farming has brought economic development to parts of South America, as well as environmental hopes and concerns. A substantial hope resides in the decoupling of Brazil's agricultural sector from deforestation in the Amazon region, in which case expansive agriculture need not imply forest degradation. However, concerns have also been voiced about the potential indirect effects of agriculture. This article addresses these indirect effects forthe case of the Brazilian Amazon since 2002. Our work finds that as much as thirty-two percent of deforestation, or the loss of more than 30,000 km2 of Amazon forest, is attributable, indirectly, to Brazil's soybean sector. However, we also observe that the magnitude of the indirect impact of the agriculture sector on forest loss in the Amazon has declined markedly since 2006. We also find a shift in the underlying causes of indirect land use change in the Amazon, and suggest that land appreciation in agricultural regions has supplanted farm expansions as a source of indirect land use change. Our results are broadly congruent with recent work recognizing the success of policy changes in mitigating the impact of soybean expansion on forest loss in the Amazon. However, they also caution that the soybean sector may continue to incentivize land clearings through its impact on regional land markets. PMID:25492993

  14. Governance, agricultural intensification, and land sparing in tropical South America.

    PubMed

    Ceddia, Michele Graziano; Bardsley, Nicholas Oliver; Gomez-y-Paloma, Sergio; Sedlacek, Sabine

    2014-05-20

    In this paper we address two topical questions: How do the quality of governance and agricultural intensification impact on spatial expansion of agriculture? Which aspects of governance are more likely to ensure that agricultural intensification allows sparing land for nature? Using data from the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, the World Database on Protected Areas, and the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, we estimate a panel data model for six South American countries and quantify the effects of major determinants of agricultural land expansion, including various dimensions of governance, over the period 1970-2006. The results indicate that the effect of agricultural intensification on agricultural expansion is conditional on the quality and type of governance. When considering conventional aspects of governance, agricultural intensification leads to an expansion of agricultural area when governance scores are high. When looking specifically at environmental aspects of governance, intensification leads to a spatial contraction of agriculture when governance scores are high, signaling a sustainable intensification process.

  15. Application of the WEPS and SWEEP models to non-agricultural disturbed lands.

    PubMed

    Tatarko, J; van Donk, S J; Ascough, J C; Walker, D G

    2016-12-01

    Wind erosion not only affects agricultural productivity but also soil, air, and water quality. Dust and specifically particulate matter ≤10 μm (PM-10) has adverse effects on respiratory health and also reduces visibility along roadways, resulting in auto accidents. The Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS) was developed by the USDA-Agricultural Research Service to simulate wind erosion and provide for conservation planning on cultivated agricultural lands. A companion product, known as the Single-Event Wind Erosion Evaluation Program (SWEEP), has also been developed which consists of the stand-alone WEPS erosion submodel combined with a graphical interface to simulate soil loss from single (i.e., daily) wind storm events. In addition to agricultural lands, wind driven dust emissions also occur from other anthropogenic sources such as construction sites, mined and reclaimed areas, landfills, and other disturbed lands. Although developed for agricultural fields, WEPS and SWEEP are useful tools for simulating erosion by wind for non-agricultural lands where typical agricultural practices are not employed. On disturbed lands, WEPS can be applied for simulating long-term (i.e., multi-year) erosion control strategies. SWEEP on the other hand was developed specifically for disturbed lands and can simulate potential soil loss for site- and date-specific planned surface conditions and control practices. This paper presents novel applications of WEPS and SWEEP for developing erosion control strategies on non-agricultural disturbed lands. Erosion control planning with WEPS and SWEEP using water and other dust suppressants, wind barriers, straw mulch, re-vegetation, and other management practices is demonstrated herein through the use of comparative simulation scenarios. The scenarios confirm the efficacy of the WEPS and SWEEP models as valuable tools for supporting the design of erosion control plans for disturbed lands that are not only cost-effective but also incorporate

  16. Linking trajectories of land change, land degradation processes and ecosystem services.

    PubMed

    Smiraglia, D; Ceccarelli, T; Bajocco, S; Salvati, L; Perini, L

    2016-05-01

    Land Degradation (LD) is a complex phenomenon resulting in a progressive reduction in the capacity of providing ecosystem services (ES). Landscape transformations promoting an unsustainable use of land often reveal latent processes of LD. An evaluation carried out in respect to the different ecosystem services is nowadays regarded as the most appropriate approach for assessing the effects of LD. The aim of this study is to develop an evaluation framework for identifying the linkages between land changes, LD processes and ES and suggesting Sustainable Land Management (SLM) options suited to reverse (or mitigate) LD impact. A SWOT analysis was carried out with the aim to identify internal and external factors that are favorable (or unfavorable) to achieve the proposed SLM actions. The study areas are the Fortore valley and the Valpadana, in Italy. The main trajectory identified for the Fortore valley is related to land abandonment due to population aging and the progressive emigration started in the 1950s. The most relevant LD processes are soil erosion and geomorphological instability, affecting regulating services such as natural hazard and erosion control. SLM options should consider interventions to contrast geomorphological instability, the promotion of climate smart agriculture and of typical products, and an efficient water resources management. The main trajectories identified for Valpadana are related to urban expansion and farmland abandonment and, as a consequence, land take due to anthropogenic pressure and woodland expansion as the main LD process. The reduction of food production was identified as the most relevant provisioning service affected. SLM should envisage best practices finalized to water saving and soil consumption reduction: efficient irrigation solutions, climate smart agriculture and zero sealing practices. This study highlights the diagnostic value of the suggested approach where LD processes are elicited from land change trajectories

  17. Bridging the gaps between agricultural policy, land-use and biodiversity.

    PubMed

    Mattison, Elizabeth H A; Norris, Ken

    2005-11-01

    The fate of biodiversity is intimately linked to agricultural development. Policy reform is an important driver of changes in agricultural land-use, but there is considerable spatial variation in response to policy and its potential impact on biodiversity. We review the links between policy, land-use and biodiversity and advocate a more integrated approach. Ecologists need to recognize that wildlife-friendly farming is not the only land-use strategy that can be used to conserve biodiversity and to research alternative options such as land sparing. There is also a need for social scientists and ecologists to bring their approaches together, so that land-use change and its consequences can be investigated in a more holistic way.

  18. Having it both ways? Land use change in a U.S. midwestern agricultural ecoregion

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Auch, Roger F.; Laingen, Chris R.

    2015-01-01

    Urbanization has been directly linked to decreases in area of agricultural lands and, as such, has been considered a threat to food security. Although the area of land used to produce food has diminished, often overlooked have been changes in agricultural output. The Eastern Corn Belt Plains (ECBP) is an important agricultural region in the U.S. Midwest. It has both gained a significant amount of urban land, primarily from the conversion of agricultural land between 1973 and 2000, and at the same time continued to produce ever-increasing quantities of agricultural products. By 2002, more corn, soybeans, and hogs were produced on a smaller agricultural land base than in 1974. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, ECBP ecoregion society appeared to have “had it both ways”: more urbanization along with increased agricultural output.

  19. Reconstructing land use history from Landsat time-series. Case study of a swidden agriculture system in Brazil

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Dutrieux, Loïc P.; Jakovac, Catarina C.; Latifah, Siti H.; Kooistra, Lammert

    2016-05-01

    We developed a method to reconstruct land use history from Landsat images time-series. The method uses a breakpoint detection framework derived from the econometrics field and applicable to time-series regression models. The Breaks For Additive Season and Trend (BFAST) framework is used for defining the time-series regression models which may contain trend and phenology, hence appropriately modelling vegetation intra and inter-annual dynamics. All available Landsat data are used for a selected study area, and the time-series are partitioned into segments delimited by breakpoints. Segments can be associated to land use regimes, while the breakpoints then correspond to shifts in land use regimes. In order to further characterize these shifts, we classified the unlabelled breakpoints returned by the algorithm into their corresponding processes. We used a Random Forest classifier, trained from a set of visually interpreted time-series profiles to infer the processes and assign labels to the breakpoints. The whole approach was applied to quantifying the number of cultivation cycles in a swidden agriculture system in Brazil (state of Amazonas). Number and frequency of cultivation cycles is of particular ecological relevance in these systems since they largely affect the capacity of the forest to regenerate after land abandonment. We applied the method to a Landsat time-series of Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) spanning the 1984-2015 period and derived from it the number of cultivation cycles during that period at the individual field scale level. Agricultural fields boundaries used to apply the method were derived using a multi-temporal segmentation approach. We validated the number of cultivation cycles predicted by the method against in-situ information collected from farmers interviews, resulting in a Normalized Residual Mean Squared Error (NRMSE) of 0.25. Overall the method performed well, producing maps with coherent spatial patterns. We identified

  20. An evaluation of direct seeding for reforestation of degraded lands in central São Paulo State, Brazil

    Treesearch

    Vera L. Engel; John A. Parrotta

    2001-01-01

    As part of a larger study evaluating several silvicultural techniques for restoring tropical moist forests on abandoned agricultural lands in southeastern Brazil, direct seeding with five early-successional Atlantic forest species was tested at three degraded sites, characterized by different soil types and land-use histories, within the Environmental Protection Area...

  1. 43 CFR 3162.3-4 - Well abandonment.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Well abandonment. 3162.3-4 Section 3162.3... Operating Rights Owners and Operators § 3162.3-4 Well abandonment. (a) The operator shall promptly plug and... newly completed or recompleted well in which oil or gas is not encountered in paying quantities or which...

  2. 43 CFR 3162.3-4 - Well abandonment.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Well abandonment. 3162.3-4 Section 3162.3... Operating Rights Owners and Operators § 3162.3-4 Well abandonment. (a) The operator shall promptly plug and... newly completed or recompleted well in which oil or gas is not encountered in paying quantities or which...

  3. 43 CFR 3162.3-4 - Well abandonment.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Well abandonment. 3162.3-4 Section 3162.3... Operating Rights Owners and Operators § 3162.3-4 Well abandonment. (a) The operator shall promptly plug and... newly completed or recompleted well in which oil or gas is not encountered in paying quantities or which...

  4. 43 CFR 3162.3-4 - Well abandonment.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-10-01

    ... 43 Public Lands: Interior 2 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Well abandonment. 3162.3-4 Section 3162.3... Operating Rights Owners and Operators § 3162.3-4 Well abandonment. (a) The operator shall promptly plug and... newly completed or recompleted well in which oil or gas is not encountered in paying quantities or which...

  5. Governance, agricultural intensification, and land sparing in tropical South America

    PubMed Central

    Ceddia, Michele Graziano; Bardsley, Nicholas Oliver; Gomez-y-Paloma, Sergio; Sedlacek, Sabine

    2014-01-01

    In this paper we address two topical questions: How do the quality of governance and agricultural intensification impact on spatial expansion of agriculture? Which aspects of governance are more likely to ensure that agricultural intensification allows sparing land for nature? Using data from the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, the World Database on Protected Areas, and the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, we estimate a panel data model for six South American countries and quantify the effects of major determinants of agricultural land expansion, including various dimensions of governance, over the period 1970–2006. The results indicate that the effect of agricultural intensification on agricultural expansion is conditional on the quality and type of governance. When considering conventional aspects of governance, agricultural intensification leads to an expansion of agricultural area when governance scores are high. When looking specifically at environmental aspects of governance, intensification leads to a spatial contraction of agriculture when governance scores are high, signaling a sustainable intensification process. PMID:24799696

  6. GCAM 3.0 Agriculture and Land Use: Data Sources and Methods

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    Kyle, G. Page; Luckow, Patrick; Calvin, Katherine V.

    This report presents the data processing methods used in the GCAM 3.0 agriculture and land use component, starting from all source data used, and detailing all calculations and assumptions made in generating the model inputs. The report starts with a brief introduction to modeling of agriculture and land use in GCAM 3.0, and then provides documentation of the data and methods used for generating the base-year dataset and future scenario parameters assumed in the model input files. Specifically, the report addresses primary commodity production, secondary (animal) commodity production, disposition of commodities, land allocation, land carbon contents, and land values.

  7. Changes in soil microbial community structure influenced by agricultural management practices in a mediterranean agro-ecosystem.

    PubMed

    García-Orenes, Fuensanta; Morugán-Coronado, Alicia; Zornoza, Raul; Cerdà, Artemi; Scow, Kate

    2013-01-01

    Agricultural practices have proven to be unsuitable in many cases, causing considerable reductions in soil quality. Land management practices can provide solutions to this problem and contribute to get a sustainable agriculture model. The main objective of this work was to assess the effect of different agricultural management practices on soil microbial community structure (evaluated as abundance of phospholipid fatty acids, PLFA). Five different treatments were selected, based on the most common practices used by farmers in the study area (eastern Spain): residual herbicides, tillage, tillage with oats and oats straw mulching; these agricultural practices were evaluated against an abandoned land after farming and an adjacent long term wild forest coverage. The results showed a substantial level of differentiation in the microbial community structure, in terms of management practices, which was highly associated with soil organic matter content. Addition of oats straw led to a microbial community structure closer to wild forest coverage soil, associated with increases in organic carbon, microbial biomass and fungal abundances. The microbial community composition of the abandoned agricultural soil was characterised by increases in both fungal abundances and the metabolic quotient (soil respiration per unit of microbial biomass), suggesting an increase in the stability of organic carbon. The ratio of bacteria:fungi was higher in wild forest coverage and land abandoned systems, as well as in the soil treated with oat straw. The most intensively managed soils showed higher abundances of bacteria and actinobacteria. Thus, the application of organic matter, such as oats straw, appears to be a sustainable management practice that enhances organic carbon, microbial biomass and activity and fungal abundances, thereby changing the microbial community structure to one more similar to those observed in soils under wild forest coverage.

  8. Agricultural intensification and changes in cultivated areas, 1970–2005

    PubMed Central

    Rudel, Thomas K.; Schneider, Laura; Uriarte, Maria; Turner, B. L.; DeFries, Ruth; Lawrence, Deborah; Geoghegan, Jacqueline; Hecht, Susanna; Ickowitz, Amy; Lambin, Eric F.; Birkenholtz, Trevor; Baptista, Sandra; Grau, Ricardo

    2009-01-01

    Does the intensification of agriculture reduce cultivated areas and, in so doing, spare some lands by concentrating production on other lands? Such sparing is important for many reasons, among them the enhanced abilities of released lands to sequester carbon and provide other environmental services. Difficulties measuring the extent of spared land make it impossible to investigate fully the hypothesized causal chain from agricultural intensification to declines in cultivated areas and then to increases in spared land. We analyze the historical circumstances in which rising yields have been accompanied by declines in cultivated areas, thereby leading to land-sparing. We use national-level United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization data on trends in cropland from 1970–2005, with particular emphasis on the 1990–2005 period, for 10 major crop types. Cropland has increased more slowly than population during this period, but paired increases in yields and declines in cropland occurred infrequently, both globally and nationally. Agricultural intensification was not generally accompanied by decline or stasis in cropland area at a national scale during this time period, except in countries with grain imports and conservation set-aside programs. Future projections of cropland abandonment and ensuing environmental services cannot be assumed without explicit policy intervention. PMID:19955435

  9. Historical land use and stand age effects on forest soil properties in the Mid-Atlantic US

    Treesearch

    Ian Yesilonis; K. Szlavecz; Richard Pouyat; D. Whigham; L. Xia

    2016-01-01

    The conversion of agriculture lands to forest has been occurring in parts of North America for decades. The legacy of management activity during this transition is reflected in soil physical and chemical properties years after abandonment. This study was conducted at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Maryland, USA, to determine land-use history and forest...

  10. Challenges for Sustainable Land Management through Climate-Smart Agriculture

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Dougill, Andrew; Stringer, Lindsay

    2017-04-01

    There are increasing pushes for agricultural land management to be both sustainable and climate-smart (in terms of increasing productivity, building resilience to climate change and enhancing carbon storage). Climate-smart agriculture initiatives include conservation agriculture, based on minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation, and agroforestry. Such efforts address key international goals of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), but as yet have not seen widespread uptake. Based on analyses of different project interventions from across a range of southern African countries, we outline the inter-related challenges that are preventing adoption of climate-smart agriculture initiatives. We then identify routes to building multi-stakeholder partnerships and empowering communities through participatory monitoring with the aim of increasing uptake of such sustainable land management practices. Good practice examples remain largely restricted to local-level project interventions with significant donor (or private-sector) support, aligned to short-term community priorities relating to access to inputs or reduced labour requirements. Scaling-up to district- and national-level initiatives is yet to be widely successful due to problems of: limited policy coherence; a lack of communication between stakeholders at different levels; and limited understanding of long-term benefits associated with changes in agricultural practices. We outline opportunities associated with improved communication of climate information, empowerment of district-level adaptation planning and diversification of agricultural livelihood strategies as key routes to guide farmers towards more sustainable, and climate-smart, land management practices. Recent experiences in Malawi, which has experienced significant floods and an El Niño drought year in the last two years, are used to

  11. Mercury contamination in agricultural soils from abandoned metal mines classified by geology and mineralization.

    PubMed

    Kim, Han Sik; Jung, Myung Chae

    2012-01-01

    This survey aimed to compare mercury concentrations in soils related to geology and mineralization types of mines. A total of 16,386 surface soils (0~15 cm in depth) were taken from agricultural lands near 343 abandoned mines (within 2 km from each mine) and analyzed for Hg by AAS with a hydride-generation device. To meaningfully compare mercury levels in soils with geology and mineralization types, three subclassification criteria were adapted: (1) five mineralization types, (2) four valuable ore mineral types, and (3) four parent rock types. The average concentration of Hg in all soils was 0.204 mg kg(-1) with a range of 0.002-24.07 mg kg(-1). Based on the mineralization types, average Hg concentrations (mg kg(-1)) in the soils decreased in the order of pegmatite (0.250) > hydrothermal vein (0.208) > hydrothermal replacement (0.166) > skarn (0.121) > sedimentary deposits (0.045). In terms of the valuable ore mineral types, the concentrations decreased in the order of Au-Ag-base metal mines ≈ base metal mines > Au-Ag mines > Sn-W-Mo-Fe-Mn mines. For parent rock types, similar concentrations were found in the soils derived from sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks followed by heterogeneous rocks with igneous and metamorphic processes. Furthermore, farmland soils contained relatively higher Hg levels than paddy soils. Therefore, it can be concluded that soils in Au, Ag, and base metal mines derived from a hydrothermal vein type of metamorphic rocks and pegmatite deposits contained relatively higher concentrations of mercury in the surface environment.

  12. Understanding the drivers of agricultural land use change in south-central Senegal

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Wood, E. C.; Tappan, G. Gray; Hadj, Amadou

    2004-01-01

    Described is (1) the land use and land cover changes that have taken place in the Department of Velingara, an area of tropical dry woodland in south-central Senegal, (2) the biophysical and socio-economic drivers of those changes with an emphasis on transition to agricultural use, and (3) an assessment of the likelihood of intensification of agriculture in the Department. Results indicate that land devoted to agriculture, either in active cultivation or short-term fallow, is increasing. There is little evidence of agricultural intensification in most of Velingara, with extensification coming largely at the cost of reduction in both upland woodlands and riparian forest.

  13. Implications of agricultural land use change to ecosystem services in the Ganges delta.

    PubMed

    Islam, G M Tarekul; Islam, A K M Saiful; Shopan, Ahsan Azhar; Rahman, Md Munsur; Lázár, Attila N; Mukhopadhyay, Anirban

    2015-09-15

    Ecosystems provide the basis for human civilization and natural capital for green economy and sustainable development. Ecosystem services may range from crops, fish, freshwater to those that are harder to see such as erosion regulation, carbon sequestration, and pest control. Land use changes have been identified as the main sources of coastal and marine pollution in Bangladesh. This paper explores the temporal variation of agricultural land use change and its implications with ecosystem services in the Ganges delta. With time agricultural lands have been decreased and wetlands have been increased at a very high rate mainly due to the growing popularity of saltwater shrimp farming. In a span of 28 years, the agricultural lands have been reduced by approximately 50%, while the wetlands have been increased by over 500%. A large portion (nearly 40%) of the study area is covered by the Sundarbans which remained almost constant which can be attributed to the strict regulatory intervention to preserve the Sundarbans. The settlement & others land use type has also been increased to nearly 5%. There is a gradual uptrend of shrimp and fish production in the study area. The findings suggest that there are significant linkages between agricultural land use change and ecosystem services in the Ganges delta in Bangladesh. The continuous decline of agricultural land (due to salinization) and an increase of wetland have been attributed to the conversion of agricultural land into shrimp farming in the study area. Such land use change requires significant capital, therefore, only investors and wealthier land owners can get the higher profit from the land conversion while the poor people is left with the environmental consequences that affect their long-term lives and livelihood. An environmental management plan is proposed for sustainable land use in the Ganges delta in Bangladesh. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. Relations between retired agricultural land, water quality, and aquatic-community health, Minnesota River Basin

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Christensen, Victoria G.; Lee, Kathy E.; McLees, James M.; Niemela, Scott L.

    2012-01-01

    The relative importance of agricultural land retirement on water quality and aquatic-community health was investigated in the Minnesota River Basin. Eighty-two sites, with drainage areas ranging from 4.3 to 2200 km2, were examined for nutrient concentrations, measures of aquatic-community health (e.g., fish index of biotic integrity [IBI] scores), and environmental factors (e.g., drainage area and amount of agricultural land retirement). The relation of proximity of agricultural land retirement to the stream was determined by calculating the land retirement percent in various riparian zones. Spearman's rho results indicated that IBI score was not correlated to the percentage of agricultural land retirement at the basin scale (p = 0.070); however, IBI score was correlated to retired land percentage in the 50- to 400-m riparian zones surrounding the streams (p < 0.05), indicating that riparian agricultural land retirement may have more influence on aquatic-community health than does agricultural land retirement in upland areas. Multivariate analysis of covariance and analysis of covariance models indicated that other environmental factors (such as drainage area and lacustrine and palustrine features) commonly were correlated to aquatic-community health measures, as were in-stream factors (standard deviation of water depth and substrate type). These results indicate that although agricultural land retirement is significantly related to fish communities as measured by the IBI scores, a combination of basin, riparian, and in-stream factors act together to influence IBI scores.

  15. Land Conservation in an Evolving Agricultural Industry: Trade-offs to Consider

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Baker, J. S.; Murray, B. C.; McCarl, B. A.; Jackson, R. B.

    2008-12-01

    This study analyzes the interactions of land conservation policy with biofuel expansion using an economic model of the U.S. forest and agricultural sectors. The world agricultural industry is changing rapidly under emerging market and policy-based pressures. An important driver in the U.S. is the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), which mandates significant expansion in biofuels production (up to 36 billion gallons/year by 2022). Traditional land conservation practices such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) are at risk in this changing agricultural climate, as the opportunity costs of reverting to cropland continue to rise. Large- scale reversion of CRP acreage is likely to lead to substantial losses in soil carbon, biodiversity, soil erosion protection, and water quality. However, given the increased competition for land resources, continued efforts to maintain the CRP could induce land use change (LUC) and agricultural development from even more sensitive ecosystems, including native grasslands and forests. This study uses economic modeling to study CRP reversion and LUC under multiple scenarios, including: 1) Baseline assumptions of growth in world agricultural demand and energy prices, with and without CRP reversion; 2) Implementation of the RFS while maintaining the CRP; and 3) RFS with CRP reversion allowed. The study is done using the FASOMGHG model (Lee, McCarl et al, 2008), which is well suited for this analysis as it: 1) Depicts land use competition between crops, pasture, CRP, and forestry over a 100 year period 2) Contains comprehensive GHG accounting across the sectors, 3) Allows land in the CRP to revert to cultivation at an economically optimal rate as land values increase, and 4) Extensively models biofuel and conventional agricultural production possibilities. Results generated to date show significant reversion to cultivation, even under the baseline (36% of the total CRP stock by 2020). Implementing the RFS further pressures conservation

  16. Spatial and temporal predictions of agricultural land prices using DSM techniques.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Carré, F.; Grandgirard, D.; Diafas, I.; Reuter, H. I.; Julien, V.; Lemercier, B.

    2009-04-01

    Agricultural land prices highly impacts land accessibility to farmers and by consequence the evolution of agricultural landscapes (crop changes, land conversion to urban infrastructures…) which can turn to irreversible soil degradation. The economic value of agricultural land has been studied spatially, in every one of the 374 French Agricultural Counties, and temporally- from 1995 to 2007, by using data of the SAFER Institute. To this aim, agricultural land price was considered as a digital soil property. The spatial and temporal predictions were done using Digital Soil Mapping techniques combined with tools mainly used for studying temporal financial behaviors. For making both predictions, a first classification of the Agricultural Counties was done for the 1995-2006 periods (2007 was excluded and served as the date of prediction) using a fuzzy k-means clustering. The Agricultural Counties were then aggregated according to land price at the different times. The clustering allows for characterizing the counties by their memberships to each class centroid. The memberships were used for the spatial prediction, whereas the centroids were used for the temporal prediction. For the spatial prediction, from the 374 Agricultural counties, three fourths were used for modeling and one fourth for validating. Random sampling was done by class to ensure that all classes are represented by at least one county in the modeling and validation datasets. The prediction was done for each class by testing the relationships between the memberships and the following factors: (i) soil variable (organic matter from the French BDAT database), (ii) soil covariates (land use classes from CORINE LANDCOVER, bioclimatic zones from the WorldClim Database, landform attributes and landform classes from the SRTM, major roads and hydrographic densities from EUROSTAT, average field sizes estimated by automatic classification of remote sensed images) and (iii) socio-economic factors (population

  17. The human context: Land ownership, resource uses, and social dynamics

    Treesearch

    David N. Wear

    2012-01-01

    The forests and grasslands of the Eastern United States have been subject to more than two centuries of episodic change, generally characterized by forest clearing, agricultural use, abandonment, reforestation, and recovery. Today, rapid colonization of forests and other rural lands by people, the spread of many floral and faunal nonnative invasive species and, in some...

  18. Soil abandonment in artificial soil terraces in marginal areas. Preliminary results of a case of water shortage effect in soils from Sultanate of Oman.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Saadi, Sara Kalifah Al; Kindi, Samaya Salim Al; Pracejus, Bernhard; Moraetis, Daniel

    2016-04-01

    Soil abandonment is taking place in marginal land areas in Sultanate of Oman. Artificial soil terraces in high elevation rocky mountainous areas left without agricultural activities due to water shortage. Soil terraces have been established approximately 700 years ago and constitute a significant part of the Oman cultural and natural heritage. The present study investigates the soil state in those areas and seeks the possible reasons for the land abandonment. Questionnaires were prepared to interview the opinion of the local people. In addition, meteorological data were gathered to analyze the rain patterns in the area and most importantly, six soil profiles in two different areas in marginal rocky areas of Oman were sampled. The soils are in artificial terraces in Wijma and Hadash villages with elevation of 1247 and 1469 m respectively at mountainous slopes of 20 to 45 degrees. Most of the land was abandoned the last 20 years, while one terrace had agriculture activity 3 years ago. The questioners and interviews showed that water shortage was the reason of land abandonment. The rain patterns show a reduction of annual precipitation at least the last 10 years of available metrological data in the area. The total soil depth in the six soil profiles was between 33 to 70 cm. The main horizons include AC and C and there was a characteristic hard soil horizon in most of the soil profiles with accumulation of carbonate minerals (caliche). The soil pH was mainly alkaline between 7.5 to 8.1 and the electrical conductivity range between 42 to 859 μS/cm. A horizonization in electrical conductivity showed more dissolved solids in lower horizons compare to the upper 10 cm of the soil and this was coinciding with the hard layers in lower soil profiles. It appeared that several hundred years (or maximum 1000 years) old soils showed the development of hard soil layers which are characteristic in arid areas. The upper soil layers showed low conductivity probably due to surface

  19. Land degradation in the Canyoles river watershed, Eastern Spain

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Cerdà, A.; Gonzalez Peñaloza, F. A.; Imeson, A. C.; Gimenez Morera, A.

    2012-04-01

    Human induced Land Degradation by actions that have a negative impact on the functioning of the environment (Imeson, 2012). Mediterranean arid lands have been intensely transformed by human activity through history, especially due to agricultural management. This intense use of the land resulted in a new man made landscape that is evolving as a consequence of the global change to a new situation that can trigger Land Degradation processes. Extensive areas of olive groves, fruit orchards and vineyards, many of them grown on marginal areas (e.g., terraced slopes) as well as non-sustainable land uses have induced different environmental problems in the Canyoles river watershed (Eastern Spain). The human and physical changes suffered by this region are being used as a representative area of the western Mediterranean basin to monitor how the responses to the Desertification and Land Degradation fit. The aim of this research is to evaluate socio-ecological systems as a part of the Land Ecosystem and Degradation Desertification Response Assessment (LEDDRA) project. This presentation will show the main Land Degradation processes that has been identified: [1] soil erosion as a consequence of agriculture, [2] soil compaction due to herbicide and heavy machinery use, [3] soil sealing on croplands due to heavy vehicles and asphalt and concrete application on roads, [4] soil/water pollution due to agrochemicals, [5] reduction of biodiversity in croplands due to herbicides and substitution of the traditional irrigation system, [6] urbanization processes of rural areas due to the development of urban areas and agricultural infrastructures, [7] monoculture of citrus plantations in the lower part of the watershed, [8] roads and railway construction, [9] aquifer depletion, [10] abandonment of industrial activities, [11] abandonment of local traditional practices for food production and other resources and [12] the effect of land abandonment and wildfires in the nearby mountainous

  20. Land Change in Russia since 2000

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    de Beurs, K.; Ioffe, G.; Nefedova, T.

    2010-12-01

    Agricultural reform has been an important anthropogenic change process shaping landscapes in European Russia since the formal collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. Widespread land abandonment is perhaps the most evident side effect of the reform, even visible in synoptic imagery. While land abandonment as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union is relatively well documented, few studies have investigated the unfolding process of abandonment that results from rural population declines. Russia’s population is projected to shrink by a staggering 29% by 2050 and population dynamics are predicted to play a significant role structuring rural landscapes across European Russia. While often treated as a unified whole with respect to agricultural reform, significant regional diversity exists in Russia. Official statistics at the rayon (county) level are typically skewed toward large-scale farming and farm data from important household productions are summarized into regional averages. In addition, data at sub-district level can often only be obtained by visiting rural administrators in person. Large scale official data thus need to be interpreted with caution. Here we present data collected during the summer of 2010 from representative settlements and enterprises in selected counties within the oblasts (states) of Kostroma and Samara. These field data will provide an initial overview of the economic and social state in modern rural western Russia. We will combine the field data with established socio-demographic observations as well as satellite observations at multiple scales to understand the effect of global change and to project future developments.

  1. Land-use protection for climate change mitigation

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Popp, Alexander; Humpenöder, Florian; Weindl, Isabelle; Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon; Bonsch, Markus; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Müller, Christoph; Biewald, Anne; Rolinski, Susanne; Stevanovic, Miodrag; Dietrich, Jan Philipp

    2014-12-01

    Land-use change, mainly the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural land, is a massive source of carbon emissions and contributes substantially to global warming. Therefore, mechanisms that aim to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation are widely discussed. A central challenge is the avoidance of international carbon leakage if forest conservation is not implemented globally. Here, we show that forest conservation schemes, even if implemented globally, could lead to another type of carbon leakage by driving cropland expansion in non-forested areas that are not subject to forest conservation schemes (non-forest leakage). These areas have a smaller, but still considerable potential to store carbon. We show that a global forest policy could reduce carbon emissions by 77 Gt CO2, but would still allow for decreases in carbon stocks of non-forest land by 96 Gt CO2 until 2100 due to non-forest leakage effects. Furthermore, abandonment of agricultural land and associated carbon uptake through vegetation regrowth is hampered. Effective mitigation measures thus require financing structures and conservation investments that cover the full range of carbon-rich ecosystems. However, our analysis indicates that greater agricultural productivity increases would be needed to compensate for such restrictions on agricultural expansion.

  2. Determination of the Impact of Urbanization on Agricultural Lands using Multi-temporal Satellite Sensor Images

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kaya, S.; Alganci, U.; Sertel, E.; Ustundag, B.

    2015-12-01

    Throughout the history, agricultural activities have been performed close to urban areas. Main reason behind this phenomenon is the need of fast marketing of the agricultural production to urban residents and financial provision. Thus, using the areas nearby cities for agricultural activities brings out advantage of easy transportation of productions and fast marketing. For decades, heavy migration to cities has directly and negatively affected natural grasslands, forests and agricultural lands. This pressure has caused agricultural lands to be changed into urban areas. Dense urbanization causes increase in impervious surfaces, heat islands and many other problems in addition to destruction of agricultural lands. Considering the negative impacts of urbanization on agricultural lands and natural resources, a periodic monitoring of these changes becomes indisputably important. At this point, satellite images are known to be good data sources for land cover / use change monitoring with their fast data acquisition, large area coverages and temporal resolution properties. Classification of the satellite images provides thematic the land cover / use maps of the earth surface and changes can be determined with GIS based analysis multi-temporal maps. In this study, effects of heavy urbanization over agricultural lands in Istanbul, metropolitan city of Turkey, were investigated with use of multi-temporal Landsat TM satellite images acquired between 1984 and 2011. Images were geometrically registered to each other and classified using supervised maximum likelihood classification algorithm. Resulting thematic maps were exported to GIS environment and destructed agricultural lands by urbanization were determined using spatial analysis.

  3. Climate change impacts on global agricultural land availability

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zhang, Xiao; Cai, Ximing

    2011-01-01

    Climate change can affect both crop yield and the land area suitable for agriculture. This study provides a spatially explicit estimate of the impact of climate change on worldwide agricultural land availability, considering uncertainty in climate change projections and ambiguity with regard to land classification. Uncertainty in general circulation model (GCM) projections is addressed using data assembled from thirteen GCMs and two representative emission scenarios (A1B and B1 employ CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas concentrations of 850 and 600 ppmv, respectively; B1 represents a greener economy). Erroneous data and the uncertain nature of land classifications based on multiple indices (i.e. soil properties, land slope, temperature, and humidity) are handled with fuzzy logic modeling. It is found that the total global arable land area is likely to decrease by 0.8-1.7% under scenario A1B and increase by 2.0-4.4% under scenario B1. Regions characterized by relatively high latitudes such as Russia, China and the US may expect an increase of total arable land by 37-67%, 22-36% and 4-17%, respectively, while tropical and sub-tropical regions may suffer different levels of lost arable land. For example, South America may lose 1-21% of its arable land area, Africa 1-18%, Europe 11-17%, and India 2-4%. When considering, in addition, land used for human settlements and natural conservation, the net potential arable land may decrease even further worldwide by the end of the 21st century under both scenarios due to population growth. Regionally, it is likely that both climate change and population growth will cause reductions in arable land in Africa, South America, India and Europe. However, in Russia, China and the US, significant arable land increases may still be possible. Although the magnitudes of the projected changes vary by scenario, the increasing or decreasing trends in arable land area are regionally consistent.

  4. The footprint of marginal agriculture in the Mediterranean mountain landscape: An analysis of the Central Spanish Pyrenees.

    PubMed

    Lasanta, T; Nadal-Romero, E; Errea, M P

    2017-12-01

    Agriculture forms an essential part of the mountains of the Mediterranean. For centuries, large areas were cultivated to feed the local population, with highly marginal slopes being tilled at times of heavy demographic pressure, using the shifting agriculture system. A great deal of agricultural land was abandoned during the 20th century, giving rise to secondary succession processes that tend to eliminate the agricultural footprint. However, revegetation is a highly complex process leading to areas with dense, well-structured plant cover, and other open areas of scrubland. This article studies the role of traditional agriculture in the deterioration of the landscape. By using experimental plots in the Central Pyrenees to reproduce traditional agriculture and abandonment, maps of field types, and current uses and ground cover, it could be confirmed that shifting agriculture has caused very heavy soil loss, which explains the deterioration of the landscape on several slopes. Burning scrub and adding the ash to the soil as a fertilizer did not greatly help to improve soil quality, but caused high rates of erosion and a very slow process of regrowth. The average data obtained from the shifting experimental plots recorded losses of 1356kgha -1 years -1 , 1.6 times more than the plot of fertilized cereal, and 8.2 times more than the dense scrub plot. Following abandonment, losses in the shifting agriculture plot were almost three times higher than the abandoned sloping field plot. Traditional shifting agriculture in the Pyrenees is the main cause of the deterioration of the landscape 50-70years after agriculture ceased. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  5. 25 CFR 162.201 - Must agricultural land be managed in accordance with a tribe's agricultural resource management...

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-04-01

    ... identify holistic management objectives; and (5) Identify actions to be taken to reach established... tribe's agricultural resource management plan? 162.201 Section 162.201 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS... Must agricultural land be managed in accordance with a tribe's agricultural resource management plan...

  6. Effects of Governance on Availability of Land for Agriculture and Conservation in Brazil.

    PubMed

    Sparovek, Gerd; Barretto, Alberto Giaroli de Oliveira Pereira; Matsumoto, Marcelo; Berndes, Göran

    2015-09-01

    The 2012 revision of the Brazilian Forest Act changed the relative importance of private and public governance for nature conservation and agricultural production. We present a spatially explicit land-use model for Brazilian agricultural production and nature conservation that considers the spatial distribution of agricultural land suitability, technological and management options, legal command, and control frameworks including the Atlantic Forest Law, the revised Forest Act, and the Amazonian land-titling, "Terra Legal," and also market-driven land use regulations. The model is used to analyze land use allocation under three scenarios with varying priorities among agricultural production and environmental protection objectives. In all scenarios, the legal command and control frameworks were the most important determinants of conservation outcomes, protecting at least 80% of the existing natural vegetation. Situations where such frameworks are not expected to be effective can be identified and targeted for additional conservation (beyond legal requirements) through voluntary actions or self-regulation in response to markets. All scenarios allow for a substantial increase in crop production, using an area 1.5-2.7 times the current cropland area, with much of new cropland occurring on current pastureland. Current public arrangements that promote conservation can, in conjunction with voluntary schemes on private lands where conversion to agriculture is favored, provide important additional nature conservation without conflicting with national agricultural production objectives.

  7. Use of agricultural land evaluation and site assessment in Linn County, Oregon, USA

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Huddleston, J. Herbert; Pease, James R.; Forrest, William G.; Hickerson, Hugh J.; Langridge, Russell W.

    1987-07-01

    Oregon state law requires each county in the state to identify agricultural land and enact policies and regulations to protect agricultural land use. State guidelines encourage the preservation of large parcels of agricultural land and discourage partitioning of agricultural land and construction of nonfarm dwellings in agricultural areas. A land evaluation and site assessment (LESA) system was developed in Linn County to aid in the identification of agricultural land and provide assistance to decision makers concerning the relative merits of requests to partition existing parcels of ricultural land and introduce nonagricultural uses. Land evaluation was determined by calculating soil potential ratings for each agricultural soil in the county based on the soil potentials for winter wheat, annual ryegrass, permanent pasture, and irrigated sweet corn. Soil potential ratings were expressed on a scale of 0 to 150 points. The land evaluation score for a parcel consists of the weighted average soil potential rating for all of the soils in the parcel, weighted by the percentage of each soil present in the parcel. Site assessment was based on the size of a parcel and on the amount of existing conflict between agricultural and nonagricultural uses, particularly rural residential uses, both adjacent to and in the vicinity of a parcel. Parcel size refers to both size in relation to a typical field and size in relation to a typical farm unit. Conflict takes into account the number of nonfarm dwellings within 1/4 mile (0.4 km) of a parcel, the amount of the perimeter that adjoins conflicting land uses, and the residential density adjacent to the parcel. Empirical scales were derived for assigning points to each of the site assessment factors. Both parcel size and conflict were worth 75 points in the model. For parcel size, 45 points were allocated to field size and 30 points to farm-unit size. For conflict, 30 points were allocated to nonfarm dwellings within 1/4 mile and 45

  8. Solutions Network Formulation Report. Landsat Data Continuity Mission Simulated Data Products for Bureau of Land Management and Environmental Protection Agency Abandoned Mine Lands Decision Support

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Estep, Leland

    2007-01-01

    Presently, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) has identified a multitude of abandoned mine sites in primarily Western states for cleanup. These sites are prioritized and appropriate cleanup has been called in to reclaim the sites. The task is great in needing considerable amounts of agency resources. For instance, in Colorado alone there exists an estimated 23,000 abandoned mines. The problem is not limited to Colorado or to the United States. Cooperation for reclamation is sought at local, state, and federal agency level to aid in identification, inventory, and cleanup efforts. Dangers posed by abandoned mines are recognized widely and will tend to increase with time because some of these areas are increasingly used for recreation and, in some cases, have been or are in the process of development. In some cases, mines are often vandalized once they are closed. The perpetrators leave them open, so others can then access the mines without realizing the danger posed. Abandoned mine workings often fill with water or oxygen-deficient air and dangerous gases following mining. If the workings are accidentally entered into, water or bad air can prove fatal to those underground. Moreover, mine residue drainage negatively impacts the local watershed ecology. Some of the major hazards that might be monitored by higher-resolution satellites include acid mine drainage, clogged streams, impoundments, slides, piles, embankments, hazardous equipment or facilities, surface burning, smoke from underground fires, and mine openings.

  9. Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals in Abandoned Mine Lands as Signifcant Contamination Problem in Romania

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Horvath, E.; Jordan, G.; Fugedi, U.; Bartha, A.; Kuti, L.; Heltai, G.; Kalmar, J.; Waldmann, I.; Napradean, I.; Damian, G.

    2009-04-01

    lower topographic elevations. Several mine adits, waste rock dumps are located along the main stream and a large tailings dump is found next to village Baiut just above the receiving floodplain. Predominant land cover is coniferous and mixed forests with agricultural lands on the downstream floodplain. METHODS Six samples at vaious depths were collected from the two major waste rock dumps in the headwater area, and the large tailings dump was also sampled for heavy metal source characterisation. 11 stream sediment samples were collected along the main surface water contamination transport pathway, and a further 11 soil samples were collected in 2 boreholes in the receptor floodplain in October 2008. Besides background stream sediment samples, samples from the exposed rock formations were also collected in order to capture natural background geochemistry in the studied mineralised area. The collected waste rock, stream sediment, soil and rock samples are analysed for total chemical composition (major elements and heavy metals) by ICP-MS spectroscopy, and XRD is used for the determination of mineralogical composition. Rock sample mineralogy is further investigated in thin-sections by petrological microscopy. According to EU legislation expectations, a special emphasis is taken on the determination of metal mobility from the waste rock dumps and various leaching tests are performed and compared including US EPA, USGS and ISO methods. A simple cathcment-based distributed sediment transport model (Jordan et al, 2005; Jordan et al. 2005, 2008) is used to decribe the pathways and quantities of particle-bound contamination. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS Results show that (1) sediments are an efficient means for the preliminary inventory of mine contamination as a preparation for the more detailed hydrological sampling and assessment, and (2) the risk-based contamination assessment of mining sites often located in diverse geological, hydrological and landcover environment requires

  10. The economic determinants of land degradation in developing countries

    PubMed Central

    Barbier, E. B.

    1997-01-01

    The following paper investigates the economic determinants of land degradation in developing countries. The main trends examined are rural households' decisions to degrade as opposed to conserve land resources, and the expansion of frontier agricultural activity that contributes to forest and marginal land conversion. These two phenomena appear often to be linked. In many developing areas, a poor rural household's decision whether to undertake long-term investment in improving existing agricultural land must be weighed against the decision to abandon this land and migrate to environmentally fragile areas. Economic factors play a critical role in determining these relationships. Poverty, imperfect capital markets and insecure land tenure may reinforce the tendency towards short-term time horizons in production decisions, and may bias land use decisions against long-term land management strategies. In periods of commodity booms and land speculation, wealthier households generally take advantage of their superior political and market power to ensure initial access to better quality resources, in order to capture a larger share of the resource rents. Poorer households are confined either to marginal environmental areas where resource rents are limited, or only have access to resources once they are degraded and rents dissipated.
    Overall trends in land degradation and deforestation are examined, followed by an overview of rural households' resource management decisions with respect to land management, frontier agricultural expansion, and migration from existing agricultural land to frontiers. Finally, the discussion focuses on the scope for policy improvements to reduce economic constraints to effective land management.

  11. Decreasing soil erosion rates with evolving land-use techniques in a central European catchment

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Larsen, Annegret; Heckmann, Tobias; Hans-Rudolf, Bork; Alexander, Fuelling

    2015-04-01

    Agricultural societies around the world have caused accelerated soil erosion. Soil erosion and a decrease in soil fertility may also have caused the abandonment of entire landscapes and the collapse of civilizations. In central Europe, Medieval land-use is thought to have lead to the largest loss of top soil in history, which in turn lead to a malnutrition of the population and abandonment of agricultural land. However, this might be only part of the picture, as people are also able to adapt to changing environmental conditions, including the type of land-use they adopt. Within a catchment in the central European mountain belt, we were able to distinguish the evolution between three main types of land-use techniques between ~ 900 AD and 1950 AD: horticulture, agriculture and shifting cultivation. We were able to relate these techniques with different soil erosion rates, which differ by an order of magnitude, ranging from 0.83 ± 0.09 mm/yr to 1.62 ± 0.17 mm/yr. Using high-resolution surface data and chrono-stratigraphical methods in combination with soil charcoal analysis, we were able to reconstruct past land-use techniques on a local scale. This illustrates that less erosive and more sustainable techniques were developed through time, and hypothesize that people were able to adapt to the less favorable environmental conditions by changing the cultivation techniques. Although cultural adaptation to changing environmental conditions has been extensively discussed, this study is able to quantitatively demonstrate improved soil management with evolving land-use in central Europe.

  12. Water repellency, plants, agriculture abandonment and fire in citrus plantations. The Canyoles river watershed study site

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Cerdà, Artemi; Jordán, Antonio; Doerr, Stefan Helmut

    2017-04-01

    Soil water repellency (SWR) is a key soil property that determine the soil and water losses, soil fertility and plant development. Although until the 90's the soil water repellency was seeing as an uncommon soil characteristic, now is considered a key soil property to understand the soil hydrology (Alanís et al., 2016; Hewelke et al., 2016; Keesstra et al., 2016; Jiménez-Morillo et al., 2016). The inspiring research of Leonard DeBano and Stefan H Doerr changed the fate of the science (DeBano, 2000; Doerr et al. 2000). Soil water repellency was associated to forest fire affected land due to the pioneer contribution of professor DeBano in the 70's and Professor Doerr in the 90's. The research during the last two decades demonstrate that fire affects the reallocation of the hydrophobic substances and can reduce or increase the severity of the soil water repellence at different soil depths and horizons. The SWR is usually measured by sampling to show the influence of key soil properties (texture, structure, plant cover, litter, season…) on the degree of soil water repellency. The sampling is applied usually with a few drops when the Water Drop Penetration Time method is applied, and this inform of the time of penetration, but few researches focussed in the spatial distribution of the water repellency, which is a key factor of the runoff generation, the water infiltration and the water redistribution such as demonstrate the wetting fronts. Our approach research the spatial distribution of the water repellency by means of an intense sampling of soil surface water repellency. One thousand drops were distributed in a square meter (100 lines separated 1 cm and 100 drops per each line of 100 cm, with a total od 1000 drops in 1m2) on 10 sampling points on 4 land managements: ploughing and herbicide agriculture fields treatment), abandoned 10 years, and burnt. The research was carried out in citrus plantations of the Canyoles river watershed. The results show that the

  13. Ecosystem Services Provided by Agricultural Land as Modeled by Broad Scale Geospatial Analysis

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kokkinidis, Ioannis

    Agricultural ecosystems provide multiple services including food and fiber provision, nutrient cycling, soil retention and water regulation. Objectives of the study were to identify and quantify a selection of ecosystem services provided by agricultural land, using existing geospatial tools and preferably free and open source data, such as the Virginia Land Use Evaluation System (VALUES), the North Carolina Realistic Yield Expectations (RYE) database, and the land cover datasets NLCD and CDL. Furthermore I sought to model tradeoffs between provisioning and other services. First I assessed the accuracy of agricultural land in NLCD and CDL over a four county area in eastern Virginia using cadastral parcels. I uncovered issues concerning the definition of agricultural land. The area and location of agriculture saw little change in the 19 years studied. Furthermore all datasets have significant errors of omission (11.3 to 95.1%) and commission (0 to 71.3%). Location of agriculture was used with spatial crop yield databases I created and combined with models I adapted to calculate baseline values for plant biomass, nutrient composition and requirements, land suitability for and potential production of biofuels and the economic impact of agriculture for the four counties. The study area was then broadened to cover 97 counties in eastern Virginia and North Carolina, investigating the potential for increased regional grain production through intensification and extensification of agriculture. Predicted yield from geospatial crop models was compared with produced yield from the NASS Survey of Agriculture. Area of most crops in CDL was similar to that in the Survey of Agriculture, but a yield gap is present for most years, partially due to weather, thus indicating potential for yield increase through intensification. Using simple criteria I quantified the potential to extend agriculture in high yield land in other uses and modeled the changes in erosion and runoff should

  14. Does land ownership make a difference? Women's roles in agriculture in Kerala, India.

    PubMed

    Arun, S

    1999-11-01

    Drawing on a 12-month study, this paper explores the role of women in agriculture in Kerala, India. Despite claims that women enjoy high status in Kerala, economic, social, and cultural factors interplay to reinforce gender differences in ownership, control over, and access to critical agricultural resources, including land. Although women may gain access to land through inheritance, marriage, or informal networks, none of this guarantee effective control over it. The traditional rights of women to land have not been adequately recognized: the gender gap in the ownership and control of property is the only most significant contributor to the gender gap in the economic well-being, social status, and empowerment of women. The existing socioeconomic changes and crisis which render agricultural land as a main source of livelihood, is leading nair women's share of land being sold, with gains going to men, thus decreasing women¿s ownership of land to the status of male-controlled dowry. The case of the Christian succession laws in Kerala illustrate that legal provisions alone can have a limited impact on changing gendered power structures. The role of women in agriculture needs to be recognized, and institutional support must be increased in order for women to gain access to agricultural inputs and technology, which in turn, leads to better agricultural practices and a higher income from farming in the country. Most importantly, there should be a concerted effort to enable women to function as independent farmers who control their own land.

  15. Book review: old fields: dynamics and restoration of abandoned farmland

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    The 2007 volume, “Old Fields: Dynamics and Restoration of Abandoned Farmland”, edited by VA Cramer and RJ Hobbs and published by the Society for Ecological Restoration International (Island Press), is a valuable attempt to synthesize a dozen case studies on agricultural abandonment from all of the ...

  16. Plant Succession at the Edges of Two Abandoned Cultivated Fields on the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    Simmons, Sally A.; Rickard, William H.

    How vegetation recovers from disturbances is an important question for land managers. We examined 500 m2 plots to determine the progress made by native herbaceous plant species in colonizing the edges of abandoned cultivated fields at different elevations and microclimates, but with similar soils in a big sagebrush/bluebunch wheatgrass steppe. Alien species, especially cheatgrass and cereal rye, were the major competitors to the natives. The native species with best potential for restoring steppe habitats were sulphur lupine, hawksbeard, bottlebrush squirreltail, needle-and-thread grass, Sandberg's bluegrass, and several lomatiums.

  17. Initial turnover rates of two standard wood substrates following land-use change in subalpine ecosystems in the Swiss Alps

    Treesearch

    Anita C. Risch; Martin F. Jurgensen; Deborah S. Page-Dumroese; Martin Schutz

    2013-01-01

    Forest cover has increased in mountainous areas of Europe over the past decades because of the abandonment of agricultural areas (land-use change). For this reason, understanding how land-use change affects carbon (C) source-sink strength is of great importance. However, most studies have assessed mountainous systems C stocks, and less is known about C turnover rates,...

  18. Scenarios of land use change for agriculture: the role of Land Evaluation in improving model simulation

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Mereu, V.; Santini, M.; Dettori, G.; Muresu, P.; Spano, D.; Duce, P.

    2009-12-01

    Integrated scenarios of future climate and land use represent a useful input for impact studies about global changes. In particular, improving future land use simulations is essential for the agricultural sector, which is influenced by both biogeophysical constraints and human needs. Often land use change models are mainly based on statistical relationships between known land use distribution and biophysical or socio-economic factors, neglecting the necessary consideration of physical constraints that interact in making lands more or less capable for agriculture and suitable for supporting specific crops. In this study, a well developed land use change model (CLUE@CMCC) was suited for the Mediterranean basin case study, focusing on croplands. Several climate scenarios and future demands for croplands were combined to drive the model, while the same climate scenarios were used to more reliably allocate crops in the most suitable areas on the basis of Land Evaluation techniques. The probability for each map unit to sustain a specific crop, usually related to location characteristics, elasticity to conversion and competition among land use types, now includes specific crop-favoring location characteristics. Results, besides improving the consistency of the land use change model to allocate land for the future, can have the main feedback to suggest feasibility or reasonable thresholds to adjust land use demands during dynamic simulations.

  19. Climatic change and contemporaneous land-use phases north and south of the Alps 2300 BC to 800 AD

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Tinner, Willy; Lotter, André F.; Ammann, Brigitta; Conedera, Marco; Hubschmid, Priska; van Leeuwen, Jacqueline F. N.; Wehrli, Michael

    2003-06-01

    Fluctuations in the Δ 14C curve and subsequent gaps of archaeological findings at 800-650 and 400-100 BC in western and central Europe may indicate major climate-driven land-abandonment phases. To address this hypothesis radiocarbon-dated sediments from four lakes in Switzerland were studied palynologically. Pollen analysis indicates contemporaneous phases of forest clearances and of intensified land-use at 1450-1250 BC, 650-450 BC, 50 BC-100 AD and around 700 AD. These land-use expansions coincided with periods of warm climate as recorded by the Alpine dendroclimatic and Greenland oxygen isotope records. Our results suggest that harvest yields would have increased synchronously over wide areas of central and southern Europe during periods of warm and dry climate. Combined interpretation of palaeoecological and archaeological findings suggests that higher food production led to increased human populations. Positive long-term trends in pollen values of Cerealia and Plantago lanceolata indicate that technical innovations during the Bronze and Iron Age (e.g. metal ploughs, scythes, hay production, fertilising methods) gradually increased agricultural productivity. The successful adoption of yield-increasing advances cannot be explained by climatic determinism alone. Combined with archaeological evidence, our results suggest that despite considerable cycles of spatial and demographic reorganisation (repeated land abandonments and expansions, as well as large-scale migrations and population decreases), human societies were able to shift to lower subsistence levels without dramatic ruptures in material culture. However, our data imply that human societies were not able to compensate rapidly for harvest failures when climate deteriorated. Agriculture in marginal areas was abandoned, and spontaneous reforestations took place on abandoned land south and north of the Alps. Only when the climate changed again to drier and warmer conditions did a new wide-spread phase of

  20. Agriculture and Energy: Implications for Food Security, Water, and Land Use

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Tokgoz, S.; Zhang, W.; Msangi, S.; Bhandary, P.

    2011-12-01

    Sustainable production of agricultural commodities and growth of international trade in these goods are challenged as never before by supply-side constraints (such as climate change, water and land scarcity, and environmental degradation) and by demand-side dynamics (volatility in food and energy markets, the strengthening food-energy linkage, population growth, and income growth). On the one hand, the rapidly expanding demand can potentially create new market opportunities for agriculture. On the other hand, there are many threats to a sufficient response by the supply side to meet this growing and changing demand. Agricultural production systems in many countries are neither resource-efficient, nor producing according to their full potential. The stock of natural resources such as land, water, nutrients, energy, and genetic diversity is shrinking relative to demand, and their use must become increasingly efficient in order to reduce environmental impacts and preserve the planet's productive capacity. World energy prices have increased rapidly in recent years. At the same time, agriculture has become more energy-intensive. Higher energy costs have pushed up the cost of producing, transporting and processing agricultural commodities, driving up commodity prices. Higher energy costs have also affected water use and availability through increased costs of water extraction, conveyance and desalinization, higher demand for hydroelectric power, and increased cost of subsidizing water services. In the meantime, the development of biofuels has diverted increasing amounts of agricultural land and water resources to the production of biomass-based renewable energy. This more "intensified" linkage between agriculture and energy comes at a time when there are other pressures on the world's limited resources. The related high food prices, especially those in the developing countries, have led to setbacks in the poverty alleviation effort among the global community with more

  1. Soil carbon sequestration due to post-Soviet cropland abandonment: estimates from a large-scale soil organic carbon field inventory.

    PubMed

    Wertebach, Tim-Martin; Hölzel, Norbert; Kämpf, Immo; Yurtaev, Andrey; Tupitsin, Sergey; Kiehl, Kathrin; Kamp, Johannes; Kleinebecker, Till

    2017-09-01

    The break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered cropland abandonment on a continental scale, which in turn led to carbon accumulation on abandoned land across Eurasia. Previous studies have estimated carbon accumulation rates across Russia based on large-scale modelling. Studies that assess carbon sequestration on abandoned land based on robust field sampling are rare. We investigated soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks using a randomized sampling design along a climatic gradient from forest steppe to Sub-Taiga in Western Siberia (Tyumen Province). In total, SOC contents were sampled on 470 plots across different soil and land-use types. The effect of land use on changes in SOC stock was evaluated, and carbon sequestration rates were calculated for different age stages of abandoned cropland. While land-use type had an effect on carbon accumulation in the topsoil (0-5 cm), no independent land-use effects were found for deeper SOC stocks. Topsoil carbon stocks of grasslands and forests were significantly higher than those of soils managed for crops and under abandoned cropland. SOC increased significantly with time since abandonment. The average carbon sequestration rate for soils of abandoned cropland was 0.66 Mg C ha -1  yr -1 (1-20 years old, 0-5 cm soil depth), which is at the lower end of published estimates for Russia and Siberia. There was a tendency towards SOC saturation on abandoned land as sequestration rates were much higher for recently abandoned (1-10 years old, 1.04 Mg C ha -1  yr -1 ) compared to earlier abandoned crop fields (11-20 years old, 0.26 Mg C ha -1  yr -1 ). Our study confirms the global significance of abandoned cropland in Russia for carbon sequestration. Our findings also suggest that robust regional surveys based on a large number of samples advance model-based continent-wide SOC prediction. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  2. Climate, Agriculture, Energy and the Optimal Allocation of Global Land Use

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Steinbuks, J.; Hertel, T. W.

    2011-12-01

    The allocation of the world's land resources over the course of the next century has become a pressing research question. Continuing population increases, improving, land-intensive diets amongst the poorest populations in the world, increasing production of biofuels and rapid urbanization in developing countries are all competing for land even as the world looks to land resources to supply more environmental services. The latter include biodiversity and natural lands, as well as forests and grasslands devoted to carbon sequestration. And all of this is taking place in the context of faster than expected climate change which is altering the biophysical environment for land-related activities. The goal of the paper is to determine the optimal profile for global land use in the context of growing commercial demands for food and forest products, increasing non-market demands for ecosystem services, and more stringent GHG mitigation targets. We then seek to assess how the uncertainty associated with the underlying biophysical and economic processes influences this optimal profile of land use, in light of potential irreversibility in these decisions. We develop a dynamic long-run, forward-looking partial equilibrium framework in which the societal objective function being maximized places value on food production, liquid fuels (including biofuels), timber production, forest carbon and biodiversity. Given the importance of land-based emissions to any GHG mitigation strategy, as well as the potential impacts of climate change itself on the productivity of land in agriculture, forestry and ecosystem services, we aim to identify the optimal allocation of the world's land resources, over the course of the next century, in the face of alternative GHG constraints. The forestry sector is characterized by multiple forest vintages which add considerable computational complexity in the context of this dynamic analysis. In order to solve this model efficiently, we have employed the

  3. 78 FR 9803 - Tennessee Abandoned Mine Land Program

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2013-02-12

    ..., dangerous impoundments, abandoned structures/equipment, open mine portals, and open mine shafts and refuse..., policy, procedural, and organizational changes that have occurred since 1984. DATES: Effective Date... procedures to manage their financial management, equipment, and procurement systems. OMB Circular A-102 was...

  4. Dynamic Agricultural Land Unit Profile Database Generation using Landsat Time Series Images

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Torres-Rua, A. F.; McKee, M.

    2012-12-01

    Agriculture requires continuous supply of inputs to production, while providing final or intermediate outputs or products (food, forage, industrial uses, etc.). Government and other economic agents are interested in the continuity of this process and make decisions based on the available information about current conditions within the agriculture area. From a government point of view, it is important that the input-output chain in agriculture for a given area be enhanced in time, while any possible abrupt disruption be minimized or be constrained within the variation tolerance of the input-output chain. The stability of the exchange of inputs and outputs becomes of even more important in disaster-affected zones, where government programs will look for restoring the area to equal or enhanced social and economical conditions before the occurrence of the disaster. From an economical perspective, potential and existing input providers require up-to-date, precise information of the agriculture area to determine present and future inputs and stock amounts. From another side, agriculture output acquirers might want to apply their own criteria to sort out present and future providers (farmers or irrigators) based on the management done during the irrigation season. In the last 20 years geospatial information has become available for large areas in the globe, providing accurate, unbiased historical records of actual agriculture conditions at individual land units for small and large agricultural areas. This data, adequately processed and stored in any database format, can provide invaluable information for government and economic interests. Despite the availability of the geospatial imagery records, limited or no geospatial-based information about past and current farming conditions at the level of individual land units exists for many agricultural areas in the world. The absence of this information challenges the work of policy makers to evaluate previous or current

  5. 12 CFR 614.4070 - Loans and chartered territory-Farm Credit Banks, agricultural credit banks, Federal land bank...

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-01-01

    ..., agricultural credit banks, Federal land bank associations, Federal land credit associations, production credit associations, and agricultural credit associations. 614.4070 Section 614.4070 Banks and Banking FARM CREDIT... land credit associations, production credit associations, and agricultural credit associations. (a) A...

  6. Integrated Assessment of Climate Change, Agricultural Land Use, and Regional Carbon Changes

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    MU, J.

    2014-12-01

    Changes in land use have caused a net release of carbon to the atmosphere over the last centuries and decades1. On one hand, agriculture accounts for 52% and 84% of global anthropogenic methane and nitrous oxide emissions, respectively. On the other hand, many agricultural practices can potentially mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the most prominent of which are improved cropland and grazing land management2. From this perspective, land use change that reduces emissions and/or increases carbon sequestration can play an important role in climate change mitigation. As shown in Figure 1, this paper is an integrated study of climate impacts, land uses, and regional carbon changes to examine, link and assess climate impacts on regional carbon changes via impacts on land uses. This study will contribute to previous research in two aspects: impacts of climate change on future land uses under an uncertain future world and projections of regional carbon dynamics due to changes in future land use. Specifically, we will examine how land use change under historical climate change using observed data and then project changes in land use under future climate projections from 14 Global Climate Models (GCMs) for two emission scenarios (i.e., RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). More importantly, we will investigate future land use under uncertainties with changes in agricultural development and social-economic conditions along with a changing climate. By doing this, we then could integrate with existing efforts by USGS land-change scientists developing and parameterizing models capable of projecting changes across a full spectrum of land use and land cover changes and track the consequences on ecosystem carbon to provide better information for land managers and policy makers when informing climate change adaptation and mitigation policies.

  7. Assessing degradation of abandoned farmlands for conservation of the Monte Desert biome in Argentina.

    PubMed

    Yannelli, Florencia A; Tabeni, Solana; Mastrantonio, Leandro E; Vezzani, Nazareth

    2014-01-01

    Land abandonment is a major issue worldwide. In Argentina, the Monte Desert is the most arid rangeland, where the traditional conservation practices are based on successional management of areas excluded to disturbances or abandoned. Some areas subjected to this kind of management may be too degraded, and thus require active restoration. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess whether passive succession-based management is a suitable approach by evaluating the status of land degradation in a protected area after 17-41 years of farming abandonment. Soil traits and plant growth forms were quantified and compared between sites according to time since abandonment and former land use (cultivation and grazing). Two variables were calculated using the CORINE-CEC method, i.e., potential (PSER) and actual (ASER) soil erosion risk. PSER indicates the erosion risk when no vegetation is present, while ASER includes the protective role of vegetation cover. Results showed that land use history had no significant effect on plant growth forms or soil traits (p > 0.05). After more than 25 years since abandonment of farming activities, soil conditions and vegetation cover had improved, thus having a lower ASER. Nevertheless, the present soil physical crusts may have delayed the full development of vegetation, enhancing erosion processes. Overall, this study indicates that succession-based management may not be the best practice in terms of conservation. Therefore, any effort for conservation in the Monte Desert should contemplate the current status of land degradation and potential vegetation recovery.

  8. Exclusion of agricultural lands in spatial conservation prioritization strategies: consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem service representation

    PubMed Central

    Durán, América P.; Duffy, James P.; Gaston, Kevin J.

    2014-01-01

    Agroecosystems have traditionally been considered incompatible with biological conservation goals, and often been excluded from spatial conservation prioritization strategies. The consequences for the representativeness of identified priority areas have been little explored. Here, we evaluate these for biodiversity and carbon storage representation when agricultural land areas are excluded from a spatial prioritization strategy for South America. Comparing different prioritization approaches, we also assess how the spatial overlap of priority areas changes. The exclusion of agricultural lands was detrimental to biodiversity representation, indicating that priority areas for agricultural production overlap with areas of relatively high occurrence of species. By contrast, exclusion of agricultural lands benefits representation of carbon storage within priority areas, as lands of high value for agriculture and carbon storage overlap little. When agricultural lands were included and equally weighted with biodiversity and carbon storage, a balanced representation resulted. Our findings suggest that with appropriate management, South American agroecosystems can significantly contribute to biodiversity conservation. PMID:25143040

  9. Spatio-temporal relation between landslide occurrence and abandoned or not maintained agricultural terraces in the Moldavian Plateau, NE Romania

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ciprian Margarint, Mihai; Santangelo, Michele; Niculita, Mihai; Bucci, Francesco

    2016-04-01

    Terraced landscapes are one of the most obvious human-shaped landscapes, mainly used to reduce the negative impact of soil erosion due to uncontrolled runoff and shallow landslides occurrence. Nevertheless, as the recent literature emphasizes, these old best practices can transform into a potential hazard for soil degradation, if not appropriately maintained. In Moldavian Plateau (NE Romania), agricultural terraces were built after the 1960s for landslide, soil erosion and runoff control, mainly in connection with construction of reservoirs, for increasing their operation time. Usually, the slope reduction was obtained by construction of cut-off ditches, hillside ditches, intermittent terraces, bench terraces, broad-based terraces, vineyardand orchard terraces. Due to the dry climatic setting, to the lack of hard rocks for construction, and to the generally light earth moving machinery available for construction, terraces are generally characterized by a small escarpment (0.5m to 1m), and a relatively short lateral extension (5 to 40 m). When the terraces were maintained, the backslope was typically covered with grass. When, after the 1990s, the lands were returned to the initial owners, the vegetation cover of the terraces was no more maintained, and the terraces themselves were progressively abandoned, due to lack of funds. Accurate landslide mapping on high resolution LiDAR DEM derived images, allowed to produce geomorphological inventories in 5 test cases, representative of the whole study area. In each inventory, landslides were classified based on type and relative age based on published classification schemes. We investigate the spatial and temporal relation between landslides occurrence and terraces, based on the spatial interactions of landslides of different ages and terraces. Results reveal that terraces were built, both on landslide-free and landslide-bearing slopes, and that frequently landslides and gullies develop on terraced slopes. Reactivations of

  10. Groundwater Ecosystems Vary with Land Use across a Mixed Agricultural Landscape.

    PubMed

    Korbel, K L; Hancock, P J; Serov, P; Lim, R P; Hose, G C

    2013-01-01

    Changes in surface land use may threaten groundwater quality and ecosystem integrity, particularly in shallow aquifers where links between groundwater and surface activities are most intimate. In this study we examine the response of groundwater ecosystem to agricultural land uses in the shallow alluvial aquifer of the Gwydir River valley, New South Wales, Australia. We compared groundwater quality and microbial and stygofauna assemblages among sites under irrigated cropping, non-irrigated cropping and grazing land uses. Stygofauna abundance and richness was greatest at irrigated sites, with the composition of the assemblage suggestive of disturbance. Microbial assemblages and water quality also varied with land use. Our study demonstrates significant differences in the composition of groundwater ecosystems in areas with different surface land use, and highlights the utility of groundwater biota for biomonitoring, particularly in agricultural landscapes. Copyright © by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, Inc.

  11. Interactive boundary delineation of agricultural lands using graphics workstations

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Cheng, Thomas D.; Angelici, Gary L.; Slye, Robert E.; Ma, Matt

    1992-01-01

    A review is presented of the computer-assisted stratification and sampling (CASS) system developed to delineate the boundaries of sample units for survey procedures. CASS stratifies the sampling units by land-cover and land-use type, employing image-processing software and hardware. This procedure generates coverage areas and the boundaries of stratified sampling units that are utilized for subsequent sampling procedures from which agricultural statistics are developed.

  12. Analysis of road development and associated agricultural land use change.

    PubMed

    Alphan, Hakan

    2017-12-05

    Development of road network is one of the strongest drivers of habitat fragmentation. It interferes with ecological processes that are based on material and energy flows between landscape patches. Therefore, changes in temporal patterns of roads may be regarded as important landscape-level environmental indicators. The aim of this study is to analyze road development and associated agricultural land use change near the town of Erdemli located in the eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey. The study area has witnessed an unprecedented development of agriculture since the 2000s. This process has resulted with the expansion of the road network. Associations between agricultural expansion and road development were investigated. High-resolution satellite images of 2004 and 2015 were used to analyze spatial and temporal dimensions of change. Satellite images were classified using a binary approach, in which land areas were labeled as either "agriculture" or "non-agriculture." Road networks were digitized manually. The study area was divided into 23 sublandscapes using a regular grid with 1-km cell spacing. Percentage of landscape (PL) for agriculture and road density (RD) metrics were calculated for the earlier (2004) and later (2015) years. Metric calculations were performed separately for each of the 23 sublandscapes in order to understand spatial diversity of agriculture and road density. Study results showed that both RD and PL exhibited similar increasing trends between 2004 and 2015.

  13. Distribution of Diatoms in Relation to Land Use and pH in Blackwater Coastal Plain Streams

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zampella, Robert A.; Laidig, Kim J.; Lowe, Rex L.

    2007-03-01

    We compared the composition of diatom assemblages collected from New Jersey Pinelands blackwater streams draining four different land uses, including forest land, abandoned-cranberry bogs, active-cranberry bogs, and developed and upland-agricultural land. Over a 2-year period (2002-2003), we collected 132 diatom taxa at 14 stream sites. Between-year variability in the composition of stream samples was high. Most diatom species were rarely encountered and were found in low abundance. Specific conductance and pH were higher at developed/agricultural sites compared with all other site types. Neither species richness nor genus richness was significantly different between stream types. However, clear community patterns were evident, and a significant difference in species composition existed between the developed/agricultural sites and both cranberry and forest sites. The primary community gradient, represented by the first axis of a DCA ordination, was associated with variations in pH and specific conductance. Although community patterns revealed by ordinating the data collected in 2002 differed from those obtained using the 2003 data, both ordinations contrasted the developed/agricultural sites and the other sites. Acidobiontic and acidophilous diatoms characterized the dominant species at forest, abandoned-bog, and cranberry sites, whereas indifferent species dominated the developed/agricultural samples. Although our study demonstrated a relationship between the composition of diatom assemblages and watershed conditions, several factors, including taxonomic problems, the large number of diatom species, incomplete pH classifications, and year-to-year variability may limit the utility of diatom species as indicators of watershed conditions in the New Jersey Pinelands.

  14. Nickel, Cobalt, Chromium and Copper in agricultural and grazing land soils of Europe

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Albanese, Stefano; Sadeghi, Martiya; De Vivo, Benedetto; Lima, Annamaria; Cicchella, Domenico; Dinelli, Enrico

    2014-05-01

    In the framework of the GEMAS (Geochemical Mapping of Agricultural and Grazing Land Soils) project, concentrations of Ni, Co, Cu and Cr were determined for the whole available dataset (2218 samples of agricultural soil and 2127 samples of grazing land soil) covering a total area of 5.6 million sq km all over Europe. The distribution pattern of Ni in the European soils (both agricultural and grazing land soils) shows the highest concentrations in correspondence with the Mediterranean area (especially in Greece, the Balcan Peninsula and NW Italy) with average values generally ranging between 40 mg/kg and 140 mg/kg and anomalous areas characterized by peaks higher than 2400 mg/kg. Concentrations between 10 mg/kg and 40 mg/kg characterize Continental Europe north of Alps and, partly, the Scandinavian countries. Lower concentrations (< 10 mg/kg) occurs near the Trans-European Suture Zone, one of the main tectonic borders in Europe, and they are limited on the south by the maximum extent limit of the last glaciation. Cobalt and Cr show distribution patterns similar to Ni in both agricultural and grazing land soils. The maximum concentration peaks of Cobalt and Cr rise up to respectively 126 mg/kg and 696 mg/kg in agricultural soils and up to 255 mg/kg and 577 mg/kg in grazing land soils. Copper distribution in the soils collected across Europe, although has a general correspondence with the patterns of Ni, Co, Cr, shows some peculiarities. Specifically, Cu is characterized by high concentration values (up to 395 mg/kg in agricultural soils and 373 mg/kg in Grazing land soils) also in correspondence with the Roman Comagmatic Province and the south western coast of France characterized by a wide spread of vineyards.

  15. Mapping decadal land cover changes in the woodlands of north eastern Namibia using the Landsat satellite archive (1975-2014)

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Wingate, Vladimir; Phinn, Stuart; Kuhn, Nikolaus

    2016-04-01

    Woodland savannahs provide essential ecosystem functions and services to communities. On the African continent, they are widely utilized and converted to intensive land uses. This study investigates the land cover changes over 108,038 km2 in NE Namibia using multi-sensor Landsat imagery, at decadal intervals from 1975 to 2014, with a post-classification change detection method and supervised Regression Tree classifiers. We discuss likely impacts of land tenure and reforms over the past four decades on changes in land use and land cover. These included losses, gains and exchanges between predominant land cover classes. Exchanges comprised logical conversions between woodland and agricultural classes, implying woodland clearing for arable farming, cropland abandonment and vegetation succession. The dominant change was a reduction in the area of the woodland class due to the expansion of the agricultural class, specifically, small-scale cereal and pastoral production. Woodland area decreased from 90% of the study area in 1975 to 83% in 2014, while cleared land increased from 9% to 14%. We found that the main land cover changes are conversion from woodland to agricultural and urban land uses, driven by urban expansion and woodland clearing for subsistence-based agriculture and pastoralism.

  16. Detection and assessment of land use dynamics on Tenerife (Canary Islands): the agricultural development between 1986 and 2010

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Günthert, Sebastian; Naumann, Simone; Siegmund, Alexander

    2012-10-01

    Since Spanish colonial times, the Canary Islands and especially Tenerife have always been used for intensive agriculture. Today almost 1/4 of the total area of Tenerife are agriculturally affected, whereas especially mountainous areas with suitable climate conditions are drastically transformed for agricultural use by building of large terraces. In recent years, political and economical developments lead to a further transformation process, especially inducted by an expansive tourism, which caused concentration- and intensification-tendencies of agricultural land use in lower altitudes as well as agricultural set-aside and rural exodus in the hinterland. The overall aim of the research at hand is to address the agricultural land use dynamics of the past decades, to statistically assess the causal reasons for those changes and to model the future agricultural land use dynamics on Tenerife. Therefore, an object-based classification procedure for recent RapidEye data (2010), Spot 4 (1998) as well as SPOT 1 (1986-88) imagery was developed, followed by a post classification comparison (PCC). Older agricultural fallow land or agricultural set-aside with a higher level of natural succession can hardly be acquired in the used medium satellite imagery. Hence, a second detection technique was generated, which allows an exact identification of the total agriculturally affected area on Tenerife, also containing older agricultural fallow land or agricultural set-aside. The method consists of an automatic texture-oriented detection and area-wide extraction of linear agricultural structures (plough furrows and field boundaries of arable land, utilised and non-utilised agricultural terraces) in current orthophotos of Tenerife. Once the change detection analysis is realised, it is necessary to identify the different driving forces which are responsible for the agricultural land use dynamics. The statistical connections between agricultural land use changes and these driving forces

  17. Forest to agriculture conversion in southern Belize: Implications for migrant land birds

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Spruce, J.P.; Dowell, B.A.; Robbins, C.S.; Sader, S.A.; Doyle, Jamie K.; Schelhas, John

    1993-01-01

    Central America offers a suite of neotropical habitats vital to overwintering migrant land birds. The recent decline of many forest dwelling avian migrants is believed to be related in part to neotropical deforestation and land use change. However, spatio-temporal trends in neotropical habitat availability and avian migrant habitat use are largely unknown. Such information is needed to assess the impact of agriculture conversion on migrant land birds. In response, the USDI Fish and Wildlife Service and the University of Maine began a cooperative study in 1988 which applies remote sensing and field surveys to determine current habitat availability and avian migrant habitat use. Study sites include areas in Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala and southern Mexico. Visual assessment of Landsat TM imagery indicates southern Belize forests are fragmented by various agricultural systems. Shifting agriculture is predominant in some areas, while permanent agriculture (citrus and mixed animal crops) is the primary system in others. This poster focuses on efforts to monitor forest to agriculture conversion in southern Belize using remote sensing, field surveys and GIS techniques. Procedures and avian migrant use of habitat are summarized.

  18. Urban Expansion: a Geo-Spatial Approach for Temporal Monitoring of Loss of Agricultural Land

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Sumari, N. S.; Shao, Z.; Huang, M.; Sanga, C. A.; Van Genderen, J. L.

    2017-09-01

    This paper presents some preliminary results from research on monitoring the urban growth of Shenzhen in China. Agriculture is still the pillar of national economies in many countries including China. Thus, agriculture contributes to population growth. Population growth follows either exponential or logistic growth models. These models can be examined using a time-series of geospatial data, mainly historical earth observation imagery from satellites such as LANDSAT. Such multitemporal data may provide insights into settlement analysis as well as on population dynamics and hence, quantify the loss of agricultural land. In this study, LANDSAT data of ten dates, at approximately five yearly intervals from 1977 to 2017 were used. The remote sensing techniques used for analysis of data for 40 years were image selection, then followed by geometric and radiometric corrections and mosaicking. Also, classification, remote sensing image fusion, and change detection methods were used. This research extracted the information on the amount, direction, and speed of urbanization, and hence, the number of hectares of agricultural land lost due to urban expansion. Several specific elements were used in the descriptive model of landscape changes and population dynamics of the city of Shenzhen in China. These elements are: i) quantify the urban changes, from a small town (37.000 people in the early 1970's) to the megalopolis of around 20 million habitants today. ii) Examining the rate of urban extension on the loss of agricultural landscape and population growth. iii) The loss of food production was analysed against the economic growth in the region. iv) The aspects of loss of agricultural land, area of built-up urban land, and increase in population are studied quantitatively, by the temporal analysis of earth observation geospatial data. The experimental results from this study show that the proposed method is effective in determining loss of agricultural land in any city due to

  19. USGS Abandoned Mine Lands Research Presented at the NAAMLP Meeting in Billings, Mont., Sept. 25, 2006

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Johnson, Kate; Church, Stan

    2006-01-01

    The following talk was an invited presentation given at the National Association of Abandoned Mine Lands Programs meeting in Billings, Montana on Sept. 25, 2006. The objective of the talk was to outline the scope of the U.S. Geological Survey research, past, present and future, in the area of abandoned mine research. Two large Professional Papers have come out of our AML studies: Nimick, D.A., Church, S.E., and Finger, S.E., eds., 2004, Integrated investigations of environmental effects of historical mining in the Basin and Boulder mining districts, Boulder River watershed, Jefferson County, Montana: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1652, 524 p., 2 plates, 1 DVD, URL: http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/usgspubs/pp/pp1652 Church, S.E., von Guerard, Paul, and Finger, S.E., eds., 2006, Integrated Investigations of Environmental Effects of Historical Mining in the Animas River Watershed, San Juan County, Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1651, 1,096 p., 6 plates, 1 DVD (in press). Additional publications and links can be found on the USGS AML website at URL: http://amli.usgs.gov/ or are accessible from the USGS Mineral Resource Program website at URL: http://minerals.usgs.gov/.

  20. A small-scale land-sparing approach to conserving biological diversity in tropical agricultural landscapes.

    PubMed

    Chandler, Richard B; King, David I; Raudales, Raul; Trubey, Richard; Chandler, Carlin; Chávez, Víctor Julio Arce

    2013-08-01

    Two contrasting strategies have been proposed for conserving biological diversity while meeting the increasing demand for agricultural products: land sparing and land sharing production systems. Land sparing involves increasing yield to reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture, whereas land-sharing agricultural practices incorporate elements of native ecosystems into the production system itself. Although the conservation value of these systems has been extensively debated, empirical studies are lacking. We compared bird communities in shade coffee, a widely practiced land-sharing system in which shade trees are maintained within the coffee plantation, with bird communities in a novel, small-scale, land-sparing coffee-production system (integrated open canopy or IOC coffee) in which farmers obtain higher yields under little or no shade while conserving an area of forest equal to the area under cultivation. Species richness and diversity of forest-dependent birds were higher in the IOC coffee farms than in the shade coffee farms, and community composition was more similar between IOC coffee and primary forest than between shade coffee and primary forest. Our study represents the first empirical comparison of well-defined land sparing and land sharing production systems. Because IOC coffee farms can be established by allowing forest to regenerate on degraded land, widespread adoption of this system could lead to substantial increases in forest cover and carbon sequestration without compromising agricultural yield or threatening the livelihoods of traditional small farmers. However, we studied small farms (<5 ha); thus, our results may not generalize to large-scale land-sharing systems. Furthermore, rather than concluding that land sparing is generally superior to land sharing, we suggest that the optimal approach depends on the crop, local climate, and existing land-use patterns. © 2013 Society for Conservation Biology.

  1. Land Use Change and Agricultural Land Fragmentation due to Anthropogenic Activities in an Hot Spot Area: A Case Study for Thrace Region of Turkey

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Altürk, Bahadır; Konukcu, Fatih

    2017-04-01

    Agricultural lands that supply food, energy and ecosystem services for human life have been lost due to anthropogenic activities such as construction of roads, urban and industry areas. The significant reasons for the increase of artificial surfaces were poorly planned economic decisions by the government and internal migration due to this poorly planning. Unplanned urban sprawl also give rise to land fragmentation. Fragmentation of agricultural land affects both the agricultural production capacity and rural sustainable employment. In this study: i) Land use changes between 1990-2014 period were assessed using remotely sensed data and ii) Spatial and temporal agricultural land fragmentation were investigated using landscape pattern indice (effective mesh size), Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA) and Entropy method for 25 years period. The selected"hot spot" study area is located on east Thrace region of Turkey, being the service and industrial development zone where agricultural activities, water resources and natural habitat have been damaged due to rapid urban and industrial development for about 25 years. The results showed that agricultural lands decreased 6.44%, urban areas increased 111.68% and industry areas increased 251.19% during this 25 years period. Additionally, fragmentation analyses demonstrated that core agricultural areas sharply decreased and relative fragmentation (effective mesh size) increased from 50.68% to 56.77% during 1990 and 2014.

  2. Abundance of the tick Dermacentor reticulatus in an ecosystem of abandoned meadows: Experimental intervention and the critical importance of mowing.

    PubMed

    Bajer, Anna; Rodo, Anna; Alsarraf, Mohammed; Dwużnik, Dorota; Behnke, Jerzy M; Mierzejewska, Ewa J

    2017-11-15

    The effect of agricultural activities on the environment has been falling in many areas of Europe in recent years and the associated abandonment of crop fields, meadows and pastures may enable an increase in tick densities. In the present study we assessed whether regular mowing would have a negative effect on Dermacentor reticulatus populations and whether the cessation of regular mowing would cause an increase in abundance of D. reticulatus ticks. Two field experiments were conducted during a five-year period (2012-2016) in the Mazowieckie (Mazovia) region of Central Poland. Experiment 1: The long-term effect of mowing on tick population was tested in the meadow ecosystem of Stoski, an old fallow land plot that was mowed three times a year. Experiment 2: Neglecting the cultivation by abandonment of arable land was evaluated in Kury village. Four areas (2 experimental 'fallow lands', 2 control meadows) were selected. The first fallow land plot was a fenced off area comprising mostly of a horse pasture and the second fallow land plot was designated in an old abandoned orchard. At each site, ticks were collected in consecutive springs and autumns by dragging at least twice during each season from experimental and control areas. Altogether 1452 D. reticulatus ticks were collected and their densities were compared by multifactorial ANOVA. In the end of the first experiment, a significant decrease (6 times) in tick abundance was observed in the mowed area in comparison to old fallow land. In the end of the second experiment, tick abundance was three times higher in the experimental fallow lands in comparison to the control meadows. In conclusion it was found that regular mowing significantly reduced the density of questing D. reticulatus ticks in open areas. Cessation of mowing may enhance the number of ticks and the associated risk of acquiring tick-borne diseases. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. The effect of changes in agricultural practices on the density of Dermacentor reticulatus ticks.

    PubMed

    Mierzejewska, Ewa J; Alsarraf, Mohammed; Behnke, Jerzy M; Bajer, Anna

    2015-07-30

    The impact of agricultural practices/ activities on the environment has been falling in many areas of Europe due to the widespread exodus of inhabitants from rural areas. The associated abandonment of agricultural lands has enabled a wide range of wild animals to prosper in the countryside, including birds, ungulates and large carnivores. One consequence has been the increase in ticks and associated tick-borne diseases which now constitute a greater threat for public health than earlier. The aim of the present study was to compare tick densities in different habitats (pasture, meadow, fallow land, post-fire areas) to assess the impact of different agricultural practices on tick densities in vicinities close to human habitation. Between September 2011 and June 2014, 2985 Dermacentor reticulatus ticks were collected by conventional dragging, in the Mazowieckie (Mazovia) and Warmińsko-Mazurskie (Masuria) regions of Poland. In each region, 3 study sites were selected, each situated near surface water sources (i.e., ponds or canals). At each site, three neighboring habitats of surface area 150-600 m(2) were dragged: one on a cattle/horse pasture; the second on meadow; the third on fallow land (abandoned field or meadow), at least twice during each spring and autumn. Additionally, four post-fire areas (one in 2013 and three in 2014) were identified in the Mazowieckie region, and dragging was conducted there in spring and autumn, including in each case a 'control area' comprising intact unburned fallow land situated in close vicinity to the burned areas. Eight hundred D. reticulatus ticks were collected and the densities were compared by multifactorial ANOVA. The highest tick densities were recorded on the fallow lands, and the lowest - on the grazed pastures. Tick densities were up to 10 × times higher on the control sites compared to neighboring post-fire sites. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. Exclusion of agricultural lands in spatial conservation prioritization strategies: consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem service representation.

    PubMed

    Durán, América P; Duffy, James P; Gaston, Kevin J

    2014-10-07

    Agroecosystems have traditionally been considered incompatible with biological conservation goals, and often been excluded from spatial conservation prioritization strategies. The consequences for the representativeness of identified priority areas have been little explored. Here, we evaluate these for biodiversity and carbon storage representation when agricultural land areas are excluded from a spatial prioritization strategy for South America. Comparing different prioritization approaches, we also assess how the spatial overlap of priority areas changes. The exclusion of agricultural lands was detrimental to biodiversity representation, indicating that priority areas for agricultural production overlap with areas of relatively high occurrence of species. By contrast, exclusion of agricultural lands benefits representation of carbon storage within priority areas, as lands of high value for agriculture and carbon storage overlap little. When agricultural lands were included and equally weighted with biodiversity and carbon storage, a balanced representation resulted. Our findings suggest that with appropriate management, South American agroecosystems can significantly contribute to biodiversity conservation. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

  5. Navajo Nation: Cleaning Up Abandoned Uranium Mines

    EPA Pesticide Factsheets

    This site provides information about the progress of EPA's cleanup of abandoned uranium mines on Navajo and Hopi lands and in other areas of Arizona and New Mexico, including health impacts, major enforcement and removal milestones, and community actions.

  6. The centrifugal and centripetal force influence on spatial competition of agricultural land in Bandung Metropolitan Region

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Sadewo, E.

    2017-06-01

    Agricultural activity has suffered a massive land functional shift caused by market mechanism in Bandung metropolitan region (BMR). We argue that the existence of agricultural land in urban spatial structure is the result of interaction between centrifugal and centripetal force on spatial competition. This research aims to explore how several recognized centrifugal and centripetal force influence to the existence of agricultural land in BMR land development. The analysis using multivariate regression indicates that there exists spatial competition between population density and degree of urbanization with agricultural land areas. Its extended spatial regression model suggested that neighboring situation plays an important role to preserve agricultural land areas existences in BMR. Meanwhile, the influence of distance between the location of the city center and employment opportunities is found to be insignificant in the spatial competition. It is opposed to the theory of von Thünen and monocentric model in general. One of the possible explanation of such condition is that the assumption of centrality does not met. In addition, the agricultural land density decay in the southern parts of the area was related to its geographical conditions as protected areas or unfavorable for farming activity. It is suggested that BMR was in the early phase of polycentric development. Hence, better policies that lead redirected development to the southern part of the region is needed as well as population control and regulation of land use.

  7. Perceptions of Agricultural Leadership Academic Programs of 1862 Land-Grant Universities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alexander, Jackson C.; Rucker, K. Jill; Graham, Donna L.; Miller, Jefferson D.; Apple, Jason K.

    2017-01-01

    This study characterized perceptions of agricultural leadership programs in colleges of agriculture, food, life, human, or environmental sciences at 1,862 land-grant institutions. Objectives included describing the need for programs, studying evolution within the discipline, discussing faculty recommendations for future development, and examining…

  8. Topographic changes detection through Structure-from-Motion in agricultural lands affected by erosion processes

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Prosdocimi, Massimo; Pradetto Sordo, Nicoletta; Burguet, Maria; Di Prima, Simone; Terol Esparza, Enric; Tarolli, Paolo; Cerdà, Artemi

    2016-04-01

    Terrain Models (DTMs) derived from the smartphone reveled to be comparable to DTMs derived from the reflex camera. The results underlined the effectiveness of SfM for detecting topographic changes in agricultural lands affected by erosion processes, even when pictures are taken from a smartphone. This methodology could be very useful for farmers and/or technician for post-event analyses of erosion processes to implement technical measures to mitigate the problem of soil erosion by water. Acknowledgements The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 603498 (RECARE project) References Boardman, J., Foster, I.D.L., Dearing, J.A., 1990. Soil Erosion on Agricultural Land. John Wiley and Sons Ltd., Chichester. Cerdà, A., 1994. The response of abandoned terraces to simulated rain, in: Rickson, R.J., (Ed.), Conserving Soil Resources: European Perspective, CAB International, Wallingford, pp. 44-55. Cerdà, A., Flanagan, D.C., Le Bissonnais, Y., Boardman, J., 2009. Soil erosion and agriculture. Soil & Tillage Research 106, 107-108. Cerdan, O., Govers, G., Le Bissonnais, Y., Van Oost, K., Poesen, J., Saby, N., Gobin, A., Vacca, A., Quinton, J., Auerwald, K., Klik, A., Kwaad, F.J.P.M., Raclot, D., Ionita, I., Rejman, J., Rousseva, S., Muxart, T., Roxo, M.J., Dostal, T., 2010. Rates and spatial variations of soil erosion in Europe: A study based on erosion plot data. Geomorphology 122, 167-177. Garcìa-Ruiz, J.M., 2010. The effects of land uses on soil erosion in Spain: A review. Catena 81, 1-11. Micheletti, N., Chandler, J.H., Lane, S.N., 2014. Investigating the geomorphological potential of freely available and accessible Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry using a smartphone. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 40(4), 473-486. DOI: 10.1002/esp.3648 Montgomery, D.R., 2007. Soil erosion and agricultural sustainability. PNAS 104, 13268-13272. Prosdocimi, M., Calligaro, S

  9. Change in agricultural land use constrains adaptation of national wildlife refuges to climate change

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Hamilton, Christopher M.; Thogmartin, Wayne E.; Radeloff, Volker C.; Plantinga, Andrew J.; Heglund, Patricia J.; Martinuzzi, Sebastian; Pidgeon, Anna M.

    2015-01-01

    Land-use change around protected areas limits their ability to conserve biodiversity by altering ecological processes such as natural hydrologic and disturbance regimes, facilitating species invasions, and interfering with dispersal of organisms. This paper informs USA National Wildlife Refuge System conservation planning by predicting future land-use change on lands within 25 km distance of 461 refuges in the USA using an econometric model. The model contained two differing policy scenarios, namely a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario and a ‘pro-agriculture’ scenario. Regardless of scenario, by 2051, forest cover and urban land use were predicted to increase around refuges, while the extent of range and pasture was predicted to decrease; cropland use decreased under the business-as-usual scenario, but increased under the pro-agriculture scenario. Increasing agricultural land value under the pro-agriculture scenario slowed an expected increase in forest around refuges, and doubled the rate of range and pasture loss. Intensity of land-use change on lands surrounding refuges differed by regions. Regional differences among scenarios revealed that an understanding of regional and local land-use dynamics and management options was an essential requirement to effectively manage these conserved lands. Such knowledge is particularly important given the predicted need to adapt to a changing global climate.

  10. Changes in climate variability with reference to land quality and agriculture in Scotland.

    PubMed

    Brown, Iain; Castellazzi, Marie

    2015-06-01

    Classification and mapping of land capability represents an established format for summarising spatial information on land quality and land-use potential. By convention, this information incorporates bioclimatic constraints through the use of a long-term average. However, climate change means that land capability classification should also have a dynamic temporal component. Using an analysis based upon Land Capability for Agriculture in Scotland, it is shown that this dynamism not only involves the long-term average but also shorter term spatiotemporal patterns, particularly through changes in interannual variability. Interannual and interdecadal variations occur both in the likelihood of land being in prime condition (top three capability class divisions) and in class volatility from year to year. These changing patterns are most apparent in relation to the west-east climatic gradient which is mainly a function of precipitation regime and soil moisture. Analysis is also extended into the future using climate results for the 2050s from a weather generator which show a complex interaction between climate interannual variability and different soil types for land quality. In some locations, variability of land capability is more likely to decrease because the variable climatic constraints are relaxed and the dominant constraint becomes intrinsic soil properties. Elsewhere, climatic constraints will continue to be influential. Changing climate variability has important implications for land-use planning and agricultural management because it modifies local risk profiles in combination with the current trend towards agricultural intensification and specialisation.

  11. Measuring land-use and land-cover change using the U.S. department of agriculture's cropland data layer: Cautions and recommendations

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lark, Tyler J.; Mueller, Richard M.; Johnson, David M.; Gibbs, Holly K.

    2017-10-01

    Monitoring agricultural land is important for understanding and managing food production, environmental conservation efforts, and climate change. The United States Department of Agriculture's Cropland Data Layer (CDL), an annual satellite imagery-derived land cover map, has been increasingly used for this application since complete coverage of the conterminous United States became available in 2008. However, the CDL is designed and produced with the intent of mapping annual land cover rather than tracking changes over time, and as a result certain precautions are needed in multi-year change analyses to minimize error and misapplication. We highlight scenarios that require special considerations, suggest solutions to key challenges, and propose a set of recommended good practices and general guidelines for CDL-based land change estimation. We also characterize a problematic issue of crop area underestimation bias within the CDL that needs to be accounted for and corrected when calculating changes to crop and cropland areas. When used appropriately and in conjunction with related information, the CDL is a valuable and effective tool for detecting diverse trends in agriculture. By explicitly discussing the methods and techniques for post-classification measurement of land-cover and land-use change using the CDL, we aim to further stimulate the discourse and continued development of suitable methodologies. Recommendations generated here are intended specifically for the CDL but may be broadly applicable to additional remotely-sensed land cover datasets including the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-based land cover products, and other regional, national, and global land cover classification maps.

  12. Impacts of agricultural land use on biological integrity: A causal analysis

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Riseng, C.M.; Wiley, M.J.; Black, R.W.; Munn, M.D.

    2011-01-01

    Agricultural land use has often been linked to nutrient enrichment, habitat degradation, hydrologic alteration, and loss of biotic integrity in streams. The U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Quality Assessment Program sampled 226 stream sites located in eight agriculture-dominated study units across the United States to investigate the geographic variability and causes of agricultural impacts on stream biotic integrity. In this analysis we used structural equation modeling (SEM) to develop a national and set of regional causal models linking agricultural land use to measured instream conditions. We then examined the direct, indirect, and total effects of agriculture on biotic integrity as it acted through multiple water quality and habitat pathways. In our nation-wide model, cropland affected benthic communities by both altering structural habitats and by imposing water quality-related stresses. Regionspecific modeling demonstrated that geographic context altered the relative importance of causal pathways through which agricultural activities affected stream biotic integrity. Cropland had strong negative total effects on the invertebrate community in the national, Midwest, and Western models, but a very weak effect in the Eastern Coastal Plain model. In theWestern Arid and Eastern Coastal Plain study regions, cropland impacts were transmitted primarily through dissolved water quality contaminants, but in the Midwestern region, they were transmitted primarily through particulate components of water quality. Habitat effects were important in the Western Arid model, but negligible in the Midwest and Eastern Coastal Plain models. The relative effects of riparian forested wetlands also varied regionally, having positive effects on biotic integrity in the Eastern Coastal Plain andWestern Arid region models, but no statistically significant effect in the Midwest. These differences in response to cropland and riparian cover suggest that best management practices and

  13. An inexact risk management model for agricultural land-use planning under water shortage

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Li, Wei; Feng, Changchun; Dai, Chao; Li, Yongping; Li, Chunhui; Liu, Ming

    2016-09-01

    Water resources availability has a significant impact on agricultural land-use planning, especially in a water shortage area such as North China. The random nature of available water resources and other uncertainties in an agricultural system present risk for land-use planning and may lead to undesirable decisions or potential economic loss. In this study, an inexact risk management model (IRM) was developed for supporting agricultural land-use planning and risk analysis under water shortage. The IRM model was formulated through incorporating a conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) constraint into an inexact two-stage stochastic programming (ITSP) framework, and could be used to control uncertainties expressed as not only probability distributions but also as discrete intervals. The measure of risk about the second-stage penalty cost was incorporated into the model so that the trade-off between system benefit and extreme expected loss could be analyzed. The developed model was applied to a case study in the Zhangweinan River Basin, a typical agricultural region facing serious water shortage in North China. Solutions of the IRM model showed that the obtained first-stage land-use target values could be used to reflect decision-makers' opinions on the long-term development plan. The confidence level α and maximum acceptable risk loss β could be used to reflect decisionmakers' preference towards system benefit and risk control. The results indicated that the IRM model was useful for reflecting the decision-makers' attitudes toward risk aversion and could help seek cost-effective agricultural land-use planning strategies under complex uncertainties.

  14. Assessment of land use and land cover change using spatiotemporal analysis of landscape: case study in south of Tehran.

    PubMed

    Sabr, Abutaleb; Moeinaddini, Mazaher; Azarnivand, Hossein; Guinot, Benjamin

    2016-12-01

    In the recent years, dust storms originating from local abandoned agricultural lands have increasingly impacted Tehran and Karaj air quality. Designing and implementing mitigation plans are necessary to study land use/land cover change (LUCC). Land use/cover classification is particularly relevant in arid areas. This study aimed to map land use/cover by pixel- and object-based image classification methods, analyse landscape fragmentation and determine the effects of two different classification methods on landscape metrics. The same sets of ground data were used for both classification methods. Because accuracy of classification plays a key role in better understanding LUCC, both methods were employed. Land use/cover maps of the southwest area of Tehran city for the years 1985, 2000 and 2014 were obtained from Landsat digital images and classified into three categories: built-up, agricultural and barren lands. The results of our LUCC analysis showed that the most important changes in built-up agricultural land categories were observed in zone B (Shahriar, Robat Karim and Eslamshahr) between 1985 and 2014. The landscape metrics obtained for all categories pictured high landscape fragmentation in the study area. Despite no significant difference was evidenced between the two classification methods, the object-based classification led to an overall higher accuracy than using the pixel-based classification. In particular, the accuracy of the built-up category showed a marked increase. In addition, both methods showed similar trends in fragmentation metrics. One of the reasons is that the object-based classification is able to identify buildings, impervious surface and roads in dense urban areas, which produced more accurate maps.

  15. Soil organic carbon pool's contribution to climate change mitigation on marginal land of a Mediterranean montane area in Italy.

    PubMed

    Tommaso, Chiti; Emanuele, Blasi; Guido, Pellis; Lucia, Perugini; Vincenza, Chiriacò Maria; Riccardo, Valentini

    2018-07-15

    To evaluate the mitigation potential provided by the SOC pool, we investigated the impact of woody encroachment in the 0-30 cm depth of mineral soil across a natural succession from abandoned pastures and croplands to broadleaves forests on the central Apennine in Italy. In parallel, to assess the effect of the land use change (LUC) from cropland to pasture, a series of pastures established on former agricultural sites, abandoned at different time in the past, were also investigated. Our results show that woody encroachment on former pastures and croplands contributes largely to mitigate climate change, with an increase of the original SOC stock of 45% (40.5 Mg C ha -1 ) and 120% (66.5 Mg C ha -1 ), respectively. Also the LUC from croplands to pastures, greatly contributes to climate change mitigation trough a SOC increase of about 80% of the original SOC (45.9 Mg C ha -1 ). The management of abandoned lands represent a crucial point in the mitigation potential of agriculture and forestry activities, and particularly the role of the SOC pool. A policy effort should focus on minimizing the risk of speculative management options, particularly when the value of woody biomass become convenient to supply new energy systems allowing monetizing a long term forests productivity. In conclusion, despite both the land abandonment and the LUC can have a different impact on the SOC pool under different climatic conditions, these results can be useful to improve the SOC estimates in the National greenhouse gases Inventory at country level. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. [Theories and methodologies of engineering designs on sustainable agricultural land consolidation project--a case study of Xuemeiyang land consolidation project in Changtai County, Fujian Province].

    PubMed

    Ye, Yanmei; Wu, Cifang; Cheng, Chengbiao; Qiu, Lingzhang; Huang, Shengyu; Zheng, Ruihui

    2002-09-01

    The concept and characteristics of engineering designs on sustainable agricultural land consolidation project were discussed in this paper. Principles, basic methods and procedures of engineering designs on agricultural land consolidation project were put forward, which were successfully adopted for designing agricultural land consolidation in Xuemeiyang region of Changtai County, including diversity designs of sustainable land use, engineering designs of soil improvement, roads, ditches, and drains for protecting existent animal environments, and design of ecological shelter-forests in farmland. Moreover, from sustainable economic, ecological and social points, the results of these engineering designs were evaluated based on fouteen important indexes. After carrying out these engineeringdesigns, the eco-environments and agricultural production conditions were significantly improved, and the farm income was increased in planned regions.

  17. Reclamation of abandoned mined lands along th Upper Illinois Waterway using dredged material

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    Van Luik, A; Harrison, W

    1982-01-01

    Sediments were sampled and characterized from 28 actual or proposed maintenance-dredging locations in the Upper Illinois Waterway, that is, the Calumet-Sag Channel, the Des Plaines River downstream of its confluence with the Calumet-Sag Channel, and the Illinois River from the confluence of the Kankakee and Des Plaines rivers to Havana, Illinois. Sufficient data on chemical constituents and physical sediments were obtained to allow the classification of these sediments by currently applicable criteria of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for the identification of hazardous, persistent, and potentially hazardous wastes. By these criteria, the potential dredged materials studied were not hazardous, persistent,more » or potentially hazardous; they are a suitable topsoil/ reclamation medium. A study of problem abandoned surface-mined land sites (problem lands are defined as being acidic and/or sparsely vegetated) along the Illinois River showed that three sites were particularly well suited to the needs of the Corps of Engineers (COE) for a dredged material disposal/reclamation site. Thes sites were a pair of municipally owned sites in Morris, Illinois, and a small corporately owned site east of Ottawa, Illinois, and adjacent to the Illinois River. Other sites were also ranked as to suitability for COE involvement in their reclamation. Reclamation disposal was found to be an economically competitive alternative to near-source confined disposal for Upper Illinois Waterway dredged material.« less

  18. As Land-Grant Law Turns 150, Students Crowd into Agriculture Colleges

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Biemiller, Lawrence

    2012-01-01

    On July 2, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed Justin Morrill's second agriculture-school bill into law. Along with another measure he championed, in 1890, it created a system of land-grant colleges that rooted agriculture firmly in university research and helped democratize American higher education, creating institutions not for the sons and daughters…

  19. Extreme climate events counteract the effects of climate and land-use changes in Alpine treelines

    PubMed Central

    Barros, Ceres; Guéguen, Maya; Douzet, Rolland; Carboni, Marta; Boulangeat, Isabelle; Zimmermann, Niklaus E.; Münkemüller, Tamara; Thuiller, Wilfried

    2017-01-01

    Summary 1. Climate change and extreme events, such as drought, threaten ecosystems worldwide and in particular mountain ecosystems, where species often live at their environmental tolerance limits. In the European Alps, plant communities are also influenced by land-use abandonment leading to woody encroachment of subalpine and alpine grasslands. 2. In this study, we explored how the forest–grassland ecotone of Alpine treelines will respond to gradual climate warming, drought events and land-use change in terms of forest expansion rates, taxonomic diversity and functional composition. We used a previously validated dynamic vegetation model, FATE-HD, parameterised for plant communities in the Ecrins National Park in the French Alps. 3. Our results showed that intense drought counteracted the forest expansion at higher elevations driven by land-use abandonment and climate change, especially when combined with high drought frequency (occurring every 2 or less than 2 years). 4. Furthermore, intense and frequent drought accelerated the rates of taxonomic change and resulted in overall higher taxonomic spatial heterogeneity of the ecotone than would be expected under gradual climate and land-use changes only. 5. Synthesis and applications. The results from our model show that intense and frequent drought counteracts forest expansion driven by climate and land-use changes in the forest–grassland ecotone of Alpine treelines. We argue that land-use planning must consider the effects of extreme events, such as drought, as well as climate and land-use changes, since extreme events might interfere with trends predicted under gradual climate warming and agricultural abandonment. PMID:28670002

  20. Land-Sparing Agriculture Best Protects Avian Phylogenetic Diversity.

    PubMed

    Edwards, David P; Gilroy, James J; Thomas, Gavin H; Uribe, Claudia A Medina; Haugaasen, Torbjørn

    2015-09-21

    The conversion of natural habitats to farmland is a major driver of the global extinction crisis. Two strategies are promoted to mitigate the impacts of agricultural expansion on biodiversity: land sharing integrates wildlife-friendly habitats within farmland landscapes, and land sparing intensifies farming to allow the offset of natural reserves. A key question is which strategy would protect the most phylogenetic diversity--the total evolutionary history shared across all species within a community. Conserving phylogenetic diversity decreases the chance of losing unique phenotypic and ecological traits and provides benefits for ecosystem function and stability. Focusing on birds in the threatened Chocó-Andes hotspot of endemism, we tested the relative benefits of each strategy for retaining phylogenetic diversity in tropical cloud forest landscapes threatened by cattle pastures. Using landscape simulations, we find that land sharing would protect lower community-level phylogenetic diversity than land sparing and that with increasing distance from forest (from 500 to >1,500 m), land sharing is increasingly inferior to land sparing. Isolation from forest also leads to the loss of more evolutionarily distinct species from communities within land-sharing landscapes, which can be avoided with effective land sparing. Land-sharing policies that promote the integration of small-scale wildlife-friendly habitats might be of limited benefit without the simultaneous protection of larger blocks of natural habitat, which is most likely to be achieved via land-sparing measures. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Targeting land-use change for nitratenitrogen load reductions in an agricultural watershed

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Jha, M.K.; Schilling, K.E.; Gassman, Philip W.; Wolter, C.F.

    2010-01-01

    The research was conducted as part of the USDA's Conservation Effects Assessment Project. The objective of the project was to evaluate the environmental effects of land-use changes, with a focus on understanding how the spatial distribution throughout a watershed influences their effectiveness.The Soil and Water AssessmentTool (SWAT) water quality model was applied to the Squaw Creek watershed, which covers 4,730 ha (11,683 ac) of prime agriculture land in southern Iowa. The model was calibrated (2000 to 2004) and validated (1996 to 1999) for overall watershed hydrology and for streamflow and nitrate loadings at the watershed outlet on an annual and monthly basis. Four scenarios for land-use change were evaluated including one scenario consistent with recent land-use changes and three scenarios focused on land-use change on highly erodible land areas, upper basin areas, and floodplain areas. Results for the Squaw Creek watershed suggested that nitrate losses were sensitive to land-use change. If land-use patterns were restored to 1990 conditions, nitrate loads may be reduced 7% to 47% in the watershed and subbasins, whereas converting row crops to grass in highly erodible land, upper basin, and floodplain areas would reduce nitrate loads by 47%, 16%, and 8%, respectively. These SWAT model simulations can provide guidance on how to begin targeting land-use change for nitrate load reductions in agricultural watersheds.

  2. Interpretation of Pennsylvania agricultural land use from ERTS-1 data

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Mcmurtry, G. J.; Petersen, G. W. (Principal Investigator); Wilson, A. D.

    1974-01-01

    The author has identified the following significant results. To study the complex agricultural patterns in Pennsylvania, a portion of an ERTS scene was selected for detailed analysis. Various photographic products were made and were found to be only of limited value. This necessitated the digital processing of the ERTS data. Using an unsupervised classification procedure, it was possible to delineate the following categories: (1) forest land with a northern aspect, (2) forest land with a southern aspect, (3) valley trees, (4) wheat, (5) corn, (6) alfalfa, grass, pasture, (7) disturbed land, (8) builtup land, (9) strip mines, and (10) water. These land use categories were delineated at a scale of approximately 1:20,000 on the line printer output. Land use delineations were also made using the General Electric IMAGE 100 interactive analysis system.

  3. Land use efficiency: anticipating future demand for land-sector greenhouse gas emissions abatement and managing trade-offs with agriculture, water, and biodiversity.

    PubMed

    Bryan, Brett A; Crossman, Neville D; Nolan, Martin; Li, Jing; Navarro, Javier; Connor, Jeffery D

    2015-11-01

    Competition for land is increasing, and policy needs to ensure the efficient supply of multiple ecosystem services from land systems. We modelled the spatially explicit potential future supply of ecosystem services in Australia's intensive agricultural land in response to carbon markets under four global outlooks from 2013 to 2050. We assessed the productive efficiency of greenhouse gas emissions abatement, agricultural production, water resources, and biodiversity services and compared these to production possibility frontiers (PPFs). While interacting commodity markets and carbon markets produced efficient outcomes for agricultural production and emissions abatement, more efficient outcomes were possible for water resources and biodiversity services due to weak price signals. However, when only two objectives were considered as per typical efficiency assessments, efficiency improvements involved significant unintended trade-offs for the other objectives and incurred substantial opportunity costs. Considering multiple objectives simultaneously enabled the identification of land use arrangements that were efficient over multiple ecosystem services. Efficient land use arrangements could be selected that meet society's preferences for ecosystem service provision from land by adjusting the metric used to combine multiple services. To effectively manage competition for land via land use efficiency, market incentives are needed that effectively price multiple ecosystem services. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  4. Influence of agricultural land-use and pesticides on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in an agricultural river basin in southeast Brazil.

    PubMed

    Egler, M; Buss, D F; Moreira, J C; Baptista, D F

    2012-08-01

    Land-use alterations and pesticide run-offs are among the main causes for impairment in agricultural areas. We evaluated the influence of different land-uses (forest, pasture and intensive agriculture) on the water quality and on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages on three occasions: in the dry season, wet season and at the end of the wet season. Macroinvertebrates responded to this gradient of impairment: agricultural sites had significantly lower richness numbers than forested and pasture sites, and all major invertebrate groups were significantly affected. Most taxa found in forested sites were found in pasture sites, but often with lower densities. In this case, the loss of habitats due to sedimentation and the lower complexity of substrates seem to be the disruptive force for the macroinvertebrate fauna.

  5. Monitoring land use and degradation using satellite and airborne data

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Ray, Terrill W.; Farr, Thomas G.; Blom, Ronald G.; Crippen, Robert E.

    1993-01-01

    In July 1990 AVIRIS and AIRSAR data were collected over the Manix Basin Area of the Mojave Desert to study land degradation in an arid area where centerpivot irrigation had been in use. The Manix Basin is located NE of Barstow, California, along Interstate-15 at 34 deg 57 min N 116 deg 35 min W. This region was covered by a series of lakes during the Late Pleistocence and Early Holocene. Beginning in the 1960's, areas were cleared of the native creosote bush-dominated plant community to be used for agricultural purposes. Starting in 1972 fields have been abandoned due to the increased cost of electricity needed to pump the irrigation water, with some fields abandoned as recently as 1988 and 1992. These circumstances provide a time series of abandoned fields which provide the possibility of studying the processes which act on agricultural fields in arid regions when they are abandoned. Ray et al. reported that polarimetric SAR (AIRSAR) could detect that the concentric circular planting furrows plowed on these fields persists for a few years after abandonment and then disappear over time and that wind ripples which form on these fields over time due to wind erosion can be detected with polarimetric radar. Ray et al. used Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) bandpasses to generate NDVI images of the Manix Basin which showed that the fields abandoned for only a few years had higher NDVI's than the undisturbed desert while the fields abandoned for a longer time had NDVI levels lower than that of the undisturbed desert. The purpose of this study is to use a fusion of a time series of satellite data with airborne data to provide a context for the airborne data. The satellite data time series will additionally help to validate the observation and analysis of time-dependent processes observed in the single AVIRIS image of fields abandoned for different periods of time.

  6. Representing anthropogenic gross land use change, wood harvest, and forest age dynamics in a global vegetation model ORCHIDEE-MICT v8.4.2

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Yue, Chao; Ciais, Philippe; Luyssaert, Sebastiaan; Li, Wei; McGrath, Matthew J.; Chang, Jinfeng; Peng, Shushi

    2018-01-01

    Land use change (LUC) is among the main anthropogenic disturbances in the global carbon cycle. Here we present the model developments in a global dynamic vegetation model ORCHIDEE-MICT v8.4.2 for a more realistic representation of LUC processes. First, we included gross land use change (primarily shifting cultivation) and forest wood harvest in addition to net land use change. Second, we included sub-grid evenly aged land cohorts to represent secondary forests and to keep track of the transient stage of agricultural lands since LUC. Combination of these two features allows the simulation of shifting cultivation with a rotation length involving mainly secondary forests instead of primary ones. Furthermore, a set of decision rules regarding the land cohorts to be targeted in different LUC processes have been implemented. Idealized site-scale simulation has been performed for miombo woodlands in southern Africa assuming an annual land turnover rate of 5 % grid cell area between forest and cropland. The result shows that the model can correctly represent forest recovery and cohort aging arising from agricultural abandonment. Such a land turnover process, even though without a net change in land cover, yields carbon emissions largely due to the imbalance between the fast release from forest clearing and the slow uptake from agricultural abandonment. The simulation with sub-grid land cohorts gives lower emissions than without, mainly because the cleared secondary forests have a lower biomass carbon stock than the mature forests that are otherwise cleared when sub-grid land cohorts are not considered. Over the region of southern Africa, the model is able to account for changes in different forest cohort areas along with the historical changes in different LUC activities, including regrowth of old forests when LUC area decreases. Our developments provide possibilities to account for continental or global forest demographic change resulting from past anthropogenic and

  7. Livelihood profiling and sensitivity of livelihood strategies to land cover dynamics and agricultural variability

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Berchoux, Tristan; Hutton, Craig; Watmough, Gary; Amoako Johnson, Fiifi; Atkinson, Peter

    2017-04-01

    With population increase and the urbanisation of rural areas, land scarcity is one of the biggest challenges now faced by communities in agrarian societies. At the household level, loss of land can be due to physical processes such as erosion, to social constraints such as inheritance, or to financial constraints such as loan reimbursement or the need of cash. For rural households, whose livelihoods are mainly based on agriculture, a decrease in the area of land cultivated can have significant consequences on their livelihood strategies, thus on their livelihood outcomes. However, it is still unclear how changes in cultivated area and agricultural productivity influence households' livelihood systems, including community capitals and households' livelihood strategies. This study aims to answer this gap by combining together earth observation from space, national census and participatory qualitative data into a community-wise analysis of the relationships between land cover dynamics, variability in agricultural production and livelihood activities. Its overarching aim is to investigate how land cover dynamics relates to changes in livelihood strategies and livelihood capitals. The study demonstrates that a change in land cover influences livelihood activities differently depending on the community capitals that households have access to. One significant aspect of integrating land dynamics with livelihood activities is its capacity to provide insights on the relationships between climate, agriculture, livelihood dynamics and rural development. More broadly, it gives policymakers new methods to characterise livelihood dynamics, thus to monitor some of the key Sustainable Development Goals: food security (SDG2), employment dynamics (SDG8), inequalities (SDG10) and sustainability of communities (SDG11).

  8. Agricultural Intensification in the Brazilian Agricultural-Forest Frontier: Land Use Responses to Development and Conservation Policy

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Garrett, R.; Koh, I.; le Polain de Waroux, Y.; Lambin, E.; Kastens, J.; Brown, J. C.

    2017-12-01

    Agricultural expansion, extensive cattle ranching, and deforestation remain pressing challenges for sustainable development and climate mitigation throughout South America. In response to these challenges, national and local governments, as well as private and non-governmental actors have developed new forest conservation governance mechanisms. The objective of this study is to better understand how conservation policies interact with supply chain development to influence land use. In particular, we endeavor to understand the timing and spatial patterns of crop and cattle intensification, an understudied phenomenon that is critical to understanding the future of agricultural-forest frontiers and the impacts of conservation policies. We focus on Mato Grosso, the largest soy and cattle producing state in Brazil, which spans the Cerrado and Amazon biomes and has experienced higher levels of deforestation for agricultural expansion than any other state globally over the last decade. Using a newly created spatially explicit data set of land use intensity, supply chain development, and forest policy, we find that agricultural intensification is occurring rapidly in the region, but is only partially driven by changes in conservation policies. The intensification of cattle production is the result of improvements in deforestation monitoring, penalties, and enforcement, and increased land scarcity. Crop intensification, in contrast, preceded increases in conservation restrictions, and is associated with the positive spillovers resulting from agribusiness agglomeration and development. These results suggest that intensification is not a foregone conclusion of increasing forest conservation restrictions, but is highly dependent on wider development processes. A combined effort to direct agribusiness development away from forest regions via tax credits and subsidized credit, when applied in concert with stringent conservation requirements, could help promote intensification

  9. Digital spatial soil and land information for agriculture development

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Sharma, R. K.; Laghathe, Pankaj; Meena, Ranglal; Barman, Alok Kumar; Das, Satyendra Nath

    2006-12-01

    Natural resource management calls for study of natural system prevailing in the country. In India floods and droughts visit regularly, causing extensive damages of natural wealth including agriculture that are crucial for sustenance of economic growth. The Indian Sub-continent drained by many major rivers and their tributaries where watershed, the hydrological unit forms a natural system that allows management and development of land resources following natural harmony. Acquisition of various kinds and levels of soil and land characteristics using both conventional and remote sensing techniques and subsequent development of digital spatial data base are essential to evolve strategy for planning watershed development programmes, their monitoring and impact evaluation. The multi-temporal capability of remote sensing sensors helps to update the existing data base which are of dynamic in nature. The paper outlines the concept of spatial data base development, generation using remote sensing techniques, designing of data structure, standardization and integration with watershed layers and various non spatial attribute data for various applications covering watershed development planning, alternate land use planning, soil and water conservation, diversified agriculture practices, generation of soil health card, soil and land reclamation, etc. The soil and land characteristics are vital to derive various interpretative groupings or master table that helps to generate the desired level of information of various clients using the GIS platform. The digital spatial data base on soils and watersheds generated by All India Soil and Land Use Survey will act as a sub-server of the main GIS based Web Server being hoisted by the planning commission for application of spatial data for planning purposes under G2G domain. It will facilitate e-governance for natural resource management using modern technology.

  10. Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s.

    PubMed

    Gibbs, H K; Ruesch, A S; Achard, F; Clayton, M K; Holmgren, P; Ramankutty, N; Foley, J A

    2010-09-21

    Global demand for agricultural products such as food, feed, and fuel is now a major driver of cropland and pasture expansion across much of the developing world. Whether these new agricultural lands replace forests, degraded forests, or grasslands greatly influences the environmental consequences of expansion. Although the general pattern is known, there still is no definitive quantification of these land-cover changes. Here we analyze the rich, pan-tropical database of classified Landsat scenes created by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations to examine pathways of agricultural expansion across the major tropical forest regions in the 1980s and 1990s and use this information to highlight the future land conversions that probably will be needed to meet mounting demand for agricultural products. Across the tropics, we find that between 1980 and 2000 more than 55% of new agricultural land came at the expense of intact forests, and another 28% came from disturbed forests. This study underscores the potential consequences of unabated agricultural expansion for forest conservation and carbon emissions.

  11. Hand Planting Versus Machine Planting of Bottomland Red Oaks on Former Agricultural Fields in Louisiana's Mississippi Alluvial Plain: Sixth-Year Results

    Treesearch

    Alexander J. Michalek; Brian Roy Lockhart; Thomas J. Dean; Bobby D. Keeland; John W. McCoy

    2002-01-01

    Interest in restoring bottomland hardwoods on abandoned agricultural fields has gained considerably over the past 15 years, due primarily to federal cost-share programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program. While a variety of artificial regeneration techniques are available to afforest these lands, none have met with consistently...

  12. A Spatial Data Model Desing For The Management Of Agricultural Data (Farmer, Agricultural Land And Agricultural Production)

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Taşkanat, Talha; İbrahim İnan, Halil

    2016-04-01

    Since the beginning of the 2000s, it has been conducted many projects such as Agricultural Sector Integrated Management Information System, Agriculture Information System, Agricultural Production Registry System and Farmer Registry System by the Turkish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock and the Turkish Statistical Institute in order to establish and manage better agricultural policy and produce better agricultural statistics in Turkey. Yet, it has not been carried out any study for the structuring of a system which can meet the requirements of different institutions and organizations that need similar agricultural data. It has been tried to meet required data only within the frame of the legal regulations from present systems. Whereas the developments in GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and standardization, and Turkey National GIS enterprise in this context necessitate to meet the demands of organizations that use the similar data commonly and to act in terms of a data model logic. In this study, 38 institutions or organization which produce and use agricultural data were detected, that and thanks to survey and interviews undertaken, their needs were tried to be determined. In this study which is financially supported by TUBITAK, it was worked out relationship between farmer, agricultural land and agricultural production data and all of the institutions and organizations in Turkey and in this context, it was worked upon the best detailed and effective possible data model. In the model design, UML which provides object-oriented design was used. In the data model, for the management of spatial data, sub-parcel data model was used. Thanks to this data model, declared and undeclared areas can be detected spatially, and thus declarations can be associated to sub-parcels. Within this framework, it will be able to developed agricultural policies as a result of acquiring more extensive, accurate, spatially manageable and easily updatable farmer and

  13. Geovisualization of land use and land cover using bivariate maps and Sankey flow diagrams

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Strode, Georgianna; Mesev, Victor; Thornton, Benjamin; Jerez, Marjorie; Tricarico, Thomas; McAlear, Tyler

    2018-05-01

    The terms `land use' and `land cover' typically describe categories that convey information about the landscape. Despite the major difference of land use implying some degree of anthropogenic disturbance, the two terms are commonly used interchangeably, especially when anthropogenic disturbance is ambiguous, say managed forestland or abandoned agricultural fields. Cartographically, land use and land cover are also sometimes represented interchangeably within common legends, giving with the impression that the landscape is a seamless continuum of land use parcels spatially adjacent to land cover tracts. We believe this is misleading, and feel we need to reiterate the well-established symbiosis of land uses as amalgams of land covers; in other words land covers are subsets of land use. Our paper addresses this spatially complex, and frequently ambiguous relationship, and posits that bivariate cartographic techniques are an ideal vehicle for representing both land use and land cover simultaneously. In more specific terms, we explore the use of nested symbology as ways to represent graphically land use and land cover, where land cover are circles nested with land use squares. We also investigate bivariate legends for representing statistical covariance as a means for visualizing the combinations of land use and cover. Lastly, we apply Sankey flow diagrams to further illustrate the complex, multifaceted relationships between land use and land cover. Our work is demonstrated on data representing land use and cover data for the US state of Florida.

  14. Evolution of the morphology of the river Dragonja (SW Slovenia) due to land-use changes

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Keesstra, S. D.; van Huissteden, J.; Vandenberghe, J.; Van Dam, O.; de Gier, J.; Pleizier, I. D.

    2005-07-01

    The effects of increasing agricultural land use on fluvial morphology have received much attention in fluvial research. However, in several regions in Europe, a reversing trend of decreasing agricultural activity and land abandonment, followed by reforestation, is observed. The response of fluvial morphology deserves attention because of its large impacts on landscape and riverine habitats. With the help of geomorphological mapping, multi-date aerial photography and a range of dating techniques, we reconstructed the evolution of the morphology of the riverbed and the floodplain of the Dragonja river in southwestern Slovenia. The results of this study show that the fluvial morphology in this Mediterranean catchment has changed considerably as a result of shifts in agricultural land use, in particular large-scale land abandonment in the second half of the 20th century. Until the first half of the 19th century, floodplain aggradation prevailed. Probably around 1870, a large erosion event occurred from which the floodplain did not fully recover. A terrace standing 2.5 m above the present floodplain was formed. Natural reforestation, due to depopulation since World War II, caused a reduction in discharge and sediment supply to the river. The decreased intensity and frequency of floods allowed invasion of the riverbed by vegetation, causing narrowing and incision of the riverbed. This resulted in the formation of a terrace, which now stands 1.5 m above the present-day river. This terrace is about 60 years old. However, the largest increase in forest area occurred since 1975, which intensified this process of riverbed narrowing and incision, creating a local terrace at 0.5 m at 0.5 m above the presently meandering river.

  15. Applications of WEPS and SWEEP to non-agricultural lands

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    Soil erosion by wind is a serious problem on agricultural lands throughout the United States and the world. Dust from wind erosion obscures visibility and pollutes the air. It fills road ditches where it can impact water quality, causes automobile accidents, fouls machinery, and imperils animal an...

  16. GIS Applications in Land Management: The Loss of High Quality Land to Development in Central Mississippi from 1987–2002

    PubMed Central

    Twumasi, Yaw A.; Merem, Edmund C.

    2005-01-01

    The socio-economic trends and history of Central Mississippi reveal a major rural influence based upon a dependence on agricultural activities as part of the economic engine driving the state’s economy. Yet, in the last several years, the amount of agricultural land in the counties continues to decline. Similar changes in other variables associated with agricultural land use and the continuity of farming in the state have also been changing. Indeed, under the pressure of urban growth, some farmers are forced to use less productive soils or have abandoned the agricultural business. Considering the gravity of the problem and the implications for sustainable development, public concern has increased in the state of Mississippi that urbanization and other factors may be eroding potential farmland. Given the effects of the current trends on the future capacity to produce food items, there are concerns that the growing incidence of farmland loss may also erode the basis for sustainable use of agricultural land, biodiversity and protection of the state’s ecological treasures. Notwithstanding the gravity of these trends, no major effort in the literature has aimed at documenting the incidence of agricultural land loss and the linkages to urbanization in the region of Central Mississippi. What changes have taken place in the size of agricultural land within the counties and what factors are responsible for it? This paper examines the issue of farmland loss in Central Mississippi with a focus at the county level between 1987 and 2002 from a temporal-spatial perspective. In terms of methodology, the paper uses a mixed scale approach based upon the existing literature. Data were drawn from the United States Census databases of Population and Agriculture. This information is analyzed with basic descriptive statistics and GIS with particular attention to the spatial trends at the county level. Results indicate that the counties under consideration have experienced

  17. Land-use change affects water recycling in Brazil's last agricultural frontier.

    PubMed

    Spera, Stephanie A; Galford, Gillian L; Coe, Michael T; Macedo, Marcia N; Mustard, John F

    2016-10-01

    Historically, conservation-oriented research and policy in Brazil have focused on Amazon deforestation, but a majority of Brazil's deforestation and agricultural expansion has occurred in the neighboring Cerrado biome, a biodiversity hotspot comprised of dry forests, woodland savannas, and grasslands. Resilience of rainfed agriculture in both biomes likely depends on water recycling in undisturbed Cerrado vegetation; yet little is known about how changes in land-use and land-cover affect regional climate feedbacks in the Cerrado. We used remote sensing techniques to map land-use change across the Cerrado from 2003 to 2013. During this period, cropland agriculture more than doubled in area from 1.2 to 2.5 million ha, with 74% of new croplands sourced from previously intact Cerrado vegetation. We find that these changes have decreased the amount of water recycled to the atmosphere via evapotranspiration (ET) each year. In 2013 alone, cropland areas recycled 14 km(3) less (-3%) water than if the land cover had been native Cerrado vegetation. ET from single-cropping systems (e.g., soybeans) is less than from natural vegetation in all years, except in the months of January and February, the height of the growing season. In double-cropping systems (e.g., soybeans followed by corn), ET is similar to or greater than natural vegetation throughout a majority of the wet season (December-May). As intensification and extensification of agricultural production continue in the region, the impacts on the water cycle and opportunities for mitigation warrant consideration. For example, if an environmental goal is to minimize impacts on the water cycle, double cropping (intensification) might be emphasized over extensification to maintain a landscape that behaves more akin to the natural system. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  18. US agricultural policy, land use change, and biofuels: are we driving our way to the next dust bowl?

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Wright, Christopher K.

    2015-05-01

    Lark et al (2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 044003), analyze recent shifts in US agricultural land use (2008-2012) using newly-available, high-resolution geospatial information, the Cropland Data Layer. Cropland expansion documented by Lark et al suggests the need to reform national agricultural policies in the wake of an emerging, new era of US agriculture characterized by rapid land cover/land use change.

  19. Sycamore and sweetgum plantation productivity on former agricultural land in South Carolina

    Treesearch

    A.A. Davis; C.C. Trettin

    2006-01-01

    Former agricultural lands in the southern US comprise a significant land base to support short rotation woody crop (SRWC) plantations. This study presents the seven-year response of productivity and biomass allocation in operational-scale, first rotation sycamore (Plantanus occidentalis L.) and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua L...

  20. Changes in microbial activity of soils during the natural restoration of abandoned lands in central Russia

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ovsepyan, Lilit; Mostovaya, Anna; Lopes de Gerenyu, Valentin; Kurganova, Irina

    2015-04-01

    Most changes in land use affect significantly the amount of soil organic carbon (SOC) and alter the nutrition status of soil microbial community. The arable lands withdrawal induced usually the carbon sequestration in soil, the significant shifts in quality of soil organic matter and structure of microbial community. This study was aimed to determine the microbial activity of the abandoned lands in Central Russia due to the process of natural self-restoration. For the study, two representative chronosequences were selected in Central Russia: (1) deciduous forest area, DFA (Moscow region, 54o49N'; 37o34'E; Haplic Luvisols) and (2) forest steppe area, FSA (Belgorod region 50o36'N, 36o01'E Luvic Phaeozems). Each chronosequence included current arable, abandoned lands of different age, and forest plots. The total soil organic carbon (Corg, automatic CHNS analyzer), carbon immobilized in microbial biomass (Cmic, SIR method), and respiratory activity (RA) were determined in the topsoil (0-5, 5-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm layers) for each plots. Relationships between Corg, Cmic, and RA were determined by liner regression method. Our results showed that the conversion of croplands to the permanent forest induced the progressive accumulation Corg, Cmic and acceleration of RA in the top 10-cm layer for both chronosequences. Carbon stock increased from 24.1 Mg C ha-1 in arable to 45.3 Mg C ha-1 in forest soil (Luvic Phaeozems, Belgorod region). In Haplic Luvisols (Moscow region), SOC build up was 2 time less: from 13.5 Mg C ha-1 in arable to 27.9 Mg C ha-1 in secondary forest. During post-agrogenic evolution, Cmic also increased significantly: from 0.34 to 1.43 g C kg-1 soil in Belgorod region and from 0.34 to 0.64 g C kg-1 soil in Moscow region. RA values varied widely in soils studied: from 0.54-0.63 mg C kg-1h-1 in arable plots to 2.02-3.4 mg C kg-1h-1 in forest ones. The close correlations between Cmic, RA and Corg in the top 0-5cm layer (R2 = 0.81-0.90; P<0.01-0.05) were

  1. Land Use Change and Land Degradation in Southeastern Mediterranean Spain

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Symeonakis, Elias; Calvo-Cases, Adolfo; Arnau-Rosalen, Eva

    2007-07-01

    The magnitude of the environmental and social consequences of soil erosion and land degradation in semiarid areas of the Mediterranean region has long been recognized and studied. This paper investigates the interrelationship between land use/cover (LULC) changes and land degradation using remotely sensed and ancillary data for southeastern Spain. The area of study, the Xaló River catchment situated in the north of the Alicante Province, has been subjected to a number of LULC changes during the second half of the 20th century such as agricultural abandonment, forest fires, and tourist development. Aerial photographs dating back to 1956 were used for the delineation of historic LULC types; Landsat ETM+ data were used for the analysis and mapping of current conditions. Two important indicators of land degradation, namely, susceptibility to surface runoff and soil erosion, were estimated for the two dates using easily parametrizable models. The comparison of 1956 to 2000 conditions shows an overall “recuperating” trend over the catchment and increased susceptibility to soil erosion only in 3% of the catchment area. The results also identify potential degradation hot-spots where mitigation measures should be taken to prevent further degradation. The readily implemented methodology, based on modest data requirements demonstrated by this study, is a useful tool for catchment to regional scale land use change and land degradation studies and strategic planning for environmental management.

  2. Land use change and land degradation in southeastern Mediterranean Spain.

    PubMed

    Symeonakis, Elias; Calvo-Cases, Adolfo; Arnau-Rosalen, Eva

    2007-07-01

    The magnitude of the environmental and social consequences of soil erosion and land degradation in semiarid areas of the Mediterranean region has long been recognized and studied. This paper investigates the interrelationship between land use/cover (LULC) changes and land degradation using remotely sensed and ancillary data for southeastern Spain. The area of study, the Xaló River catchment situated in the north of the Alicante Province, has been subjected to a number of LULC changes during the second half of the 20th century such as agricultural abandonment, forest fires, and tourist development. Aerial photographs dating back to 1956 were used for the delineation of historic LULC types; Landsat ETM+ data were used for the analysis and mapping of current conditions. Two important indicators of land degradation, namely, susceptibility to surface runoff and soil erosion, were estimated for the two dates using easily parametrizable models. The comparison of 1956 to 2000 conditions shows an overall "recuperating" trend over the catchment and increased susceptibility to soil erosion only in 3% of the catchment area. The results also identify potential degradation hot-spots where mitigation measures should be taken to prevent further degradation. The readily implemented methodology, based on modest data requirements demonstrated by this study, is a useful tool for catchment to regional scale land use change and land degradation studies and strategic planning for environmental management.

  3. Coupled social and ecological outcomes of land use change and agricultural intensification in Costa Rica and the future of biodiversity conservation in tropical agricultural regions.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Sanfiorenzo, A. R.; Shaver, I.; Chain Guadarrama, A.; Cleary, K.; Santiago-Garcia, R.; Finegan, B.; Hormel, L.; Sibelet, N.; Vierling, L. A.; Bosque-Perez, N.; DeClerck, F.; Fagan, M. E.; Waits, L.

    2017-12-01

    Tropical ecosystem conversion to agriculture has caused widespread habitat loss and created fragmented landscapes composed of remnant forest patches embedded in a matrix of agricultural land uses. Non- traditional agricultural export (NTAE) crops such as pineapple are rapidly replacing multiuse landscapes characterized by a diverse matrix of pasture and smallholder crops with intensive, large-scale, monoculture plantations. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we conduct a case study to examine the coupled social and ecological implications of LUCC and agricultural intensification in this region, with larger application to regions experiencing similar patterns. Guided by frameworks from both political and landscape ecology, we: (1) describe the social and economic implications of pineapple expansion, specifically the concentration of land, labor and financial resources, (2) quantify pineapple cultivation's spatial characteristics, and (3) assess the effects of pineapple expansion on surrounding forest ecosystems, on the agricultural matrix and on biodiversity conservation. Our results indicate that pineapple production concentrates land, labor, and financial resources, which has a homogenizing effect on the agricultural economy in the study region. This constrains farm-based livelihoods, with larger implications for food security and agricultural diversity. Landscape ecology analyses further reveal how pineapple production simplifies and homogenizes the agricultural matrix between forest patches, which is likely to have a negative effect on biodiversity. To offset the effects of pineapple expansion on social and environmental systems, we recommend developing landscape level land use planning capacity. Furthermore, agricultural and conservation policy reform is needed to promote landscape heterogeneity and economic diversity within the agricultural sector. Our interdisciplinary research provides a detailed examination of the social and ecological impacts of

  4. Coupled social and ecological outcomes of land use change and agricultural intensification in Costa Rica and the future of biodiversity conservation in tropical agricultural regions.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Sanfiorenzo, A. R.; Shaver, I.; Chain Guadarrama, A.; Cleary, K.; Santiago-Garcia, R.; Finegan, B.; Hormel, L.; Sibelet, N.; Vierling, L. A.; Bosque-Perez, N.; DeClerck, F.; Fagan, M. E.; Waits, L.

    2016-12-01

    Tropical ecosystem conversion to agriculture has caused widespread habitat loss and created fragmented landscapes composed of remnant forest patches embedded in a matrix of agricultural land uses. Non- traditional agricultural export (NTAE) crops such as pineapple are rapidly replacing multiuse landscapes characterized by a diverse matrix of pasture and smallholder crops with intensive, large-scale, monoculture plantations. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we conduct a case study to examine the coupled social and ecological implications of LUCC and agricultural intensification in this region, with larger application to regions experiencing similar patterns. Guided by frameworks from both political and landscape ecology, we: (1) describe the social and economic implications of pineapple expansion, specifically the concentration of land, labor and financial resources, (2) quantify pineapple cultivation's spatial characteristics, and (3) assess the effects of pineapple expansion on surrounding forest ecosystems, on the agricultural matrix and on biodiversity conservation. Our results indicate that pineapple production concentrates land, labor, and financial resources, which has a homogenizing effect on the agricultural economy in the study region. This constrains farm-based livelihoods, with larger implications for food security and agricultural diversity. Landscape ecology analyses further reveal how pineapple production simplifies and homogenizes the agricultural matrix between forest patches, which is likely to have a negative effect on biodiversity. To offset the effects of pineapple expansion on social and environmental systems, we recommend developing landscape level land use planning capacity. Furthermore, agricultural and conservation policy reform is needed to promote landscape heterogeneity and economic diversity within the agricultural sector. Our interdisciplinary research provides a detailed examination of the social and ecological impacts of

  5. Namibia specific climate smart agricultural land use practices: Challenges and opportunities for enhancing ecosystem services

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kuhn, Nikolaus J.; Talamondjila Naanda, Martha; Bloemertz, Lena

    2015-04-01

    Agriculture is a backbone for many African economies, with an estimated 70% of Africans active in agricultural production. The sector often does not only directly contribute to, but sustains food security and poverty reduction efforts. Sustaining this productivity poses many challenges, particularly to small scale subsistence farmers (SSF) in dry land areas and semi-arid countries like Namibia. SSF in northern central Namibia mix crop and livestock production on degraded semi-arid lands and nutrient-poor sandy soils. They are fully dependent on agricultural production with limited alternative sources of income. Mostly, their agricultural harvests and outputs are low, not meeting their livelihood needs. At the same time, the land use is often not sustainable, leading to degradation. The Namibia case reveals that addressing underlying economic, social and environmental challenges requires a combination of farm level-soil management practices with a shift towards integrated landscape management. This forms the basis for SSF to adopt sustainable land management practices while building institutional foundations, like establishing SSF cooperatives. One way in which this has been tested is through the concept of incentive-based motivation, i.e. payment for ecosystem services (PES), in which some of the beneficiaries pay, for instance for farmers or land users, who provide the services. The farmers provide these services by substituting their unsustainable land and soil management and adopting new (climate smart agricultural) land use practices. Climate Smart Agricultural land use practices (CSA-LUP) are one way of providing ecosystem services, which could be fundamental to long-term sustainable soil and land management solutions in Africa. There are few PES cases which have been systematically studied from an institutional development structure perspective. This study presents lessons evolving from the notion that direct participation and involvement of local people

  6. Breeding biology of Mottled Ducks on agricultural lands in southwestern Louisiana

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Durham, R.S.; Afton, A.D.

    2006-01-01

    Breeding biology of Anas fulvigula maculosa (Mottled Ducks) has been described in coastal marsh and associated habitats, but little information is available for agricultural habitats in Louisiana. We located nests to determine nest-initiation dates and clutch sizes during the primary breeding season (February-May) in 1999 (n = 29) and 2000 (n = 37) on agricultural lands in southwestern Louisiana. In 1999, 60% of located nests were initiated between 22 March and 10 April, whereas in 2000, only 22% of nests were initiated during the same time period. Average clutch size was 0.9 eggs smaller in 2000 than in 1999. Annual differences in reproductive parameters corresponded with extremely dry conditions caused by low rainfall before the laying period in 2000. Flooded rice fields appear to be important loafing and feeding habitat of Mottled Ducks nesting in agricultural lands, especially during drought periods when other wetland types are not available or where natural wetlands have been eliminated.

  7. Development of a regionally consistent geospatial dataset of agricultural lands in the Upper Colorado River Basin, 2007-10

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Buto, Susan G.; Gold, Brittany L.; Jones, Kimberly A.

    2014-01-01

    Irrigation in arid environments can alter the natural rate at which salts are dissolved and transported to streams. Irrigated agricultural lands are the major anthropogenic source of dissolved solids in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB). Understanding the location, spatial distribution, and irrigation status of agricultural lands and the method used to deliver water to agricultural lands are important to help improve the understanding of agriculturally derived dissolved-solids loading to surface water in the UCRB. Irrigation status is the presence or absence of irrigation on an agricultural field during the selected growing season or seasons. Irrigation method is the system used to irrigate a field. Irrigation method can broadly be grouped into sprinkler or flood methods, although other techniques such as drip irrigation are used in the UCRB. Flood irrigation generally causes greater dissolved-solids loading to streams than sprinkler irrigation. Agricultural lands in the UCRB mapped by state agencies at varying spatial and temporal resolutions were assembled and edited to represent conditions in the UCRB between 2007 and 2010. Edits were based on examination of 1-meter resolution aerial imagery collected between 2009 and 2011. Remote sensing classification techniques were used to classify irrigation status for the June to September growing seasons between 2007 and 2010. The final dataset contains polygons representing approximately 1,759,900 acres of agricultural lands in the UCRB. Approximately 66 percent of the mapped agricultural lands were likely irrigated during the study period.

  8. Reanalysis of Water, Land Use, and Production Data for Assessing China's Agricultural Resources

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Smith, T.; Pan, J.; McLaughlin, D.

    2016-12-01

    Quantitative data about water availability, crop evapotranspiration (ET), agricultural land use, and production are needed at high temporal and spatial resolutions to develop sustainable water and agricultural plan and policies. However, large-scale high-resolution measured data can be susceptible to errors, physically inconsistent, or incomplete. Reanalysis provides a way to develop improved physically consistent estimates of both measured and hidden variables. The reanalysis approach described here uses a least-squares technique constrained by water balances and crop water requirements to assimilate many possibly redundant data sources to yield estimates of water, land use, and food production variables that are physically consistent while minimizing differences from measured data. As an example, this methodology is applied in China, where food demand is expected to increase but land and water resources could constrain further increases in food production. Hydrologic fluxes, crop ET, agricultural land use, yields, and food production are characterized at 0.5o by 0.5o resolution for a nominal year around the year 2000 for 22 different crop groups. The reanalysis approach provides useful information for resource management and policy, both in China and around the world.

  9. Prospects for land-use sustainability on the agricultural frontier of the Brazilian Amazon.

    PubMed

    Galford, Gillian L; Soares-Filho, Britaldo; Cerri, Carlos E P

    2013-06-05

    The Brazilian Amazon frontier shows how remarkable leadership can work towards increased agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability without new greenhouse gas emissions. This is due to initiatives among various stakeholders, including national and state government and agents, farmers, consumers, funding agencies and non-governmental organizations. Change has come both from bottom-up and top-down actions of these stakeholders, providing leadership, financing and monitoring to foster environmental sustainability and agricultural growth. Goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from land-cover and land-use change in Brazil are being achieved through a multi-tiered approach that includes policies to reduce deforestation and initiatives for forest restoration, as well as increased and diversified agricultural production, intensified ranching and innovations in agricultural management. Here, we address opportunities for the Brazilian Amazon in working towards low-carbon rural development and environmentally sustainable landscapes.

  10. Prospects for land-use sustainability on the agricultural frontier of the Brazilian Amazon

    PubMed Central

    Galford, Gillian L.; Soares-Filho, Britaldo; Cerri, Carlos E. P.

    2013-01-01

    The Brazilian Amazon frontier shows how remarkable leadership can work towards increased agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability without new greenhouse gas emissions. This is due to initiatives among various stakeholders, including national and state government and agents, farmers, consumers, funding agencies and non-governmental organizations. Change has come both from bottom-up and top-down actions of these stakeholders, providing leadership, financing and monitoring to foster environmental sustainability and agricultural growth. Goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from land-cover and land-use change in Brazil are being achieved through a multi-tiered approach that includes policies to reduce deforestation and initiatives for forest restoration, as well as increased and diversified agricultural production, intensified ranching and innovations in agricultural management. Here, we address opportunities for the Brazilian Amazon in working towards low-carbon rural development and environmentally sustainable landscapes. PMID:23610175

  11. Modelling nitrate from land-surface to wells-perforations under Mediterranean agricultural land: success, failure, and future scenarios

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Levy, Yehuda; Chefetz, Benny; Shapira, Roi; Kurtzman, Daniel

    2017-04-01

    Contamination of groundwater resources by nitrate due to leaching under agricultural land is probably the most troublesome agriculture-related water contamination, worldwide. Deep soil sampling (10 m) were used for calibrating vertical flow and nitrogen-transport numerical models of the unsaturated zone, under different agricultural land uses. Vegetables fields (potato and strawberries) and deciduous (persimmon) orchards in the Sharon area overlaying the coastal aquifer of Israel, were examined. Average nitrate-nitrogen fluxes below vegetables fields were 210-290 kg ha-1 a-1 and under deciduous orchards were 110-140 kg ha-1 a-1. The output water and nitrate-nitrogen fluxes of the unsaturated zone models were used as input for a three dimensional flow and nitrate-transport model in the aquifer under an area of 13.3 square kilometers of agricultural land. The area was subdivided to 4 agricultural land-uses: vegetables, deciduous, citrus orchards and non-cultivated. Fluxes of water and nitrate-nitrogen below citrus orchards were taken from a previous study in this area (Kurtzman et al., 2013, j. Contam. Hydrol.). The groundwater flow model was calibrated to well heads only by changing the hydraulic conductivity while transient recharge fluxes were constraint to the bottom-fluxes of the unsaturated zone flow models. The nitrate-transport model in the aquifer, which was fed at the top by the nitrate fluxes of the unsaturated zone models, succeeded in reconstructing the average nitrate concentration in the wells. On the other hand, this transport model failed in calculating the high concentrations in the most contaminated wells and the large spatial variability of nitrate-concentrations in the aquifer. In order to reconstruct the spatial variability and enable predictions nitrate-fluxes from the unsaturated zone were multiplied by local multipliers. This action was rationalized by the fact that the high concentrations in some wells cannot be explained by regular

  12. Polarization signatures for abandoned agricultural fields in the Manix Basin area of the Mojave Desert

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Ray, Terrill W.; Farr, Tom G.; Vanzyl, Jakob J.

    1991-01-01

    Polarimetric signatures from abandoned circular alfalfa fields in the Manix Basin area of the Mojave desert show systematic changes with length of abandonment. The obliteration of circular planting rows by surface processes could account for the disappearance of bright 'spokes', which seems to be reflection patterns from remnants of the planting rows, with increasing length of abandonment. An observed shift in the location of the maximum L-band copolarization return away from VV, as well as an increase in surface roughness, both occurring with increasing age of abandonment, seems to be attributable to the formation of wind ripple on the relatively vegetationless fields. A Late Pleistocene/Holocene sand bar deposit, which can be identified in the radar images, is probably responsible for the failure of three fields to match the age sequence patterns in roughness and peak shift.

  13. Land Allocation in the Southeastern U.S. in Response to Climate Change Impacts on Forestry and Agriculture

    Treesearch

    Brian C. Murray; Robert C. Abt; David N. Wear; Peter J. Parks; Ian W. Hardie

    2001-01-01

    Forest and agriculture are the two dominant land uses in the Southeastern U.S., collectively accounting for almost 90 percent of the land base. Differences in climate change impacts on forest and agricultural productivity can lead to reallocations of land between the two sectors as landowners adjust to the changes in economic conditions. In this paper, we apply the...

  14. Denitrification potential of different land-use types in an agricultural watershed, lower Mississippi valley

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Ullah, S.; Faulkner, S.P.

    2006-01-01

    Expansion of agricultural land and excessive nitrogen (N) fertilizer use in the Mississippi River watershed has resulted in a three-fold increase in the nitrate load of the river since the early 1950s. One way to reduce this nitrate load is to restore wetlands at suitable locations between croplands and receiving waters to remove run-off nitrate through denitrification. This research investigated denitrification potential (DP) of different land uses and its controlling factors in an agricultural watershed in the lower Mississippi valley (LMV) to help identify sites with high DP for reducing run-off nitrate. Soil samples collected from seven land-use types of an agricultural watershed during spring, summer, fall and winter were incubated in the laboratory for DP determination. Low-elevation clay soils in wetlands exhibited 6.3 and 2.5 times greater DP compared to high-elevation silt loam and low-elevation clay soils in croplands, respectively. DP of vegetated-ditches was 1.3 and 4.2 times that of un-vegetated ditches and cultivated soils, respectively. Soil carbon and nitrogen availability, bulk density, and soil moisture significantly affected DP. These factors were significantly influenced in turn by landscape position and land-use type of the watershed. It is evident from these results that low-elevation, fine-textured soils under natural wetlands are the best locations for mediating nitrate loss from agricultural watersheds in the LMV. Landscape position and land-use types can be used as indices for the assessment/modeling of denitrification potential and identification of sites for restoration for nitrate removal in agricultural watersheds. ?? 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  15. A GIS-based hedonic price model for agricultural land

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Demetriou, Demetris

    2015-06-01

    Land consolidation is a very effective land management planning approach that aims towards rural/agricultural sustainable development. Land reallocation which involves land tenure restructuring is the most important, complex and time consuming component of land consolidation. Land reallocation relies on land valuation since its fundamental principle provides that after consolidation, each landowner shall be granted a property of an aggregate value that is approximately the same as the value of the property owned prior to consolidation. Therefore, land value is the crucial factor for the land reallocation process and hence for the success and acceptance of the final land consolidation plan. Land valuation is a process of assigning values to all parcels (and its contents) and it is usually carried out by an ad-hoc committee. However, the process faces some problems such as it is time consuming hence costly, outcomes may present inconsistency since it is carried out manually and empirically without employing systematic analytical tools and in particular spatial analysis tools and techniques such as statistical/mathematical. A solution to these problems can be the employment of mass appraisal land valuation methods using automated valuation models (AVM) based on international standards. In this context, this paper presents a spatial based linear hedonic price model which has been developed and tested in a case study land consolidation area in Cyprus. Results showed that the AVM is capable to produce acceptable in terms of accuracy and reliability land values and to reduce time hence cost required by around 80%.

  16. Remote sensing is a viable tool for mapping soil salinity in agricultural lands

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    Soil salinity negatively impacts the productivity and profitability of western San Joaquin Valley (WSJV) farmland. Drought, climate change, reduced water allocations, and land use changes are among many current phenomena that could potentially worsen salinity conditions in agricultural lands. Monito...

  17. Inventory of wetlands and agricultural land cover in the upper Sevier River Basin, Utah

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Jaynes, R. A.; Clark, L. D., Jr.; Landgraf, K. F. (Principal Investigator)

    1981-01-01

    The use of color infrared aerial photography in the mapping of agricultural land use and wetlands in the Sevier River Basin of south central utah is described. The efficiency and cost effectiveness of utilizing LANDSAT multispectral scanner digital data to augment photographic interpretations are discussed. Transparent overlays for 27 quadrangles showing delineations of wetlands and agricultural land cover were produced. A table summarizing the acreage represented by each class on each quadrangle overlay is provided.

  18. Climate impacts on agricultural land use in the USA: the role of socio-economic scenarios

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Mu, Jianhong E.; Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Abatzoglou, John T.; Antle, John M.

    2017-01-01

    We examine the impacts of climate on net returns from crop and livestock production and the resulting impact on land-use change across the contiguous USA. We first estimate an econometric model to project effects of weather fluctuations on crop and livestock net returns and then use a semi-reduced form land-use share model to study agricultural land-use changes under future climate and socio-economic scenarios. Estimation results show that crop net returns are more sensitive to thermal and less sensitive to moisture variability than livestock net returns; other agricultural land uses substitute cropland use when 30-year averaged degree-days or precipitation are not beneficial for crop production. Under future climate and socio-economic scenarios, we project that crop and livestock net returns are both increasing, but with crop net returns increasing at a higher rate; cropland increases with declines of marginal and pastureland by the end of the twenty-first century. Projections also show that impacts of future climate on agricultural land uses are substantially different and a larger variation of land-use change is evident when socio-economic scenarios are incorporated into the climate impact analysis.

  19. [Ecological design of ditches in agricultural land consolidation: a review].

    PubMed

    Ye, Yan-mei; Wu, Ci-fang; Yu, Jing

    2011-07-01

    Agricultural land consolidation is a strong disturbance to farmland ecosystem. In traditional agricultural land consolidation, the main technical and economic indices for the design of ditches include the convenience for production and transportation, the allocation of water resources, and the improvement of water utilization, but short of ecological consideration, which has already affected the spread of agricultural species, caused the degradation of bio-habitat, and given obvious negative effects on the bio-competition mechanism, buffering and compensation capacity, and insect pests-resistance of farmland ecosystem. This paper summarized the functions of ecological ditches, and introduced the recent progress on the formations and construction designs of ecological ditches, tests of ecological engineering methods, and technologies and methods of choosing correct ecological materials. It was suggested that the future research should focus on the different functional requirements and specifications for different roads and ditches, and the characteristics and habitats of all the organisms and animals should be considered by the designers and constructors. Moreover, a comprehensive design which meets the ecological demands for the ditches' formations, structures, and regulatory sizes should be taken into account to solve the most of the problems listed above.

  20. Consequences of Out-Migration for Land Use in Rural Ecuador

    PubMed Central

    Gray, Clark L.; Bilsborrow, Richard E.

    2013-01-01

    In rural Ecuador and elsewhere in Latin America, the departure of migrants and the receipt of migrant remittances have led to declining rural populations and increasing cash incomes. It is commonly assumed that these processes will lead to agricultural abandonment and the regrowth of native vegetation, thus undermining traditional livelihoods and providing a boon for biodiversity conservation. However, an increasing number of household-level studies have found mixed and complex effects of out-migration and remittances on agriculture. We advance this literature by using household survey data and satellite imagery from three study areas in rural Ecuador to investigate the effects of migration and remittances on agricultural land use. Multivariate methods are used to disaggregate the effects of migration and remittances, to account for other influences on land use and to correct for the potential endogeneity of migration and remittances. Contrary to common assumptions but consistent with previous studies, we find that migrant departure has a positive effect on agricultural activities that is offset by migrant remittances. These results suggest that rural out-migration alone is not likely to lead to a forest transition in the study areas. PMID:24187416

  1. Exploring an Ecologically Sustainable Scheme for Landscape Restoration of Abandoned Mine Land: Scenario-Based Simulation Integrated Linear Programming and CLUE-S Model

    PubMed Central

    Zhang, Liping; Zhang, Shiwen; Huang, Yajie; Cao, Meng; Huang, Yuanfang; Zhang, Hongyan

    2016-01-01

    Understanding abandoned mine land (AML) changes during land reclamation is crucial for reusing damaged land resources and formulating sound ecological restoration policies. This study combines the linear programming (LP) model and the CLUE-S model to simulate land-use dynamics in the Mentougou District (Beijing, China) from 2007 to 2020 under three reclamation scenarios, that is, the planning scenario based on the general land-use plan in study area (scenario 1), maximal comprehensive benefits (scenario 2), and maximal ecosystem service value (scenario 3). Nine landscape-scale graph metrics were then selected to describe the landscape characteristics. The results show that the coupled model presented can simulate the dynamics of AML effectively and the spatially explicit transformations of AML were different. New cultivated land dominates in scenario 1, while construction land and forest land account for major percentages in scenarios 2 and 3, respectively. Scenario 3 has an advantage in most of the selected indices as the patches combined most closely. To conclude, reclaiming AML by transformation into more forest can reduce the variability and maintain the stability of the landscape ecological system in study area. These findings contribute to better mapping AML dynamics and providing policy support for the management of AML. PMID:27023575

  2. Exploring an Ecologically Sustainable Scheme for Landscape Restoration of Abandoned Mine Land: Scenario-Based Simulation Integrated Linear Programming and CLUE-S Model.

    PubMed

    Zhang, Liping; Zhang, Shiwen; Huang, Yajie; Cao, Meng; Huang, Yuanfang; Zhang, Hongyan

    2016-03-24

    Understanding abandoned mine land (AML) changes during land reclamation is crucial for reusing damaged land resources and formulating sound ecological restoration policies. This study combines the linear programming (LP) model and the CLUE-S model to simulate land-use dynamics in the Mentougou District (Beijing, China) from 2007 to 2020 under three reclamation scenarios, that is, the planning scenario based on the general land-use plan in study area (scenario 1), maximal comprehensive benefits (scenario 2), and maximal ecosystem service value (scenario 3). Nine landscape-scale graph metrics were then selected to describe the landscape characteristics. The results show that the coupled model presented can simulate the dynamics of AML effectively and the spatially explicit transformations of AML were different. New cultivated land dominates in scenario 1, while construction land and forest land account for major percentages in scenarios 2 and 3, respectively. Scenario 3 has an advantage in most of the selected indices as the patches combined most closely. To conclude, reclaiming AML by transformation into more forest can reduce the variability and maintain the stability of the landscape ecological system in study area. These findings contribute to better mapping AML dynamics and providing policy support for the management of AML.

  3. Adaptation Options for Land Drainage Systems Towards Sustainable Agriculture and Environment: A Czech Perspective

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kulhavý, Zbyněk; Fučík, Petr

    2015-04-01

    In this paper, issues of agricultural drainage systems are introduced and discussed from the views of their former, current and future roles and functioning in the Czech Republic (CR). A methodologically disparate survey was done on thirty-nine model localities in CR with different intensity and state of land drainage systems, aimed at description of commonly occurred problems and possible adaptations of agricultural drainage as perceived by farmers, land owners, landscape managers or by protective water management. The survey was focused on technical state of drainage, fragmentation of land ownership within drained areas as well as on possible conflicts between agricultural and environmental interests in a landscape. Achieved results confirmed that there is obviously an increasing need to reassess some functions of prevailingly single-purpose agricultural drainage systems. Drainage intensity and detected unfavourable technical state of drainage systems as well as the risks connected with the anticipated climate change from the view of possible water scarcity claims for a complex solution. An array of adaptation options for agricultural drainage systems is presented, aiming at enhancement of water retention time and improvement of water quality. It encompasses additional flow-controlling measures on tiles or ditches, or facilities for making selected parts of a drainage system inoperable in order to retain or slow down the drainage runoff, to establish water accumulation zones and to enhance water self-cleaning processes. However, it was revealed that the question of landowner parcels fragmentation on drained land in CR would dramatically complicate design and realization of these measures. Presented solutions and findings are propounded with a respect to contemporary and future state policies and international strategies for sustainable agriculture, water management and environment.

  4. Agricultural chemicals in groundwater of the midwestern United States: Relations to land use

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Kolpin, D.W.

    1997-01-01

    To determine the relations between land use and concentrations of selected agricultural chemicals (nitrate, atrazine residue [atrazine (2-chloro-4-ethylamino-6-isopropylamino-s-triazine) + deethylatrazinc (2-amino-4-chloro-6-isopropylamino-s-triazine) + deisopropylatrazine (2-amino-4-chloro-6-ethylamino-s-triazine)], and alachlor residue [alachlor, [2-chloro-2′,6′-diethyl-N-(methoxymethyl) acetanilide] + alachlor ethanesulfonic acid (alachlor-ESA; 2-[(2,6-diethylphenyl)(methoxymethyl)amino]-2-oxoethanesulfonic acid)] in groundwater, detailed land use information based on accurate measurements from aerial photographs for the 1991 growing season was obtained within a 2-km radius surrounding 100 wells completed in near-surface unconsolidated aquifers in the midwestern USA. The most significant land use factors to the agricultural chemicals examined were: nitrate (amount of irrigated crop production, positive relation), atrazine residue (amount of irrigated crop production, positive relation), and alachlor residue (amount of highly erodible land, inverse relation). The investigation of smaller buffer sizes (size of circular area around sampled wells) proved insightful for this study. Additional land use factors having significant relations to all three agricultural chemicals were identified using these smaller buffer radii. The most significant correlations (correlation maxima) generally occurred at ≤500-m for nitrate and ≥1000-m for atrazine residue and alachlor residue. An attempt to improve the statistical relations to land use by taking hydrologic considerations into account (removing land outside the estimated most probable recharge area from the statistical analysis) was not as successful as anticipated. Only 45% of the nitrate, 32% of the atrazine residue, and 20% of the alachlor residue correlations were improved by a consideration of the estimated most probable recharge area.

  5. Agricultural land use doubled sediment yield of western China's rivers

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Schmidt, A. H.; Bierman, P. R.; Sosa-Gonzalez, V.; Neilson, T. B.; Rood, D. H.; Martin, J.; Hill, M.

    2017-12-01

    Land use changes, such as deforestation and agriculture, increase soil erosion rates on the scale of hillslopes and small drainage basins; however, the effects of these changes on the sediment load in larger rivers is poorly quantified, with a few studies scattered globally, and only 10 data points in the world's most populous nation, China. At 20 different sites in western China, we compare contemporary (1945-1987) fluvial sediment yield data collected daily over 4 to 26 years (median = 19 years) to long-term measures of erosion (sediment generation) based on new isotopic measurements of in situ 10Be in river sediments. We find that median sediment transport at these sites exceeds background sediment generation rates by a factor of two (from 0.13 to 5.79 times, median 1.85 times) and that contemporary sediment yield is statistically significantly different from long-term sediment yield (p < 0.05). Agricultural land use is directly and significantly proportional to the ratio of contemporary sediment yield to long term sediment generation rates (Spearman correlation coefficient rho = 0.52, p < 0.05). We support these findings by calculating erosion indices (following Brown et al., 1988), which compare the delivery of meteoric 10Be to each watershed with the export of meteoric 10Be bound to riverine sediment. Erosion indices are also directly and significantly proportional to agricultural land use (rho = 0.58, p < 0.05). We measured unsupported 210Pb and 137Cs in 130 detrital samples from throughout the region. We find that only 4 samples (those from high elevation, low relief watersheds) have detectable 137Cs and 31 samples have detectable unsupported 210Pb. The lack of 137Cs in most samples suggests high rates of erosion in the 1950s-1960s when 137Cs would have been delivered to the landscape. Detectable 210Pb in 25% of the watersheds suggests that in some areas erosion rates have slowed since that time allowing 210Pb to accumulate to measurable levels. Together

  6. Simulating Changes in Land-Atmosphere Interactions From Expanding Agriculture and Irrigation in India and the Potential Impacts on the Indian Monsoon.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Douglas, E. M.; Beltran-Przekurat, A.; Niyogi, D.; Pielke, R. A.

    2006-05-01

    With over 57 million hectares under irrigation in 2002, India has the largest irrigated agricultural area on the planet. Between 80 and 90% of India's water use goes to support irrigated agriculture. The Indian monsoon belt is a home to a large part of the world's population and agriculture is the major land-use activity in the region. Previous results showed that annual vapor fluxes in India have increased by 17% (340 km3) over that which would be expected from a natural (non-agricultural) land cover. Two-thirds of this increase was attributed to irrigated agriculture. The largest increases in vapor and latent heat fluxes occurred where both cropland and irrigated lands were the predominant contemporary land cover classes (particularly northwest and north-central India). Our current study builds upon this work by evaluating possible changes in near-surface energy fluxes and regional atmospheric circulation patterns resulting from the expansion of irrigated agriculture on the Indian sub-continent using a regional atmospheric model RAMS. We investigate three separate land- use scenarios: Scenario 1, with a potential (pre-agricultural) land cover, Scenario 2: the potential land-cover overlain by cropland and Scenario 3: potential land-cover overlain by cropland and irrigated area. We will assess the impact of agricultural land-cover conversion and intensive irrigation on water and energy fluxes between the land and the atmosphere and how these flux changes may affect regional weather patterns. The simulation period covers July 16-20, 2002 which allow us to assess potential impacts of land-cover changes on the onset of the Indian Monsoon.

  7. Land-use policies and corporate investments in agriculture in the Gran Chaco and Chiquitano

    PubMed Central

    le Polain de Waroux, Yann; Garrett, Rachael D.; Heilmayr, Robert; Lambin, Eric F.

    2016-01-01

    Growing demand for agricultural commodities is causing the expansion of agricultural frontiers onto native vegetation worldwide. Agribusiness companies linking these frontiers to distant spaces of consumption through global commodity chains increasingly make zero-deforestation pledges. However, production and land conversion are often carried out by less-visible local and regional actors that are mobile and responsive to new agricultural expansion opportunities and legal constraints on land use. With more stringent deforestation regulations in some countries, we ask whether their movements are determined partly by differences in land-use policies, resulting in “deforestation havens.” We analyze the determinants of investment decisions by agricultural companies in the Gran Chaco and Chiquitano, a region that has become the new deforestation “hot spot” in South America. We test whether companies seek out less-regulated forest areas for new agricultural investments. Based on interviews with 82 companies totaling 2.5 Mha of properties, we show that, in addition to proximity to current investments and the availability of cheap forestland, lower deforestation regulations attract investments by companies that tend to clear more forest, mostly cattle ranching operations, and that lower enforcement attracts all companies. Avoiding deforestation leakage requires harmonizing deforestation regulations across regions and commodities and promoting sustainable intensification in cattle ranching. PMID:27035995

  8. Land-use policies and corporate investments in agriculture in the Gran Chaco and Chiquitano.

    PubMed

    le Polain de Waroux, Yann; Garrett, Rachael D; Heilmayr, Robert; Lambin, Eric F

    2016-04-12

    Growing demand for agricultural commodities is causing the expansion of agricultural frontiers onto native vegetation worldwide. Agribusiness companies linking these frontiers to distant spaces of consumption through global commodity chains increasingly make zero-deforestation pledges. However, production and land conversion are often carried out by less-visible local and regional actors that are mobile and responsive to new agricultural expansion opportunities and legal constraints on land use. With more stringent deforestation regulations in some countries, we ask whether their movements are determined partly by differences in land-use policies, resulting in "deforestation havens." We analyze the determinants of investment decisions by agricultural companies in the Gran Chaco and Chiquitano, a region that has become the new deforestation "hot spot" in South America. We test whether companies seek out less-regulated forest areas for new agricultural investments. Based on interviews with 82 companies totaling 2.5 Mha of properties, we show that, in addition to proximity to current investments and the availability of cheap forestland, lower deforestation regulations attract investments by companies that tend to clear more forest, mostly cattle ranching operations, and that lower enforcement attracts all companies. Avoiding deforestation leakage requires harmonizing deforestation regulations across regions and commodities and promoting sustainable intensification in cattle ranching.

  9. The Monitoring Erosion of Agricultural Land and spatial database of erosion events

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kapicka, Jiri; Zizala, Daniel

    2013-04-01

    In 2011 originated in The Czech Republic The Monitoring Erosion of Agricultural Land as joint project of State Land Office (SLO) and Research Institute for Soil and Water Conservation (RISWC). The aim of the project is collecting and record keeping information about erosion events on agricultural land and their evaluation. The main idea is a creation of a spatial database that will be source of data and information for evaluation and modeling erosion process, for proposal of preventive measures and measures to reduce negative impacts of erosion events. A subject of monitoring is the manifestations of water erosion, wind erosion and slope deformation in which cause damaged agriculture land. A website, available on http://me.vumop.cz, is used as a tool for keeping and browsing information about monitored events. SLO employees carry out record keeping. RISWC is specialist institute in the Monitoring Erosion of Agricultural Land that performs keeping the spatial database, running the website, managing the record keeping of events, analysis the cause of origins events and statistical evaluations of keeping events and proposed measures. Records are inserted into the database using the user interface of the website which has map server as a component. Website is based on database technology PostgreSQL with superstructure PostGIS and MapServer UMN. Each record is in the database spatial localized by a drawing and it contains description information about character of event (data, situation description etc.) then there are recorded information about land cover and about grown crops. A part of database is photodocumentation which is taken in field reconnaissance which is performed within two days after notify of event. Another part of database are information about precipitations from accessible precipitation gauges. Website allows to do simple spatial analysis as are area calculation, slope calculation, percentage representation of GAEC etc.. Database structure was designed

  10. Mediterranean California’s water use future under multiple scenarios of developed and agricultural land use change

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Wilson, Tamara; Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Cameron, D. Richard

    2017-01-01

    With growing demand and highly variable inter-annual water supplies, California’s water use future is fraught with uncertainty. Climate change projections, anticipated population growth, and continued agricultural intensification, will likely stress existing water supplies in coming decades. Using a state-and-transition simulation modeling approach, we examine a broad suite of spatially explicit future land use scenarios and their associated county-level water use demand out to 2062. We examined a range of potential water demand futures sampled from a 20-year record of historical (1992–2012) data to develop a suite of potential future land change scenarios, including low/high change scenarios for urbanization and agriculture as well as “lowest of the low” and “highest of the high” anthropogenic use. Future water demand decreased 8.3 billion cubic meters (Bm3) in the lowest of the low scenario and decreased 0.8 Bm3 in the low agriculture scenario. The greatest increased water demand was projected for the highest of the high land use scenario (+9.4 Bm3), high agricultural expansion (+4.6 Bm3), and high urbanization (+2.1 Bm3) scenarios. Overall, these scenarios show agricultural land use decisions will likely drive future demand more than increasing municipal and industrial uses, yet improved efficiencies across all sectors could lead to potential water use savings. Results provide water managers with information on diverging land use and water use futures, based on historical, observed land change trends and water use histories.

  11. Mediterranean California’s water use future under multiple scenarios of developed and agricultural land use change

    PubMed Central

    Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Cameron, D. Richard

    2017-01-01

    With growing demand and highly variable inter-annual water supplies, California’s water use future is fraught with uncertainty. Climate change projections, anticipated population growth, and continued agricultural intensification, will likely stress existing water supplies in coming decades. Using a state-and-transition simulation modeling approach, we examine a broad suite of spatially explicit future land use scenarios and their associated county-level water use demand out to 2062. We examined a range of potential water demand futures sampled from a 20-year record of historical (1992–2012) data to develop a suite of potential future land change scenarios, including low/high change scenarios for urbanization and agriculture as well as “lowest of the low” and “highest of the high” anthropogenic use. Future water demand decreased 8.3 billion cubic meters (Bm3) in the lowest of the low scenario and decreased 0.8 Bm3 in the low agriculture scenario. The greatest increased water demand was projected for the highest of the high land use scenario (+9.4 Bm3), high agricultural expansion (+4.6 Bm3), and high urbanization (+2.1 Bm3) scenarios. Overall, these scenarios show agricultural land use decisions will likely drive future demand more than increasing municipal and industrial uses, yet improved efficiencies across all sectors could lead to potential water use savings. Results provide water managers with information on diverging land use and water use futures, based on historical, observed land change trends and water use histories. PMID:29088254

  12. Agriculture, Food Production, and Rural Land Use in Advanced Placement® Human Geography

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moseley, William G.; Watson, Nancy H.

    2016-01-01

    ''Agriculture, Food, and Rural Land Use" constitutes a major part of the AP Human Geography course outline. This article explores challenging topics to teach, emerging research trends in agricultural geography, and sample teaching approaches for concretizing abstract topics. It addresses content identified as "essential knowledge"…

  13. Conservation Management of Agriculture Land using Geospatial Approach (A Case Study in the Bone Watershed, Gorontalo Province, Indonesia)

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Maryati, Sri; Eraku, Sunarty; Kasim, Muh

    2018-02-01

    Bone Watershed is one of the major watersheds in Gorontalo Province. Bone watershed has a very important role for the people of Gorontalo Province. The role of Bone Watershed is mainly related to the providing clean water, producing oxygen, controlling flood, providing habitat for endemic flora fauna and other environmental functions. The role of Bone Watershed for the community's economic sector is also very important, the Bone watershed provides livelihood for surrounding communities includes fertile land resources for agriculture and plantations, forest products, and livestock feed. This research is important considering the Bone watershed has limited availability of land for agriculture and the high risk of natural disasters such as floods and landslides. Geospatial data includes topography map, landform map, soil map, integrated with field survey results and soil properties were analized to determine conservation management of agriculture land in the Bone Watershed, Gorontalo Province, Indonesia. The result of this study shows that based on soil properties and physical land characteristics, land use for agriculture should consider appropriate conservation techniques, land capability and respect to local wisdom.

  14. Why Do Smallholder Farmers Dis-adopt Conservation Agriculture? Insights from Malawi

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Chinseu, Edna; Dougill, Andrew; Stringer, Lindsay

    2017-04-01

    International donors and advisory bodies, national governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are all actively promoting conservation agriculture (CA) as a route to sustainable agricultural development, recognising the importance of agriculture to the national economy and livelihoods of rural communities. CA is anchored in 3 principles: i) minimum soil disturbance, ii) continuous soil cover and iii) crop associations. It is advocated on the basis of improving crop yields, income and/or profits; reducing production costs; and conserving soil and water. Despite huge investments made by CA proponents, many farmers only practice CA for a short time. They subsequently dis-adopt (abandon) the seemingly appropriate innovation and revert back to conventional tillage practices. While factors affecting the (initial) adoption of agricultural technologies have been studied extensively, dis-adoption has rarely been investigated. Improving our understanding of dis-adoption of seemingly appropriate and sustainable interventions is vital for long-term sustainable land management, food security and for ensuring sustained impacts of agricultural development project interventions more broadly. This research investigates why smallholder farmers abandon CA practices in Malawi by exploring farmers' experiences of CA and their implications in dis-adoption. A mixed methods approach was used, involving household questionnaire survey and focus group discussions with smallholder farmers. Findings reveal that reasons for dis-adoption are multi-dimensional and multi-layered. While CA proponents are marketing CA as a time saving, labour saving and yield improving technology, many farmers report contrary experiences. Findings also showed that farmers lacked ownership of CA projects and encountered various social challenges, which coupled with unfulfilled expectations, led to dis-adoption. In sub-Saharan Africa, this suggests that there is a need to: (1) market CA as a climate

  15. Mapping irrigated lands at 250-m scale by merging MODIS data and National Agricultural Statistics

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Pervez, Md Shahriar; Brown, Jesslyn F.

    2010-01-01

    Accurate geospatial information on the extent of irrigated land improves our understanding of agricultural water use, local land surface processes, conservation or depletion of water resources, and components of the hydrologic budget. We have developed a method in a geospatial modeling framework that assimilates irrigation statistics with remotely sensed parameters describing vegetation growth conditions in areas with agricultural land cover to spatially identify irrigated lands at 250-m cell size across the conterminous United States for 2002. The geospatial model result, known as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Irrigated Agriculture Dataset (MIrAD-US), identified irrigated lands with reasonable accuracy in California and semiarid Great Plains states with overall accuracies of 92% and 75% and kappa statistics of 0.75 and 0.51, respectively. A quantitative accuracy assessment of MIrAD-US for the eastern region has not yet been conducted, and qualitative assessment shows that model improvements are needed for the humid eastern regions where the distinction in annual peak NDVI between irrigated and non-irrigated crops is minimal and county sizes are relatively small. This modeling approach enables consistent mapping of irrigated lands based upon USDA irrigation statistics and should lead to better understanding of spatial trends in irrigated lands across the conterminous United States. An improved version of the model with revised datasets is planned and will employ 2007 USDA irrigation statistics.

  16. Spatial probability of soil water repellency in an abandoned agricultural field in Lithuania

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Pereira, Paulo; Misiūnė, Ieva

    2015-04-01

    Water repellency is a natural soil property with implications on infiltration, erosion and plant growth. It depends on soil texture, type and amount of organic matter, fungi, microorganisms, and vegetation cover (Doerr et al., 2000). Human activities as agriculture can have implications on soil water repellency (SWR) due tillage and addition of organic compounds and fertilizers (Blanco-Canqui and Lal, 2009; Gonzalez-Penaloza et al., 2012). It is also assumed that SWR has a high small-scale variability (Doerr et al., 2000). The aim of this work is to study the spatial probability of SWR in an abandoned field testing several geostatistical methods, Organic Kriging (OK), Simple Kriging (SK), Indicator Kriging (IK), Probability Kriging (PK) and Disjunctive Kriging (DK). The study area it is located near Vilnius urban area at (54 49' N, 25 22', 104 masl) in Lithuania (Pereira and Oliva, 2013). It was designed a experimental plot with 21 m2 (07x03 m). Inside this area it was measured SWR was measured every 50 cm using the water drop penetration time (WDPT) (Wessel, 1998). A total of 105 points were measured. The probability of SWR was classified in 0 (No probability) to 1 (High probability). The methods accuracy was assessed with the cross validation method. The best interpolation method was the one with the lowest Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). The results showed that the most accurate probability method was SK (RMSE=0.436), followed by DK (RMSE=0.437), IK (RMSE=0.448), PK (RMSE=0.452) and OK (RMSE=0.537). Significant differences were identified among probability tests (Kruskal-Wallis test =199.7597 p<0.001). On average the probability of SWR was high with the OK (0.58±0.08) followed by PK (0.49±0.18), SK (0.32±0.16), DK (0.32±0.15) and IK (0.31±0.16). The most accurate probability methods predicted a lower probability of SWR in the studied plot. The spatial distribution of SWR was different according to the tested technique. Simple Kriging, DK, IK and PK methods

  17. LAND REBORN: TOOLS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY/NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ABANDONED MINE LAND PROGRAMS

    EPA Science Inventory

    Mining activities in the US (not counting coal) produce 1-2 billion tons of mine waste annually. Since many of the ore mines involve sulfide minerals, the production of acid mine drainage (AMD) is a common problem from these abandoned mine sites. The combination of acidity, heavy...

  18. Environmental characteristics, agricultural land use, and vulnerability to degradation in Malopolska Province (Poland).

    PubMed

    Nowak, Agnieszka; Schneider, Christian

    2017-07-15

    Environmental degradation encompasses multiple processes that are rarely combined in analyses. This study refers to three types of environmental degradation resulting from agricultural activity: soil erosion, nutrient loss, and groundwater pollution. The research was conducted in seven distinct study areas in the Malopolska Province, Poland, each characterized by different environmental properties. Calculations were made on the basis of common models, i.e., USLE (soil erosion), InVEST (nutrient loss), and DRASTIC (groundwater pollution). Two scenarios were calculated to identify the areas contributing to potential and actual degradation. For the potential degradation scenario all study areas were treated as arable land. To identify the areas actually contributing to all three types of degradation, the de facto land use pattern was used for a second scenario. The results show that the areas most endangered by agricultural activity are located in the mountainous region, whereas most of the degraded zones were located in valley bottoms and areas with intensive agriculture. The different hazards rarely overlap spatially in the given study areas - meaning that different areas require different management approaches. The distribution of arable land was negatively correlated with soil erosion hazard, whereas no linkage was found between nutrient loss or groundwater pollution hazards and the proportion of arable land. This indicates that the soil erosion hazard is the most influential factor in the distribution of arable land, whereas nutrient loss and groundwater pollution is widely ignored during land use decision-making. Slope largely and most frequently influences all hazard types, whereas land use also played an important role in the case of soil and nutrient losses. In this study we presented a consistent methodology to capture complex degradation processes and provide robust indicators which can be included in existing impact assessment approaches like Life Cycle

  19. Decree No. 922 on land use and exercise of agricultural activities, 19 May 1989.

    PubMed

    1989-01-01

    The Bulgarian Decree 922, May 19, 1989, regulates land use and the exercise of agricultural activities. It stipulates in general that agricultural activities and land use will be based on the principles of company organization, ensuring the unity and indivisibility of socialist property and the variety of forms of land use and management, using collective farms and companies. Citizens may engage in agricultural activities without having a registered company; users of farmland must protect the environment; observe veterinary, plant protection, and sanitary hygiene regulations; and protect and improve soil fertility. Farms and other companies will carry out their activities under equal conditions, may sell their commodities may set up an association for the protection of their economic and social interests, and may establish agricultural stock exchanges and other cooperatives in accordance with stipulated procedures. Individual farms include an individual farmer or several farmers. Farmers may rent or purchase agricultural equipment without restriction as to model, capacity, or other features. Limitations apply on the number of workers employed on a nonseasonal basis. Farmers may form associations for specified purposes. Taxation is based on the general income tax law. Piece rate is a form of organization and payment of labor in agriculture; written agreements are required regarding wages, quality, quantity, deadlines, and supplies furnished. Lease contracts must be in writing, be registered by the municipal people's council at the location of the project, and contain specified information.

  20. Long-term development of above- and below-ground carbon stocks following land-use change in subalpine ecosystems of the Swiss National Park

    Treesearch

    Anita C. Risch; Martin F. Jurgensen; Deborah S. Page-Dumroese; Otto Wildi; Martin Schultz

    2008-01-01

    Vegetation changes following agricultural land abandonment at high elevation - which is frequent in Europe - could have a major impact on carbon (C) sequestration. However, most information on the effects of vegetation changes on ecosystem C stocks originates from low-elevation studies on reforestation or early successional forests, and little is known about how these...

  1. Stream sediment sources in midwest agricultural basins with land retirement along channel

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Williamson, Tanja N.; Christensen, Victoria G.; Richardson, William B.; Frey, Jeffrey W.; Gellis, Allen C.; Kieta, K. A.; Fitzpatrick, Faith A.

    2014-01-01

    Documenting the effects of agricultural land retirement on stream-sediment sources is critical to identifying management practices that improve water quality and aquatic habitat. Particularly difficult to quantify are the effects from conservation easements that commonly are discontinuous along channelized streams and ditches throughout the agricultural midwestern United States. Our hypotheses were that sediment from cropland, retired land, stream banks, and roads would be discernible using isotopic and elemental concentrations and that source contributions would vary with land retirement distribution along tributaries of West Fork Beaver Creek in Minnesota. Channel-bed and suspended sediment were sampled at nine locations and compared with local source samples by using linear discriminant analysis and a four-source mixing model that evaluated seven tracers: In, P, total C, Be, Tl, Th, and Ti. The proportion of sediment sources differed significantly between suspended and channel-bed sediment. Retired land contributed to channel-bed sediment but was not discernible as a source of suspended sediment, suggesting that retired-land material was not mobilized during high-flow conditions. Stream banks were a large contributor to suspended sediment; however, the percentage of stream-bank sediment in the channel bed was lower in basins with more continuous retired land along the riparian corridor. Cropland sediments had the highest P concentrations; basins with the highest cropland-sediment contributions also had the highest P concentrations. Along stream reaches with retired land, there was a lower proportion of cropland material in suspended sediment relative to sites that had almost no land retirement, indicating less movement of nutrients and sediment from cropland to the channel as a result of land retirement.

  2. Modeling nitrate from land surface to wells' perforations under agricultural land: success, failure, and future scenarios in a Mediterranean case study

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Levy, Yehuda; Shapira, Roi H.; Chefetz, Benny; Kurtzman, Daniel

    2017-07-01

    Contamination of groundwater resources by nitrate leaching under agricultural land is probably the most troublesome agriculture-related water contamination worldwide. Contaminated areas often show large spatial variability of nitrate concentration in wells. In this study, we tried to assess whether this spatial variability can be characterized on the basis of land use and standard agricultural practices. Deep soil sampling (10 m) was used to calibrate vertical flow and nitrogen-transport numerical models of the unsaturated zone under different agricultural land uses. Vegetable fields (potato and strawberry) and deciduous orchards (persimmon) in the Sharon area overlying the coastal aquifer of Israel were examined. Average nitrate-nitrogen fluxes below vegetable fields were 210-290 kg ha-1 yr-1 and under deciduous orchards were 110-140 kg ha-1 yr-1. The output water and nitrate-nitrogen fluxes of the unsaturated-zone models were used as input data for a three-dimensional flow and nitrate-transport model in the aquifer under an area of 13.3 km2 of agricultural land. The area was subdivided into four agricultural land uses: vegetables, deciduous orchards, citrus orchards, and non-cultivated. Fluxes of water and nitrate-nitrogen below citrus orchards were taken from a previous study in the area. The groundwater flow model was calibrated to well heads by changing the hydraulic conductivity. The nitrate-transport model, which was fed by the above-mentioned models of the unsaturated zone, succeeded in reconstructing the average nitrate concentration in the wells. However, this transport model failed in calculating the high concentrations in the most contaminated wells and the large spatial variability of nitrate concentrations in the aquifer. To reconstruct the spatial variability and enable predictions, nitrate fluxes from the unsaturated zone were multiplied by local multipliers. This action was rationalized by the fact that the high concentrations in some wells cannot

  3. Water limited agriculture in Africa: Climate change sensitivity of large scale land investments

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Rulli, M. C.; D'Odorico, P.; Chiarelli, D. D.; Davis, K. F.

    2015-12-01

    The past few decades have seen unprecedented changes in the global agricultural system with a dramatic increase in the rates of food production fueled by an escalating demand for food calories, as a result of demographic growth, dietary changes, and - more recently - new bioenergy policies. Food prices have become consistently higher and increasingly volatile with dramatic spikes in 2007-08 and 2010-11. The confluence of these factors has heightened demand for land and brought a wave of land investment to the developing world: some of the more affluent countries are trying to secure land rights in areas suitable for agriculture. According to some estimates, to date, roughly 38 million hectares have been acquired worldwide by large scale investors, 16 million of which in Africa. More than 85% of large scale land acquisitions in Africa are by foreign investors. Many land deals are motivated not only by the need for fertile land but for the water resources required for crop production. Despite some recent assessments of the water appropriation associated with large scale land investments, their impact on the water resources of the target countries under present conditions and climate change scenarios remains poorly understood. Here we investigate irrigation water requirements by various crops planted in the acquired land as an indicator of the pressure likely placed by land investors on ("blue") water resources of target regions in Africa and evaluate the sensitivity to climate changes scenarios.

  4. Land Sales - Division of Mining, Land, and Water

    Science.gov Websites

    to Alaska Land Sales Public Notices Residential Land Auction #484 Agricultural Land Auction #485 Over for sale Agricultural Land Auction (#485)Open until June 7th This program allows anyone (resident or non-resident) to bid on a parcel of agricultural land. Agricultural land has covenants and conditions

  5. Estimating Hydrologic Fluxes, Crop Water Use, and Agricultural Land Area in China using Data Assimilation

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Smith, Tiziana; McLaughlin, Dennis B.; Hoisungwan, Piyatida

    2016-04-01

    Crop production has significantly altered the terrestrial environment by changing land use and by altering the water cycle through both co-opted rainfall and surface water withdrawals. As the world's population continues to grow and individual diets become more resource-intensive, the demand for food - and the land and water necessary to produce it - will continue to increase. High-resolution quantitative data about water availability, water use, and agricultural land use are needed to develop sustainable water and agricultural planning and policies. However, existing data covering large areas with high resolution are susceptible to errors and can be physically inconsistent. China is an example of a large area where food demand is expected to increase and a lack of data clouds the resource management dialogue. Some assert that China will have insufficient land and water resources to feed itself, posing a threat to global food security if they seek to increase food imports. Others believe resources are plentiful. Without quantitative data, it is difficult to discern if these concerns are realistic or overly dramatized. This research presents a quantitative approach using data assimilation techniques to characterize hydrologic fluxes, crop water use (defined as crop evapotranspiration), and agricultural land use at 0.5 by 0.5 degree resolution and applies the methodology in China using data from around the year 2000. The approach uses the principles of water balance and of crop water requirements to assimilate existing data with a least-squares estimation technique, producing new estimates of water and land use variables that are physically consistent while minimizing differences from measured data. We argue that this technique for estimating water fluxes and agricultural land use can provide a useful basis for resource management modeling and policy, both in China and around the world.

  6. Phosphorus runoff from agricultural land and direct fertilizer effects: a review.

    PubMed

    Hart, Murray R; Quin, Bert F; Nguyen, M Long

    2004-01-01

    Phosphorus (P) is one of the most important mineral nutrients in agricultural systems, and along with nitrogen (N), is generally the most limiting nutrient for plant production. Farming systems have intensified greatly over time, and in recent years it has become apparent that the concomitant increase in losses of N and P from agricultural land is having a serious detrimental effect on water quality and the environment. The last two decades have seen a marked increase in research into the issues surrounding diffuse losses of P to surface and ground water. This paper reviews this research, examining the issue of P forms in runoff, and highlighting the exceptions to some generally held assumptions about land use and P transport. In particular the review focuses on P losses associated with recent P fertilizer application, as opposed to organic manures, both on the amounts and the forms of P in runoff water. The effects of the physicochemical characteristics of different forms of P fertilizer are explored, particularly in relation to water solubility. Various means of mitigating the risk of loss of P are discussed. It is argued that the influence of recent fertilizer applications is an under-researched area, yet may offer the most readily applicable opportunity to mitigate P losses by land users. This review highlights and discusses some options that have recently become available that may make a significant contribution to the task of sustainable management of nutrient losses from agriculture.

  7. Soil, land use time, and sustainable intensification of agriculture in the Brazilian Cerrado region.

    PubMed

    Trabaquini, Kleber; Galvão, Lênio Soares; Formaggio, Antonio Roberto; de Aragão, Luiz Eduardo Oliveira E Cruz

    2017-02-01

    The Brazilian Cerrado area is in rapid decline because of the expansion of modern agriculture. In this study, we used extensive field data and a 30-year chronosequence of Landsat images (1980-2010) to assess the effects of time since conversion of Cerrado into agriculture upon soil chemical attributes and soybean/corn yield in the Alto do Rio Verde watershed. We determined the rates of vegetation conversion into agriculture, the agricultural land use time since conversion, and the temporal changes in topsoil (0-20 cm soil depth) and subsurface (20-40 cm) chemical attributes of the soils. In addition, we investigated possible associations between fertilization/over-fertilization and land use history detected from the satellites. The results showed that 61.8% of the native vegetation in the Alto do Rio Verde watershed was already converted into agriculture with 31% of soils being used in agriculture for more than 30 years. While other fertilizers in cultivated soils (e.g., Ca +2 , Mg +2 , and P) have been compensated over time by soil management practices to keep crop yield high, large reductions in C org (38%) and N tot (29%) were observed in old cultivated areas. Furthermore, soybean and cornfields having more than 10 years of farming presented higher values of P and Mg +2 than the ideal levels necessary for plant development. Therefore, increased risks of over-fertilization of the soils and environmental contamination with these macronutrients were associated with soybean and cornfields having more than 10 years of farming, especially those with more than 30 years of agricultural land use.

  8. The impact of map and data resolution on the determination of the agricultural utilisation of organic soils in Germany.

    PubMed

    Roeder, Norbert; Osterburg, Bernhard

    2012-06-01

    Due to its nature, agricultural land use depends on local site characteristics such as production potential, costs and external effects. To assess the relevance of the modifying areal unit problem (MAUP), we investigated as to how a change in the data resolution regarding both soil and land use data influences the results obtained for different land use indicators. For the assessment we use the example of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculturally used organic soils (mainly fens and bogs). Although less than 5 % of the German agricultural area in use is located on organic soils, the drainage of these areas to enable their agricultural utilization causes roughly 37 % of the GHG emissions of the German agricultural sector. The abandonment of the cultivation and rewetting of organic soils would be an effective policy to reduce national GHG emissions. To assess the abatement costs, it is essential to know which commodities, and at what quantities, are actually produced on this land. Furthermore, in order to limit windfall profits, information on the differences of the profitability among farms are needed. However, high-resolution data regarding land use and soil characteristics are often not available, and their generation is costly or the access is strictly limited because of legal constraints. Therefore, in this paper, we analyse how indicators for land use on organic soils respond to changes in the spatial aggregation of the data. In Germany, organic soils are predominantly used for forage cropping. Marked differences between the various regions of Germany are apparent with respect to the dynamics and the intensity of land use. Data resolution mainly impairs the derived extent of agriculturally used peatland and the observed intensity gradient, while its impact on the average value for the investigated set of land-use indicators is generally minor.

  9. Rural land-use trends in the conterminous United States, 1950-2000

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Brown, Daniel G.; Johnson, Kenneth M.; Loveland, Thomas R.; Theobald, David M.

    2005-01-01

    In order to understand the magnitude, direction, and geographic distribution of land-use changes, we evaluated land-use trends in U.S. counties during the latter half of the 20th century. Our paper synthesizes the dominant spatial and temporal trends in population, agriculture, and urbanized land uses, using a variety of data sources and an ecoregion classification as a frame of reference. A combination of increasing attractiveness of nonmetropolitan areas in the period 1970–2000, decreasing household size, and decreasing density of settlement has resulted in important trends in the patterns of developed land. By 2000, the area of low-density, exurban development beyond the urban fringe occupied nearly 15 times the area of higher density urbanized development. Efficiency gains, mechanization, and agglomeration of agricultural concerns has resulted in data that show cropland area to be stable throughout the Corn Belt and parts of the West between 1950 and 2000, but decreasing by about 22% east of the Mississippi River. We use a regional case study of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions to focus in more detail on the land-cover changes resulting from these dynamics. Dominating were land-cover changes associated with the timber practices in the forested plains ecoregions and urbanization in the piedmont ecoregions. Appalachian ecoregions show the slowest rates of land-cover change. The dominant trends of tremendous exurban growth, throughout the United States, and conversion and abandonment of agricultural lands, especially in the eastern United States, have important implications because they affect large areas of the country, the functioning of ecological systems, and the potential for restoration.

  10. NASA Land Cover and Land Use Change (LCLUC): an interdisciplinary research program.

    PubMed

    Justice, Chris; Gutman, Garik; Vadrevu, Krishna Prasad

    2015-01-15

    Understanding Land Cover/Land Use Change (LCLUC) in diverse regions of the world and at varied spatial scales is one of the important challenges in global change research. In this article, we provide a brief overview of the NASA LCLUC program, its focus areas, and the importance of satellite remote sensing observations in LCLUC research including future directions. The LCLUC Program was designed to be a cross-cutting theme within NASA's Earth Science program. The program aims to develop and use remote sensing technologies to improve understanding of human interactions with the environment. Since 1997, the NASA LCLUC program has supported nearly 280 research projects on diverse topics such as forest loss and carbon, urban expansion, land abandonment, wetland loss, agricultural land use change and land use change in mountain systems. The NASA LCLUC program emphasizes studies where land-use changes are rapid or where there are significant regional or global LCLUC implications. Over a period of years, the LCLUC program has contributed to large regional science programs such as Land Biosphere-Atmosphere (LBA), the Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI), and the Monsoon Area Integrated Regional Study (MAIRS). The primary emphasis of the program will remain on using remote sensing datasets for LCLUC research. The program will continue to emphasize integration of physical and social sciences to address regional to global scale issues of LCLUC for the benefit of society. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  11. Changes in population and agricultural land in conterminous United States counties, 1790 to 1997

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Waisanen, Pamela J.; Bliss, Norman B.

    2002-01-01

    We have developed a data set of changes in population and agricultural land for the conterminous United States at the county level, resulting in more spatial detail than in previously available compilations. The purpose was to provide data on the timing of land conversion as an input to dynamic models of the carbon cycle, although a wide variety of applications exist for the physical, biological, and social sciences. The spatial data represent the appropriate county boundaries for each census year between 1790 and 1997, and the census attributes are attached to the appropriate spatial region. The resulting time series and maps show the history of population (1790-1990) and the history of agricultural development (1850-1997). The patterns of agricultural development reflect the influences of climate, soil productivity, increases in population size, variations in the general economy, and technological changes in the energy, transportation, and agricultural sectors.

  12. Stream Sediment Sources in Midwest Agricultural Basins with Land Retirement along Channel.

    PubMed

    Williamson, T N; Christensen, V G; Richardson, W B; Frey, J W; Gellis, A C; Kieta, K A; Fitzpatrick, F A

    2014-09-01

    Documenting the effects of agricultural land retirement on stream-sediment sources is critical to identifying management practices that improve water quality and aquatic habitat. Particularly difficult to quantify are the effects from conservation easements that commonly are discontinuous along channelized streams and ditches throughout the agricultural midwestern United States. Our hypotheses were that sediment from cropland, retired land, stream banks, and roads would be discernible using isotopic and elemental concentrations and that source contributions would vary with land retirement distribution along tributaries of West Fork Beaver Creek in Minnesota. Channel-bed and suspended sediment were sampled at nine locations and compared with local source samples by using linear discriminant analysis and a four-source mixing model that evaluated seven tracers: In, P, total C, Be, Tl, Th, and Ti. The proportion of sediment sources differed significantly between suspended and channel-bed sediment. Retired land contributed to channel-bed sediment but was not discernible as a source of suspended sediment, suggesting that retired-land material was not mobilized during high-flow conditions. Stream banks were a large contributor to suspended sediment; however, the percentage of stream-bank sediment in the channel bed was lower in basins with more continuous retired land along the riparian corridor. Cropland sediments had the highest P concentrations; basins with the highest cropland-sediment contributions also had the highest P concentrations. Along stream reaches with retired land, there was a lower proportion of cropland material in suspended sediment relative to sites that had almost no land retirement, indicating less movement of nutrients and sediment from cropland to the channel as a result of land retirement. Copyright © by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, Inc.

  13. Agricultural land use intensity and its determinants: A case study in Taibus Banner, Inner Mongolia, China

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Hao, Haiguang; Li, Xiubin; Tan, Minghong; Zhang, Jiping; Zhang, Huiyuan

    2015-06-01

    Based on rural household survey data from Taibus Banner, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, this study separately categorizes agricultural land use intensity into labor intensity, capital intensity, the intensity of labor-saving inputs, and the intensity of yield-increasing inputs, and then analyzes their determinants at the household level. The findings reveal that within the study area: (1) labor intensity is higher and capital intensity is lower than in the major grain-producing and economically developed areas of eastern and central China; (2) the most widely planted crops are those with the lowest labor intensity (oats) and capital intensity (benne); (3) there are marked differences in agricultural land use intensity among households; a major factor affecting land use decision-making is the reduced need for labor intensity for those households with high opportunity costs, such as those with income earned from non-farming activities which alleviates financial constraints and allows for increased capital intensity. As a result, these households invest more in labor-saving inputs; (4) households with a larger number of workers will allocate adequate time to manage their land and thus they will not necessarily invest more in labor-saving inputs. Those households with more land to manage tend to adopt an extensive cultivation strategy. Total income has a positive impact on capital intensity and a negative impact on labor intensity. Households that derive a higher proportion of their total income through farming are more reliant upon agriculture, which necessitates significant labor and yield-increasing inputs. Finally, the authors contend that policy makers should clearly recognize the impacts of non-farming employment on agricultural land use intensity. In order to ensure long-term food security and sustainable agricultural development in China, income streams from both farming and non-farming employment should be balanced.

  14. Establishing sustainable GHG inventory systems in African countries for Agriculture and Land Use, Land-use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Wirth, T. C.; Troxler, T.

    2015-12-01

    As signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), developing countries are required to produce greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories every two years. For many developing countries, including many of those in Africa, this is a significant challenge as it requires establishing a robust and sustainable GHG inventory system. In order to help support these efforts, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has worked in collaboration with the UNFCCC to assist African countries in establishing sustainable GHG inventory systems and generating high-quality inventories on a regular basis. The sectors we have focused on for these GHG inventory capacity building efforts in Africa are Agriculture and Land Use, Land-use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) as these tend to represent a significant portion of their GHG emissions profile and the data requirements and methodologies are often more complex than for other sectors. To support these efforts, the U.S. EPA has provided technical assistance in understanding the methods in the IPCC Guidelines, assembling activity data and emission factors, including developing land-use maps for representing a country's land base, and implementing the calculations. EPA has also supported development of various tools such as a Template Workbook that helps the country build the institutional arrangement and strong documentation that are necessary for generating GHG inventories on a regular basis, as well as performing other procedures as identified by IPCC Good Practice Guidance such as quality assurance/quality control, key category analysis and archiving. Another tool used in these projects and helps country's implement the methods from the IPCC Guidelines for the Agriculture and LULUCF sectors is the Agriculture and Land Use (ALU) tool. This tool helps countries assemble the activity data and emission factors, including supporting the import of GIS maps, and applying the equations from the IPPC Guidelines to

  15. Adaptation of Bird Communities to Farmland Abandonment in a Mountain Landscape

    PubMed Central

    Guilherme, João Lopes; Miguel Pereira, Henrique

    2013-01-01

    Widespread farmland abandonment has led to significant landscape transformations of many European mountain areas. These semi-natural multi-habitat landscapes are important reservoirs of biodiversity and their abandonment has important conservation implications. In multi-habitat landscapes the adaptation of communities depends on the differential affinity of the species to the available habitats. We use nested species-area relationships (SAR) to model species richness patterns of bird communities across scales in a mountain landscape, in NW Portugal. We compare the performance of the classic-SAR and the countryside-SAR (i.e. multi-habitat) models at the landscape scale, and compare species similarity decay (SSD) at the regional scale. We find a considerable overlap of bird communities in the different land-uses (farmland, shrubland and oak forest) at the landscape scale. Analysis of the classic and countryside SAR show that specialist species are strongly related to their favourite habitat. Farmland and shrubland have higher regional SSD compared to oak forests. However, this is due to the opportunistic use of farmlands by generalist birds. Forest specialists display significant regional turnover in oak forest. Overall, the countryside-SAR model had a better fit to the data showing that habitat composition determines species richness across scales. Finally, we use the countryside-SAR model to forecast bird diversity under four scenarios of land-use change. Farmland abandonment scenarios show little impact on bird diversity as the model predicts that the complete loss of farmland is less dramatic, in terms of species diversity loss, than the disappearance of native Galicio-Portuguese oak forest. The affinities of species to non-preferred habitats suggest that bird communities can adapt to land-use changes derived from farmland abandonment. Based on model predictions we argue that rewilding may be a suitable management option for many European mountain areas. PMID

  16. Mapping Large-Scale Mechanized Agriculture Across the Brazilian Cerrado Between 2001-2013

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Spera, S. A.; Mustard, J. F.; VanWey, L.

    2014-12-01

    Brazil is a global commodities powerhouse. Over the last decade, dynamic changes in agricultural development and land transformations occurred within Brazil's tropical savanna region, the cerrado. This interdisciplinary study uses remote sensing tools to map land cover across more than 3.6 million km2 of cerrado and statistical methods to characterize drivers of this land-cover change. We use the MODIS Enhanced Vegetation Index 16-day data product and a decision-tree algorithm, proven highly accurate in Mato Grosso (Spera et al. 2014) and here modified for the broader cerrado region, to characterize crop type, cropping frequency, expansion, and abandonment of large-scale mechanized agriculture during the 2001-2013 period. The algorithm exploits phenological differences between forest, pasture and cerrado, and mechanized agriculture. It is parameterized to distinguish between crop rotations in Mato Grosso, Goias, and the new agricultural frontier spanning Maranhao, Tocantins, Piaui, and Bahia (MaToPiBa). Training and validation data were collected using Google's Earth Engine. We map single-cropped soy, corn, and cotton; double-cropped soy/corn and soy/cotton rotations; and irrigated agriculture across these six Brazilian cerrado states. We find that while double cropping dominates in Mato Grosso and Goias, single cropping is still the dominant form of mechanized agriculture in the burgeoning MaToPiBa region. In western Bahia alone, preliminary results show agriculture has expanded by almost 350,000 ha and double cropping has increased by almost 40,000 ha. With MaToPiBa touted as Brazil's latest and last agricultural frontier, we predict that the region will experience a transition similar to that of Mato Grosso during the 2000s—an expansion and intensification of agriculture—which may beget unprecedented ramifications on regional climate processes that can then affect ecosystem health and the economic feasibility of cultivating rain-fed export crops.

  17. Carbon pool and biomass dynamics associated with deforestation, land use, and agricultural abandonment in the neotropics

    Treesearch

    J.B. Kauffman; R.F. Hughes; C. Heider

    2009-01-01

    Current rates of deforestation and the resulting C emissions in the tropics exceed those of secondary forest regrowth and C sequestration. Changing land-use strategies that would maintain standing forests may be among the least expensive of climate change mitigation options. Further, secondary tropical forests have been suggested to have great value for their potential...

  18. Agricultural Development, Land Change, and Livelihoods in Tanzania's Kilombero Valley

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Connors, John Patrick

    The Kilombero Valley lies at the intersection of a network of protected areas that cross Tanzania. The wetlands and woodlands of the Valley, as well as the forest of surrounding mountains are abundant in biodiversity and are considered to be critical areas for conservation. This area, however, is also the home to more than a half million people, primarily poor smallholder farmers. In an effort to support the livelihoods and food security of these farmers and the larger Tanzanian population, the country has recently targeted a series of programs to increase agricultural production in the Kilombero Valley and elsewhere in the country. Bridging concepts and methods from land change science, political ecology, and sustainable livelihoods, I present an integrated assessment of the linkages between development and conservation efforts in the Kilombero Valley and the implications for food security. This dissertation uses three empirical studies to understand the process of development in the Kilombero Valley and to link the priorities and perceptions of conservation and development efforts to the material outcomes in food security and land change. The first paper of this dissertation examines the changes in land use in the Kilombero Valley between 1997 and 2014 following the privatization of agriculture and the expansion of Tanzania's Kilimo Kwanza program. Remote sensing analysis reveals a two-fold increase in agricultural area during this short time, largely at the expense of forest. Protected areas in some parts of the Valley appear to be deterring deforestation, but rapid agricultural growth, particularly surrounding a commercial rice plantation, has led to loss of extant forest and sustained habitat fragmentation. The second paper focuses examines livelihood strategies in the Valley and claims regarding the role of agrobiodiversity in food security. The results of household survey reveal no difference or lower food security among households that diversify their

  19. Land use policy and agricultural water management of the previous half of century in Africa

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Valipour, Mohammad

    2015-12-01

    This paper examines land use policy and agricultural water management in Africa from 1962 to 2011. For this purpose, data were gathered from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Bank Group. Using the FAO database, ten indices were selected: permanent crops to cultivated area (%), rural population to total population (%), total economically active population in agriculture to total economically active population (%), human development index, national rainfall index (mm/year), value added to gross domestic product by agriculture (%), irrigation water requirement (mm/year), percentage of total cultivated area drained (%), difference between national rainfall index and irrigation water requirement (mm/year), area equipped for irrigation to cultivated area or land use policy index (%). These indices were analyzed for all 53 countries in the study area and the land use policy index was estimated by two different formulas. The results show that value of relative error is <20 %. In addition, an average index was calculated using various methods to assess countries' conditions for agricultural water management. Ability of irrigation and drainage systems was studied using other eight indices with more limited information. These indices are surface irrigation (%), sprinkler irrigation (%), localized irrigation (%), spate irrigation (%), agricultural water withdrawal (10 km3/year), conservation agriculture area as percentage of cultivated area (%), percentage of area equipped for irrigation salinized (%), and area waterlogged by irrigation (%). Finally, tendency of farmers to use irrigation systems for cultivated crops has been presented. The results show that Africa needs governments' policy to encourage farmers to use irrigation systems and raise cropping intensity for irrigated area.

  20. Carbohydrates and thermal analysis reflects changes in soil organic matter stability after forest expansion on abandoned grassland

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Guidi, Claudia; Vesterdal, Lars; Cannella, David; Leifeld, Jens; Gianelle, Damiano; Rodeghiero, Mirco

    2014-05-01

    Grassland abandonment, followed by progressive forest expansion, is the dominant land-use change in the Southern Alps, Europe. Land-use change can affect not only the amount of organic matter (OM) in soil but also its composition and stability. Our objective was to investigate changes in organic matter properties after forest expansion on abandoned grasslands, combining analysis of carbohydrates, indicative of labile OM compounds with prevalent plant or microbial origin, with thermal analysis. Thermal analysis was used as a rapid assessment method for the characterization of SOM stability. A land-use gradient was investigated in four land-use types in the subalpine area of Trentino region, Italy: i) managed grassland, mown and fertilized for the past 100 years; ii) grassland abandoned since 10 years, with sparse shrubs and Picea abies saplings; iii) early-stage forest, dominated by P. abies and established on a grassland abandoned around 1970; iv) old forest, dominated by Fagus sylvatica and P. abies. Mineral soil was sampled at three subplots in each land use type with eight soil cores, which were subsequently pooled by depth (0-5 cm, 5-10 cm, 10-20 cm). Sugars were extracted from bulk soil samples through acid hydrolysis with H2SO4 (0.5 M). The analytical composition of sugar monomers was performed with HPAEC technology (Dionex ICS5000), equipped with PAD-detection. Thermal stability was assessed with a differential scanning calorimeter DSC100, heating soil samples up to 600°C at a heating rate of 10°C min-1 in synthetic air. Peak height (W g OC-1) of 1st DSC exotherm, dominated by burning of labile OM compounds, was used as thermal stability index. In the abandoned grassland, carbohydrates compounds accounted for a greater proportion of soil OC than in other land use types. Microbially derived sugars, as rhamnose and galactose, were more abundant in managed and abandoned grasslands compared with early-stage and old forest. The amount of thermally labile sugars

  1. The Contribution of Agriculture, Forestry and other Land Use activities to Global Warming, 1990-2012.

    PubMed

    Tubiello, Francesco N; Salvatore, Mirella; Ferrara, Alessandro F; House, Jo; Federici, Sandro; Rossi, Simone; Biancalani, Riccardo; Condor Golec, Rocio D; Jacobs, Heather; Flammini, Alessandro; Prosperi, Paolo; Cardenas-Galindo, Paola; Schmidhuber, Josef; Sanz Sanchez, Maria J; Srivastava, Nalin; Smith, Pete

    2015-01-10

    We refine the information available through the IPCC AR5 with regard to recent trends in global GHG emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU), including global emission updates to 2012. Using all three available AFOLU datasets employed for analysis in the IPCC AR5, rather than just one as done in the IPCC AR5 WGIII Summary for Policy Makers, our analyses point to a down-revision of global AFOLU shares of total anthropogenic emissions, while providing important additional information on subsectoral trends. Our findings confirm that the share of AFOLU emissions to the anthropogenic total declined over time. They indicate a decadal average of 28.7 ± 1.5% in the 1990s and 23.6 ± 2.1% in the 2000s and an annual value of 21.2 ± 1.5% in 2010. The IPCC AR5 had indicated a 24% share in 2010. In contrast to previous decades, when emissions from land use (land use, land use change and forestry, including deforestation) were significantly larger than those from agriculture (crop and livestock production), in 2010 agriculture was the larger component, contributing 11.2 ± 0.4% of total GHG emissions, compared to 10.0 ± 1.2% of the land use sector. Deforestation was responsible for only 8% of total anthropogenic emissions in 2010, compared to 12% in the 1990s. Since 2010, the last year assessed by the IPCC AR5, new FAO estimates indicate that land use emissions have remained stable, at about 4.8 Gt CO 2 eq yr -1 in 2012. Emissions minus removals have also remained stable, at 3.2 Gt CO 2 eq yr -1 in 2012. By contrast, agriculture emissions have continued to grow, at roughly 1% annually, and remained larger than the land use sector, reaching 5.4 Gt CO 2 eq yr -1 in 2012. These results are useful to further inform the current climate policy debate on land use, suggesting that more efforts and resources should be directed to further explore options for mitigation in agriculture, much in line with the large efforts devoted to REDD+ in the

  2. Spatial Modeling of Agricultural Land-Use Change at Global Scale

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Meiyappan, Prasanth; Dalton, Michael; O'Neill, Brian C.; Jain, Atul K.

    2013-12-01

    regions, and (2) the impacts of various driving factors on shaping the cropland and pastureland patterns over the 20th century. Specifically, we focus on the causes of changes in land-use patterns in certain key regions of the world, such as the abandonment of cropland in the eastern US and a subsequent expansion to the mid-west US. This presentation will focus on the scientific basis behind the developed framework and motivations behind selecting specific statistical techniques to implement the scientific theory. Specifically, we will highlight the application of recently developed statistical techniques that are highly efficient in dealing with problems such as spatial autocorrelation and multicollinearity that are common in land-change studies. However, these statistical techniques have largely been confined to medical literature. We will present the validation results and an example application of the developed framework within an IAM. The presented framework provides a benchmark for long-term spatial modeling of land use that will benefit the IAM, land use and the Earth system modeling communities.

  3. The potential and sustainability of agricultural land use in a changing ecosystem in southern Greenland

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Hunziker, Matthias; Caviezel, Chatrina; Kuhn, Nikolaus J.

    2015-04-01

    Southern Greenland currently experiences an increase in summer temperatures and a prolonged growing season (Masson-Delmotte et al. 2012), resulting in an increased potential regarding agricultural land use. Subsequently, the agricultural sector is expected to grow. Thereby, a higher hay production and grazing capacity is pursued by applying more efficient farming practices (Greenland Agriculture Advisory Board 2009). However, agricultural potential at borderline ecotones is not only influenced by factors like temperature and growing season but also by other ecologic parameters. In addition, the intensification of land use in the fragile boreal - tundra border ecotone has various environmental impacts (Perren et al. 2012; Normand et al. 2013). Already the Norse settlers practiced animal husbandry in southern Greenland between 986-1450 AD. Several authors mention the unadapted land use as main reason for the demise of the Norse in Greenland, as grazing pressure exceeded the resilience of the landscape and pasture economy failed (Fredskild 1988; Perren et al. 2012). During the field work in summer 2014, we compared the pedologic properties of already used hay fields, grazed land, birch woodland and barren, unused land around Igaliku (South Greenland), in order to estimate the potential and the sustainability of the land use in southern Greenland. Beside physical soil properties, nutrient condition of the different land use types, the shrub woodland and barren areas was analyzed. The results of the study show that the most suitable areas for intensive agricultural activity are mostly occupied. Further on, the fields, which were used by the Norse, seem to be the most productive sites nowadays. Less productive hay fields are characterized by a higher coarse fraction, leading to a reduced ability to store water and to an unfavorable nutrient status. An intensification of the agricultural land use by applying fertilizer would lead to an increased environmental impact

  4. Spatial modeling of agricultural land use change at global scale

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Meiyappan, P.; Dalton, M.; O'Neill, B. C.; Jain, A. K.

    2014-11-01

    Long-term modeling of agricultural land use is central in global scale assessments of climate change, food security, biodiversity, and climate adaptation and mitigation policies. We present a global-scale dynamic land use allocation model and show that it can reproduce the broad spatial features of the past 100 years of evolution of cropland and pastureland patterns. The modeling approach integrates economic theory, observed land use history, and data on both socioeconomic and biophysical determinants of land use change, and estimates relationships using long-term historical data, thereby making it suitable for long-term projections. The underlying economic motivation is maximization of expected profits by hypothesized landowners within each grid cell. The model predicts fractional land use for cropland and pastureland within each grid cell based on socioeconomic and biophysical driving factors that change with time. The model explicitly incorporates the following key features: (1) land use competition, (2) spatial heterogeneity in the nature of driving factors across geographic regions, (3) spatial heterogeneity in the relative importance of driving factors and previous land use patterns in determining land use allocation, and (4) spatial and temporal autocorrelation in land use patterns. We show that land use allocation approaches based solely on previous land use history (but disregarding the impact of driving factors), or those accounting for both land use history and driving factors by mechanistically fitting models for the spatial processes of land use change do not reproduce well long-term historical land use patterns. With an example application to the terrestrial carbon cycle, we show that such inaccuracies in land use allocation can translate into significant implications for global environmental assessments. The modeling approach and its evaluation provide an example that can be useful to the land use, Integrated Assessment, and the Earth system modeling

  5. Mitigation Strategies for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Agriculture and Land-Use Change: Consequences for Food Prices.

    PubMed

    Stevanović, Miodrag; Popp, Alexander; Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon; Humpenöder, Florian; Müller, Christoph; Weindl, Isabelle; Dietrich, Jan Philipp; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Kreidenweis, Ulrich; Rolinski, Susanne; Biewald, Anne; Wang, Xiaoxi

    2017-01-03

    The land use sector of agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) plays a central role in ambitious climate change mitigation efforts. Yet, mitigation policies in agriculture may be in conflict with food security related targets. Using a global agro-economic model, we analyze the impacts on food prices under mitigation policies targeting either incentives for producers (e.g., through taxes) or consumer preferences (e.g., through education programs). Despite having a similar reduction potential of 43-44% in 2100, the two types of policy instruments result in opposite outcomes for food prices. Incentive-based mitigation, such as protecting carbon-rich forests or adopting low-emission production techniques, increase land scarcity and production costs and thereby food prices. Preference-based mitigation, such as reduced household waste or lower consumption of animal-based products, decreases land scarcity, prevents emissions leakage, and concentrates production on the most productive sites and consequently lowers food prices. Whereas agricultural emissions are further abated in the combination of these mitigation measures, the synergy of strategies fails to substantially lower food prices. Additionally, we demonstrate that the efficiency of agricultural emission abatement is stable across a range of greenhouse-gas (GHG) tax levels, while resulting food prices exhibit a disproportionally larger spread.

  6. U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS ABANDONED MINE LAND REMEDIATION WORKSHOP

    EPA Science Inventory

    Mining activities in the US (not counting coal) produce 1-2 billion tons of mine waste annually. Since many of the ore mines involve sulfide minerals, the production of acid mine drainage (AMD) is a common problem from these abandoned mine sites. The combination of acidity, heavy...

  7. Land use and surface process domains on alpine hillslopes

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kuhn, Nikolaus J.; Caviezel, Chatrina; Hunziker, Matthias

    2015-04-01

    Shrubs and trees are generally considered to protect hillslopes from erosion. As a consequence, shrub encroachment on mountain pastures after abandoning grazing is not considered a threat to soils. However, the abandonment of mown or grazed grasslands causes a shift in vegetation composition and thus a change in landscape ecology and geomorphology. On many alpine slopes, current changes in land use and vegetation cover are accompanied by climate change, potentially generating a new geomorphic regime. Most of the debate focuses on the effect of land abandonment on water erosion rates. Generally, an established perennial vegetation cover improves the mechanical anchoring of the soil and the regulation of the soil water budget, including runoff generation and erosion. However, changing vegetation composition affects many other above- and below-ground properties like root density, -diversity and -geometry, soil structure, pore volume and acidity. Each combination of these properties can lead to a distinct scenario of dominating surface processes, often not reflected by common erosion risk assessment procedures. The study of soil properties along a chronosequence of green alder (alnusviridis) encroachment on the Unteralptal in central Switzerland reveals that shrub encroachment changes soil and vegetation properties towards an increase of resistance to run-off related erosion processes, but a decrease of slope stability against shallow landslides. The latter are a particular threat because of the currently increasing frequency of slide-triggering high magnitude rainfalls. The potential change of process domain on alpine pastures highlights the need for a careful use of erosion models when assessing future land use and climate scenarios. In mountains, but also other intensively managed agricultural landscapes, risk assessment without the appropriate reflection on the shifting relevance of surface processes carries the risk of missing future threats to environmental

  8. Soil nutrients and stoichiometric ratios as affected by land use and lithology at county scale in a karst area, southwest China.

    PubMed

    Wang, Miaomiao; Chen, Hongsong; Zhang, Wei; Wang, Kelin

    2018-04-01

    Soil carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) are the main soil nutrients required for plant development and their stoichiometric ratios are important indicators of ecosystem functions. However, there have been few studies on the effects of land use and lithology on soil nutrients and stoichiometric ratios, especially in karst areas with extremely fragile geology and intensive human disturbance. To evaluate the synergistic effect of land use and lithology, soil samples at depth of 0-15cm were collected from five land-use types (arable land, plantation forest, grassland, shrubland, and secondary forest) over three lithologies (karst dolomite and limestone and non-karst clasolite) in a typical karst area in southwest China. For natural succession, grassland, shrubland, and secondary forest corresponded to the early, middle, and late successional stage after agricultural abandonment, while from arable land to plantation forest can be treated as a manual reversion after agricultural abandonment. The results showed that, in dolomite, soil organic C (SOC) and total N (TN) increased continuously with natural succession and increased in plantation forest compared to arable land. Total P (TP) continued to decrease from arable land to grassland and then to shrubland. In limestone, SOC and TN did not follow the same pattern because SOC and TN were slightly higher in grassland than shrubland, while TN was slightly lower in plantation forest compared to arable land. TP was remarkably higher in arable land than the other land-use types. For clasolite, SOC was highest in grassland, while TN was not significantly different among land-use types. Compared to arable land, TP was lower in other types of land use. These soil nutrient characteristics led to various stoichiometric ratios under the five land-use types over different lithologies. Therefore, ecological restoration projects based on land use conversion should consider differences in regional lithology and human

  9. Characterization of agricultural land using singular value decomposition

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Herries, Graham M.; Danaher, Sean; Selige, Thomas

    1995-11-01

    A method is defined and tested for the characterization of agricultural land from multi-spectral imagery, based on singular value decomposition (SVD) and key vector analysis. The SVD technique, which bears a close resemblance to multivariate statistic techniques, has previously been successfully applied to problems of signal extraction for marine data and forestry species classification. In this study the SVD technique is used as a classifier for agricultural regions, using airborne Daedalus ATM data, with 1 m resolution. The specific region chosen is an experimental research farm in Bavaria, Germany. This farm has a large number of crops, within a very small region and hence is not amenable to existing techniques. There are a number of other significant factors which render existing techniques such as the maximum likelihood algorithm less suitable for this area. These include a very dynamic terrain and tessellated pattern soil differences, which together cause large variations in the growth characteristics of the crops. The SVD technique is applied to this data set using a multi-stage classification approach, removing unwanted land-cover classes one step at a time. Typical classification accuracy's for SVD are of the order of 85-100%. Preliminary results indicate that it is a fast and efficient classifier with the ability to differentiate between crop types such as wheat, rye, potatoes and clover. The results of characterizing 3 sub-classes of Winter Wheat are also shown.

  10. Past agricultural land use and present-day fire regimes can interact to determine the nature of seed predation.

    PubMed

    Stuhler, John D; Orrock, John L

    2016-06-01

    Historical agriculture and present-day fire regimes can have significant effects on contemporary ecosystems. Although past agricultural land use can lead to long-term changes in plant communities, it remains unclear whether these persistent land-use legacies alter plant-consumer interactions, such as seed predation, and whether contemporary disturbance (e.g., fire) alters the effects of historical agriculture on these interactions. We conducted a study at 27 sites distributed across 80,300 ha in post-agricultural and non-agricultural longleaf pine woodlands with different degrees of fire frequency to test the hypothesis that past and present-day disturbances that alter plant communities can subsequently alter seed predation. We quantified seed removal by arthropods and rodents for Tephrosia virginiana and Vernonia angustifolia, species of conservation interest. We found that the effects of land-use history and fire frequency on seed removal were contingent on granivore guild and microhabitat characteristics. Tephrosia virginiana removal was greater in low fire frequency sites, due to greater seed removal by rodents. Although overall removal of V. angustifolia did not differ among habitats, rodents removed more seeds than arthropods at post-agricultural sites and non-agricultural sites with low fire frequencies, but not at non-agricultural sites with high fire frequencies. Land-use history and fire frequency also affected the relationship between microhabitat characteristics and removal of V. angustifolia. Our results suggest that historical agriculture and present-day fire regimes may alter seed predation by shifting the impact of rodent and arthropod seed predators among habitats, with potential consequences for the establishment of rare plant species consumed by one or both predators.

  11. Global Tree Cover and Biomass Carbon on Agricultural Land: The contribution of agroforestry to global and national carbon budgets.

    PubMed

    Zomer, Robert J; Neufeldt, Henry; Xu, Jianchu; Ahrends, Antje; Bossio, Deborah; Trabucco, Antonio; van Noordwijk, Meine; Wang, Mingcheng

    2016-07-20

    Agroforestry systems and tree cover on agricultural land make an important contribution to climate change mitigation, but are not systematically accounted for in either global carbon budgets or national carbon accounting. This paper assesses the role of trees on agricultural land and their significance for carbon sequestration at a global level, along with recent change trends. Remote sensing data show that in 2010, 43% of all agricultural land globally had at least 10% tree cover and that this has increased by 2% over the previous ten years. Combining geographically and bioclimatically stratified Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 1 default estimates of carbon storage with this tree cover analysis, we estimated 45.3 PgC on agricultural land globally, with trees contributing >75%. Between 2000 and 2010 tree cover increased by 3.7%, resulting in an increase of >2 PgC (or 4.6%) of biomass carbon. On average, globally, biomass carbon increased from 20.4 to 21.4 tC ha(-1). Regional and country-level variation in stocks and trends were mapped and tabulated globally, and for all countries. Brazil, Indonesia, China and India had the largest increases in biomass carbon stored on agricultural land, while Argentina, Myanmar, and Sierra Leone had the largest decreases.

  12. Global Tree Cover and Biomass Carbon on Agricultural Land: The contribution of agroforestry to global and national carbon budgets

    PubMed Central

    Zomer, Robert J.; Neufeldt, Henry; Xu, Jianchu; Ahrends, Antje; Bossio, Deborah; Trabucco, Antonio; van Noordwijk, Meine; Wang, Mingcheng

    2016-01-01

    Agroforestry systems and tree cover on agricultural land make an important contribution to climate change mitigation, but are not systematically accounted for in either global carbon budgets or national carbon accounting. This paper assesses the role of trees on agricultural land and their significance for carbon sequestration at a global level, along with recent change trends. Remote sensing data show that in 2010, 43% of all agricultural land globally had at least 10% tree cover and that this has increased by 2% over the previous ten years. Combining geographically and bioclimatically stratified Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 1 default estimates of carbon storage with this tree cover analysis, we estimated 45.3 PgC on agricultural land globally, with trees contributing >75%. Between 2000 and 2010 tree cover increased by 3.7%, resulting in an increase of >2 PgC (or 4.6%) of biomass carbon. On average, globally, biomass carbon increased from 20.4 to 21.4 tC ha−1. Regional and country-level variation in stocks and trends were mapped and tabulated globally, and for all countries. Brazil, Indonesia, China and India had the largest increases in biomass carbon stored on agricultural land, while Argentina, Myanmar, and Sierra Leone had the largest decreases. PMID:27435095

  13. Thermal Band Analysis of Agricultural Land Use and its Effects on Bioclimatic Comfort: The Case of Pasinler

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Avdan, Uǧur; Demircioglu Yildiz, Nalan; Dagliyar, Ayse; Yigit Avdan, Zehra; Yilmaz, Sevgi

    2014-05-01

    Resolving the problems that arise due to the land use are not suitable for the purpose in the rural and urban areas most suitable for land use of parameters to be determined. Unintended and unplanned developments in the use of agricultural land in our country caused increases the losses by soil erosion. In this study, Thermal Band analysis is made in Pasinler city center with the aim of identifying bioclimatic comfort values of the different agricultural area. Satellite images can be applied for assessing the thermal urban environment as well as for defining heat islands in agricultural areas. In this context, temperature map is tried to be produced with land surface temperature (LST) analysis made on Landsat TM5 satellite image. The Landsat 5 images was obtained from USGS for the study area. Using Landsat bands of the study area was mapped by supervised classification with the maximum likelihood classification algorithm of ERDAS imagine 2011 software. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) image was produced by using Landsat images. The digital number of the Landsat thermal infrared band (10.40 - 12.50 µm) is converted to the spectral radiance. The surface emissivity was calculated by using NDVI. The spatial pattern of land surface temperature in the study area is taken to characterize their local effects on agricultural land. Areas having bioclimatic comfort and ecologically urbanized, are interpreted with different graphical presentation technics. The obtained results are important because they create data bases for sustainable urban planning and provide a direction for planners and governors. As a result of rapid changes in land use, rural ecosystems and quality of life are deteriorated and decreased. In the presence of increased building density, for the comfortable living of people natural and cultural resources should be analyzed in detail. For that reason, optimal land use planning should be made in rural area.

  14. Complexity in action: Untangling latent relationships between land quality, economic structures and socio-spatial patterns in Italy.

    PubMed

    Salvati, Luca; Tombolini, Ilaria; Gemmiti, Roberta; Carlucci, Margherita; Bajocco, Sofia; Perini, Luigi; Ferrara, Agostino; Colantoni, Andrea

    2017-01-01

    Land quality, a key economic capital supporting local development, is affected by biophysical and anthropogenic factors. Taken as a relevant attribute of economic systems, land quality has shaped the territorial organization of any given region influencing localization of agriculture, industry and settlements. In regions with long-established human-landscape interactions, such as the Mediterranean basin, land quality has determined social disparities and polarization in the use of land, reflecting the action of geographical gradients based on elevation and population density. The present study investigates latent relationships within a large set of indicators profiling local communities and land quality on a fine-grained resolution scale in Italy with the aim to assess the potential impact of land quality on the regional socioeconomic structure. The importance of land quality gradients in the socioeconomic configuration of urban and rural regions was verified analyzing the distribution of 149 socioeconomic and environmental indicators organized in 5 themes and 17 research dimensions. Agriculture, income, education and labour market variables discriminate areas with high land quality from areas with low land quality. While differential land quality in peri-urban areas may reflect conflicts between competing actors, moderate (or low) quality of land in rural districts is associated with depopulation, land abandonment, subsidence agriculture, unemployment and low educational levels. We conclude that the socioeconomic profile of local communities has been influenced by land quality in a different way along urban-rural gradients. Policies integrating environmental and socioeconomic measures are required to consider land quality as a pivotal target for sustainable development. Regional planning will benefit from an in-depth understanding of place-specific relationships between local communities and the environment.

  15. Complexity in action: Untangling latent relationships between land quality, economic structures and socio-spatial patterns in Italy

    PubMed Central

    Salvati, Luca; Tombolini, Ilaria; Gemmiti, Roberta; Carlucci, Margherita; Bajocco, Sofia; Perini, Luigi; Ferrara, Agostino

    2017-01-01

    Land quality, a key economic capital supporting local development, is affected by biophysical and anthropogenic factors. Taken as a relevant attribute of economic systems, land quality has shaped the territorial organization of any given region influencing localization of agriculture, industry and settlements. In regions with long-established human-landscape interactions, such as the Mediterranean basin, land quality has determined social disparities and polarization in the use of land, reflecting the action of geographical gradients based on elevation and population density. The present study investigates latent relationships within a large set of indicators profiling local communities and land quality on a fine-grained resolution scale in Italy with the aim to assess the potential impact of land quality on the regional socioeconomic structure. The importance of land quality gradients in the socioeconomic configuration of urban and rural regions was verified analyzing the distribution of 149 socioeconomic and environmental indicators organized in 5 themes and 17 research dimensions. Agriculture, income, education and labour market variables discriminate areas with high land quality from areas with low land quality. While differential land quality in peri-urban areas may reflect conflicts between competing actors, moderate (or low) quality of land in rural districts is associated with depopulation, land abandonment, subsidence agriculture, unemployment and low educational levels. We conclude that the socioeconomic profile of local communities has been influenced by land quality in a different way along urban-rural gradients. Policies integrating environmental and socioeconomic measures are required to consider land quality as a pivotal target for sustainable development. Regional planning will benefit from an in-depth understanding of place-specific relationships between local communities and the environment. PMID:28574984

  16. Compounding Effects of Agricultural Land Use and Water Use in Free-Flowing Rivers: Confounding Issues for Environmental Flows

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Hardie, Scott A.; Bobbi, Chris J.

    2018-03-01

    Defining the ecological impacts of water extraction from free-flowing river systems in altered landscapes is challenging as multiple stressors (e.g., flow regime alteration, increased sedimentation) may have simultaneous effects and attributing causality is problematic. This multiple-stressor context has been acknowledged in environmental flows science, but is often neglected when it comes to examining flow-ecology relationships, and setting and implementing environmental flows. We examined the impacts of land and water use on rivers in the upper Ringarooma River catchment in Tasmania (south-east Australia), which contains intensively irrigated agriculture, to support implementation of a water management plan. Temporal and spatial and trends in river condition were assessed using benthic macroinvertebrates as bioindicators. Relationships between macroinvertebrate community structure and environmental variables were examined using univariate and multivariate analyses, focusing on the impacts of agricultural land use and water use. Structural changes in macroinvertebrate communities in rivers in the catchment indicated temporal and spatial declines in the ecological condition of some stretches of river associated with agricultural land and water use. Moreover, water extraction appeared to exacerbate impairment associated with agricultural land use (e.g., reduced macroinvertebrate density, more flow-avoiding taxa). The findings of our catchment-specific bioassessments will underpin decision-making during the implementation of the Ringarooma water management plan, and highlight the need to consider compounding impacts of land and water use in environmental flows and water planning in agricultural landscapes.

  17. Compounding Effects of Agricultural Land Use and Water Use in Free-Flowing Rivers: Confounding Issues for Environmental Flows.

    PubMed

    Hardie, Scott A; Bobbi, Chris J

    2018-03-01

    Defining the ecological impacts of water extraction from free-flowing river systems in altered landscapes is challenging as multiple stressors (e.g., flow regime alteration, increased sedimentation) may have simultaneous effects and attributing causality is problematic. This multiple-stressor context has been acknowledged in environmental flows science, but is often neglected when it comes to examining flow-ecology relationships, and setting and implementing environmental flows. We examined the impacts of land and water use on rivers in the upper Ringarooma River catchment in Tasmania (south-east Australia), which contains intensively irrigated agriculture, to support implementation of a water management plan. Temporal and spatial and trends in river condition were assessed using benthic macroinvertebrates as bioindicators. Relationships between macroinvertebrate community structure and environmental variables were examined using univariate and multivariate analyses, focusing on the impacts of agricultural land use and water use. Structural changes in macroinvertebrate communities in rivers in the catchment indicated temporal and spatial declines in the ecological condition of some stretches of river associated with agricultural land and water use. Moreover, water extraction appeared to exacerbate impairment associated with agricultural land use (e.g., reduced macroinvertebrate density, more flow-avoiding taxa). The findings of our catchment-specific bioassessments will underpin decision-making during the implementation of the Ringarooma water management plan, and highlight the need to consider compounding impacts of land and water use in environmental flows and water planning in agricultural landscapes.

  18. Landscape evolution and agricultural land salinization in coastal area: A conceptual model.

    PubMed

    Bless, Aplena Elen; Colin, François; Crabit, Armand; Devaux, Nicolas; Philippon, Olivier; Follain, Stéphane

    2018-06-01

    Soil salinization is a major threat to agricultural lands. Among salt-affected lands, coastal areas could be considered as highly complex systems, where salinization degradation due to anthropogenic pressure and climate-induced changes could significantly alter system functioning. For such complex systems, conceptual models can be used as evaluation tools in a preliminary step to identify the main evolutionary processes responsible for soil and water salinization. This study aimed to propose a conceptual model for water fluxes in a coastal area affected by salinity, which can help to identify the relationships between agricultural landscape evolution and actual salinity. First, we conducted field investigations from 2012 to 2016, mainly based on both soil (EC 1/5 ) and water (EC w ) electrical conductivity survey. This allowed us to characterize spatial structures for EC 1/5 and EC w and to identify the river as a preponderant factor in land salinization. Subsequently, we proposed and used a conceptual model for water fluxes and conducted a time analysis (1962-2012) for three of its main constitutive elements, namely climate, river, and land systems. When integrated within the conceptual model framework, it appeared that the evolution of all constitutive elements since 1962 was responsible for the disruption of system equilibrium, favoring overall salt accumulation in the soil root zone. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  19. Colonization of Abandoned Land by Juniperus thurifera Is Mediated by the Interaction of a Diverse Dispersal Assemblage and Environmental Heterogeneity

    PubMed Central

    Escribano-Avila, Gema; Sanz-Pérez, Virginia; Pías, Beatriz; Virgós, Emilio; Escudero, Adrián; Valladares, Fernando

    2012-01-01

    Land abandonment is one of the most powerful global change drivers in developed countries where recent rural exodus has been the norm. Abandonment of traditional land use practices has permitted the colonization of these areas by shrub and tree species. For fleshy fruited species the colonization of new areas is determined by the dispersal assemblage composition and abundance. In this study we showed how the relative contribution to the dispersal process by each animal species is modulated by the environmental heterogeneity and ecosystem structure. This complex interaction caused differential patterns on the seed dispersal in both, landscape patches in which the process of colonization is acting nowadays and mature woodlands of Juniperus thurifera, a relict tree distributed in the western Mediterranean Basin. Thrushes (Turdus spp) and carnivores (red fox and stone marten) dispersed a high amount of seeds while rabbits and sheeps only a tiny fraction. Thrushes dispersed a significant amount of seeds in new colonization areas, however they were limited by the presence of high perches with big crop size. While carnivores dispersed seeds to all studied habitats, even in those patches where no trees of J. thurifera were present, turning out to be critical for primary colonization. The presence of Pinus and Quercus was related to a reduced consumption of J. thurifera seeds while the presence of fleshy fruited shrubs was related with higher content of J. thurifera seeds in dispersers’ faeces. Therefore environmental heterogeneity and ecosystem structure had a great influence on dispersers feeding behaviour, and should be considered in order to accurately describe the role of seed dispersal in ecological process, such as regeneration and colonization. J. thurifera expansion is not seed limited thanks to its diverse dispersal community, hence the conservation of all dispersers in an ecosystem enhance ecosystems services and resilience. PMID:23071692

  20. Colonization of abandoned land by Juniperus thurifera is mediated by the interaction of a diverse dispersal assemblage and environmental heterogeneity.

    PubMed

    Escribano-Avila, Gema; Sanz-Pérez, Virginia; Pías, Beatriz; Virgós, Emilio; Escudero, Adrián; Valladares, Fernando

    2012-01-01

    Land abandonment is one of the most powerful global change drivers in developed countries where recent rural exodus has been the norm. Abandonment of traditional land use practices has permitted the colonization of these areas by shrub and tree species. For fleshy fruited species the colonization of new areas is determined by the dispersal assemblage composition and abundance. In this study we showed how the relative contribution to the dispersal process by each animal species is modulated by the environmental heterogeneity and ecosystem structure. This complex interaction caused differential patterns on the seed dispersal in both, landscape patches in which the process of colonization is acting nowadays and mature woodlands of Juniperus thurifera, a relict tree distributed in the western Mediterranean Basin. Thrushes (Turdus spp) and carnivores (red fox and stone marten) dispersed a high amount of seeds while rabbits and sheeps only a tiny fraction. Thrushes dispersed a significant amount of seeds in new colonization areas, however they were limited by the presence of high perches with big crop size. While carnivores dispersed seeds to all studied habitats, even in those patches where no trees of J. thurifera were present, turning out to be critical for primary colonization. The presence of Pinus and Quercus was related to a reduced consumption of J. thurifera seeds while the presence of fleshy fruited shrubs was related with higher content of J. thurifera seeds in dispersers' faeces. Therefore environmental heterogeneity and ecosystem structure had a great influence on dispersers feeding behaviour, and should be considered in order to accurately describe the role of seed dispersal in ecological process, such as regeneration and colonization. J. thurifera expansion is not seed limited thanks to its diverse dispersal community, hence the conservation of all dispersers in an ecosystem enhance ecosystems services and resilience.

  1. Does climatic variability influence agricultural land prices under differing uses? The Texas High Plains case

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    The Texas High Plains faces projections of increasing temperature and declining precipitation in the future on account of its semi-arid climate. This research evaluated the impact of climatic variability on agricultural land prices under different land uses in the Texas High Plains, employing the Ri...

  2. Adaptation with climate uncertainty: An examination of agricultural land use in the United States

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Mu, Jianhong E.; McCarl, Bruce A.; Sleeter, Benjamin M.; Abatzoglou, John T.; Zhang, Hongliang

    2018-01-01

    This paper examines adaptation responses to climate change through adjustment of agricultural land use. The climate drivers we examine are changes in long-term climate normals (e.g., 10-year moving averages) and changes in inter-annual climate variability. Using US county level data over 1982 to 2012 from Census of Agriculture, we find that impacts of long-term climate normals are as important as that of inter-annual climate variability. Projecting into the future, we find projected climate change will lead to an expansion in crop land share across the northern and interior western United States with decreases in the south. We also find that grazing land share increases in southern regions and Inland Pacific Northwest and declines in the northern areas. However, the extent to which the adaptation potential would be is dependent on the climate model, emission scenario and time horizon under consideration.

  3. Understanding the role of soil erosion on co2-c loss using (13)c isotopic signatures in abandoned Mediterranean agricultural land.

    PubMed

    Novara, Agata; Keesstra, Saskia; Cerdà, Artemio; Pereira, Paulo; Gristina, Luciano

    2016-04-15

    Understanding soil water erosion processes is essential to evaluate the redistribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) within a landscape and is fundamental to assess the role of soil erosion in the global carbon (C) budget. The main aim of this study was to estimate the C redistribution and losses using (13)C natural abundance. Carbon losses in soil sediment, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and CO2 emission were determined. Four bounded parallel plots were installed on a 10% slope. In the upper part of the plots, C3soil was replaced with C4soil. The SOC and δ(13)C were measured after 145.2mm rainfall in the upper (2m far from C4strip), middle (4m far from C4strip) lower (6m far from C4strip) trams of the plot and in the sediments collected in the Gerlach collector at the lower part of the plot. A laboratory incubation experiment was performed to evaluate the CO2 emission rate of soils in each area. OC was mainly lost in the sediments as 2.08g(-)(2) of C was lost after 145.2mm rainfall. DOC losses were only 5.61% of off-site OC loss. Three months after the beginning of the experiment, 15.90% of SOC in the upper tram of the plot had a C4 origin. The C4-SOC content decreased along the 6m length of the plot, and in the sediments collected by the Gerlach collector. CO2 emission rate was high in the upper plot tram due to the high SOC content. The discrimination of CO2 in C3 and C4 portion permitted to increase our level of understanding on the stability of SOC and its resilience to decomposition. The transport of sediments along the plot increased SOC mineralization by 43%. Our study underlined the impact of rainfall in C losses in soil and water in abandoned Mediterranean agriculture fields and the consequent implications on the C balance. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. [Impact of Land Utilization Pattern on Distributing Characters of Labile Organic Carbon in Soil Aggregates in Jinyun Mountain].

    PubMed

    Li, Rui; Jiang, Chang-sheng; Hao, Qing-ju

    2015-09-01

    Four land utilization patterns were selected for this study in Jinyun mountain, including subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest (abbreviation: forest), sloping farmland, orchard and abandoned land. Soil samples were taken every 10 cm in the depth of 60 cm soil and proportions of large macroaggregates (> 2 mm), small macroaggregates (0. 25-2 mm), microaggregates (0. 053 - 0. 25 mm) and silt + clay (<0. 053 mm) were obtained by wet sieving method to measure the content of organic carbon and labile organic carbon in each aggregate fraction and analyze impacts of land uses on organic carbon and labile organic carbon of soil aggregates. LOC content of four soil aggregates were significantly reduced with the increase of soil depth; in layers of 0-60 cm soil depth, our results showed that LOC contents of forest and abandoned land were higher than orchard and sloping farmland. Reserves of labile organic carbon were estimated by the same soil quality, it revealed that forest (3. 68 Mg.hm-2) > abandoned land (1. 73 Mg.hm-2) > orchard (1. 43 Mg.hm-2) >sloping farmland (0.54 Mg.hm-2) in large macroaggregates, abandoned land (7.77, 5. 01 Mg.hm-2) > forest (4. 96, 2.71 Mg.hm-2) > orchard (3. 33, 21. 10 Mg.hm-2) > sloping farmland (1. 68, 1. 35 Mg.hm-2) in small macroaggregates and microaggregates, and abandoned land(4. 32 Mg.hm-2) > orchard(4. 00 Mg.hm-2) > forest(3. 22 Mg.hm-2) > sloping farmland (2.37 Mg.hm-2) in silt + clay, forest and abandoned land were higher than orchard and sloping farmland in other three soil aggregates except silt + clay. It was observed that the level of organic carbon and labile organic carbon were decreased when bringing forest under cultivation to orchard or farmland, and augments on organic carbon and labile organic carbon were found after exchanging farmland to abandoned land. The most reverses of forest and abandoned land emerged in small macroaggregates, orchard and sloping farmland were in microaggregates. That was, during the

  5. LAND COVER MAPPING IN AN AGRICULTURAL SETTING USING MULTISEASONAL THEMATIC MAPPER DATA

    EPA Science Inventory

    A multiseasonal Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data set consisting of five image dates from a single year was used to characterize agricultural and related land cover in the Willamette River Basin (WRB) of western Oregon. Image registration was accomplished using an automated grou...

  6. Forest gardening on abandoned terraces links local biomass carbon accumulation to international carbon markets, reverses land degradation, improves food diversity, and increases farmer income

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Schmidt, Hans-Peter; Pandit, Bishnu Hari; Kammann, Claudia

    2017-04-01

    Despite chronic underproduction of food in Nepal, more and more agricultural land is abandoned especially in the remote middle hills and mountains. Male and young workers leave the villages for higher wages in the bigger cities or abroad. By now, most villages are mainly populated by women, children and elderly persons maintaining the gardens and fields close to the houses and leave the centenarian terraces fallow. Erosion, vanishing water resources, losses of soil organic carbon and the weakening of the local agro-economy become increasingly problematic. During the rainy season of 2015/16, 86 farmer families from four villages replanted their abandoned terraces with 25,000 mixed trees, mostly Cinnamon, Moringa, Mulberry, Lemon, Michelia, Paulownia, and various nuts. All trees were planted with a blend of organic biochar-based fertilizer and compost, since it was convincingly demonstrated by more than 20 field trials in this region that this was the most plant-growth promoting method. Mulching of the trees with rice straw or thatch grass was generalized. To let the young tries pass the critical seven months of dry season, water retention ponds with pipe irrigation were installed. Farmers were organized in groups of three families to mutually help and control the tree maintenance which led to an average tree survival rate of more than 80% after the first year compared to less than 50% in many country-wide forestation projects since the 1980s. Between the lower and upper lines of trees on the terraces, ginger, turmeric, black beans, onions, lentils and other secondary crops were cultivated using the same organic biochar based fertilizer and mulching techniques. What may seem a reasonable approach for many places, is in many of the poorest countries simply not possible to realize because village families do often not have the necessary initial investment for saplings and irrigation facilities at their disposal. Therefore, the Ithaka Institute linked the forest garden

  7. Changes in Soil Carbon and Nitrogen following Land Abandonment of Farmland on the Loess Plateau, China

    PubMed Central

    Deng, Lei; Shangguan, Zhou-Ping; Sweeney, Sandra

    2013-01-01

    The revegetation of abandoned farmland significantly influences soil organic C (SOC) and total N (TN). However, the dynamics of both soil OC and N storage following the abandonment of farmland are not well understood. To learn more about soil C and N storages dynamics 30 years after the conversion of farmland to grassland, we measured SOC and TN content in paired grassland and farmland sites in the Zhifanggou watershed on the Loess Plateau, China. The grassland sites were established on farmland abandoned for 1, 7, 13, 20, and 30 years. Top soil OC and TN were higher in older grassland, especially in the 0–5 cm soil depths; deeper soil OC and TN was lower in younger grasslands (<20 yr), and higher in older grasslands (30 yr). Soil OC and N storage (0–100 cm) was significantly lower in the younger grasslands (<20 yr), had increased in the older grasslands (30 yr), and at 30 years SOC had increased to pre-abandonment levels. For a thirty year period following abandonment the soil C/N value remained at 10. Our results indicate that soil C and TN were significantly and positively correlated, indicating that studies on the storage of soil OC and TN needs to focus on deeper soil and not be restricted to the uppermost (0–30 cm) soil levels. PMID:23940793

  8. Formation of Land Use Order in Hamamatsu City under the Original Criteria of the Farm Land Exclusion from the Agricultural Promotion Area

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Arita, Hiroyuki; Miyazawa, Shingo

    While zoning has been practiced to prevent sprawling development and to preserve collective farmland under the Agriculture Promotion Act, The Agricultural Promotion Area (APA) has been reduced in area by the action of the Farm Land Exclusion from the APA (EAPA) aiming at urban-uses. Since the EAPA has a great impact on the regional land use, appropriate criteria application techniques ought to be formulated at the transaction level. However, most local governments seem to have no strategic measure so far. Hamamatsu city, meanwhile, has introduced a unique standard upon which approval of the EAPA aptitude is based in 2003. Since the number of EAPA registration was relatively large in Hamamatsu city owing to the zone bordering on the line of land which a building has erected the officials' willingness to establish an objective standard was high. In this research, we verified the effect of the criteria application over the land use ordering, and made proposals for improvement of the present state through the examination of the EAPA criterion application of Hamamatsu city.

  9. 25 CFR 226.28 - Shutdown, abandonment, and plugging of wells.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-04-01

    ... OSAGE RESERVATION LANDS FOR OIL AND GAS MINING Cessation of Operations § 226.28 Shutdown, abandonment... production of oil and/or gas has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Superintendent. Lessee shall... the means by which the well bore is to be protected, and the contemplated eventual disposition of the...

  10. Drought Impacts on Agricultural Production and Land Fallowing in California's Central Valley in 2015

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Rosevelt, Carolyn; Melton, Forrest S.; Johnson, Lee; Guzman, Alberto; Verdin, James P.; Thenkabail, Prasad S.; Mueller, Rick; Jones, Jeanine; Willis, Patrick

    2016-01-01

    The ongoing drought in California substantially reduced surface water supplies for millions of acres of irrigated farmland in California's Central Valley. Rapid assessment of drought impacts on agricultural production can aid water managers in assessing mitigation options, and guide decision making with respect to mitigation of drought impacts. Satellite remote sensing offers an efficient way to provide quantitative assessments of drought impacts on agricultural production and increases in fallow acreage associated with reductions in water supply. A key advantage of satellite-based assessments is that they can provide a measure of land fallowing that is consistent across both space and time. We describe an approach for monthly and seasonal mapping of uncultivated agricultural acreage developed as part of a joint effort by USGS, USDA, NASA, and the California Department of Water Resources to provide timely assessments of land fallowing during drought events. This effort has used the Central Valley of California as a pilot region for development and testing of an operational approach. To provide quantitative measures of uncultivated agricultural acreage from satellite data early in the season, we developed a decision tree algorithm and applied it to time-series data from Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper), ETM+ (Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus), OLI (Operational Land Imager), and MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer). Our effort has been focused on development of indicators of drought impacts in the March-August timeframe based on measures of crop development patterns relative to a reference period with average or above average rainfall. To assess the accuracy of the algorithms, monthly ground validation surveys were conducted across 650 fields from March-September in 2014 and 2015. We present the algorithm along with updated results from the accuracy assessment, and data and maps of land fallowing in the Central Valley in 2015.

  11. Nitrogen Cycling throughout Secondary Succession following Agricultural Disturbance in North-Central Virginia

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Parisien, A.; Epstein, H. E.

    2017-12-01

    While much is known about the carbon cycle during succession that follows agricultural disturbance, less understood are the dynamics of the nitrogen cycle throughout secondary succession, and how plant-available nitrogen may or may not limit vegetation transitions and net primary productivity over time. Two chronosequences at the Blandy Experimental Farm in Boyce, north-central Virginia were examined to elucidate the complexities of the nitrogen cycle over a temporal successional gradient. Each chronosequence consists of one early, one mid, and one late secondary successional field ( 15 years, 30 years, and 100 years post agricultural abandonment, respectively). Five 10x10 m plots were established in each of the 6 fields for a total of 30 plots. Total soil nitrogen (and carbon) data were collected from soils to 30 cm depth at 10-cm intervals, and net nitrogen mineralization and nitrification were estimated using an in situ soil core with anion-cation exchange resin bag technique. Previous studies of carbon cycling at this location have indicated relatively constant soil CO2 efflux of approximately 1100 g C/m2, as well as increasing net primary production and therefore net ecosystem production, with time since abandonment. In addition, soil C and N, and the soil C:N ratio have been shown to increase from the early to late successional plots. Our current study marks the first comprehensive examination of soil nitrogen dynamics including mineralization and nitrification over a successional gradient at Blandy Farm. A thorough understanding of nitrogen dynamics during secondary succession is especially important in the southeastern United States, where a large portion of previously cultivated land has been abandoned over the past century, due to advances in farming efficiency and the move westward to more fertile soils. Much of the southeastern U.S. is now undergoing secondary succession, and quality data on the dynamics of nitrogen cycling during this procession can

  12. The potential for agricultural land use change to reduce flood risk in a large watershed

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    Effects of agricultural land management practices on surface runoff are evident at local scales, but evidence for watershed-scale impacts is limited. In this study, we used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool model to assess changes in downstream flood risks under different land uses for the large, ...

  13. Integration of land use and land cover inventories for landscape management and planning in Italy.

    PubMed

    Sallustio, Lorenzo; Munafò, Michele; Riitano, Nicola; Lasserre, Bruno; Fattorini, Lorenzo; Marchetti, Marco

    2016-01-01

    There are both semantic and technical differences between land use (LU) and land cover (LC) measurements. In cartographic approaches, these differences are often neglected, giving rise to a hybrid classification. The aim of this paper is to provide a better understanding and characterization of the two classification schemes using a comparison that allows maximization of the informative power of both. The analysis was carried out in the Molise region (Central Italy) using sample information from the Italian Land Use Inventory (IUTI). The sampling points were classified with a visual interpretation of aerial photographs for both LU and LC in order to estimate surfaces and assess the changes that occurred between 2000 and 2012. The results underscore the polarization of land use and land cover changes resulting from the following: (a) recolonization of natural surfaces, (b) strong dynamisms between the LC classes in the natural and semi-natural domain and (c) urban sprawl on the lower hills and plains. Most of the observed transitions are attributable to decreases in croplands, natural grasslands and pastures, owing to agricultural abandonment. The results demonstrate that a comparison between LU and LC estimates and their changes provides an understanding of the causes of misalignment between the two criteria. Such information may be useful for planning policies in both natural and semi-natural contexts as well as in urban areas.

  14. 25 CFR 215.11 - New leases where prior leases have been forfeited or abandoned.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-04-01

    ... to the highest bidder. If the lead and zinc mining lease on said land be offered for sale at public... MINERALS LEAD AND ZINC MINING OPERATIONS AND LEASES, QUAPAW AGENCY § 215.11 New leases where prior leases have been forfeited or abandoned. In cases where the lands have heretofore been leased and lead and...

  15. African land ecology: opportunities and constraints for agricultural development.

    PubMed

    Voortman, Roelf L; Sonneveld, Ben G J S; Keyzer, Michiel A

    2003-08-01

    Compared to other continents, the economic growth performance of Sub-Saharan Africa has been poor over the last four decades. Likewise, progress in agricultural development has been limited and the Green Revolution left Africa almost untouched. The question raised in the literature is whether the poor performance is a question of poor policies or of an unfavorable biophysical environment (policy versus destiny). This paper, with a broad perspective, analyzes adaptation of current land use to environmental conditions in Africa and compares the physical resource base of Africa with Asia. In doing so, we search for unifying principles that can have operational consequences for agricultural development. We argue that some specificities of the natural resource base, namely local homogeneity and spatial diversity of the predominant Basement Complex soils, imply that simple fertilizer strategies may not produce the yield increases obtained elsewhere.

  16. Global assessment of rural-urban interface in Portugal related to land cover changes

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Tonini, Marj; Parente, Joana; Pereira, Mário G.

    2018-06-01

    The rural-urban interface (RUI), known as the area where structures and other human developments meet or intermingle with wildland and rural area, is at present a central focus of wildfire policy and its mapping is crucial for wildfire management. In the Mediterranean Basin, humans cause the vast majority of fires and fire risk is particularly high in the proximity of infrastructure and of rural/wildland areas. RUI's extension changes under the pressure of environmental and anthropogenic factors, such as urban growth, fragmentation of rural areas, deforestation and, more in general, land use/land cover change (LULCC). As with other Mediterranean countries, Portugal has experienced significant LULCC in the last decades in response to migration, rural abandonment, ageing of population and trends associated with the high socioeconomic development. In the present study, we analyzed the LULCC occurring in this country in the 1990-2012 period with the main objective of investigating how these changes affected RUI's evolution. Moreover, we performed a qualitative and quantitative characterization of burnt areas within the RUI in relation to the observed changes. Obtained results disclose important LULCC and reveal their spatial distribution, which is far from uniform within the territory. A significant increase in artificial surfaces was registered near the main metropolitan communities of the northwest, littoral-central and southern regions, whilst the abandonment of agricultural land near the inland urban areas led to an increase in uncultivated semi-natural and forest areas. Within agricultural areas, heterogeneous patches suffered the greatest changes and were the main contributors to the increase in urban areas; moreover, this land cover class, together with forests, was highly affected by wildfires in terms of burnt area. Finally, from this analysis and during the investigated period, it appears that RUI increased in Portugal by more than two-thirds, while the total

  17. Productivity ranges of sustainable biomass potentials from non-agricultural land

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Schueler, Vivian; Fuss, Sabine; Steckel, Jan Christoph; Weddige, Ulf; Beringer, Tim

    2016-07-01

    Land is under pressure from a number of demands, including the need for increased supplies of bioenergy. While bioenergy is an important ingredient in many pathways compatible with reaching the 2 °C target, areas where cultivation of the biomass feedstock would be most productive appear to co-host other important ecosystems services. We categorize global geo-data on land availability into productivity deciles, and provide a geographically explicit assessment of potentials that are concurrent with EU sustainability criteria. The deciles unambiguously classify the global productivity range of potential land currently not in agricultural production for biomass cultivation. Results show that 53 exajoule (EJ) sustainable biomass potential are available from 167 million hectares (Mha) with a productivity above 10 tons of dry matter per hectare and year (tD Mha-1 a-1), while additional 33 EJ are available on 264 Mha with yields between 4 and 10 tD M ha-1 a-1: some regions lose less of their highly productive potentials to sustainability concerns than others and regional contributions to bioenergy potentials shift when less productive land is considered. Challenges to limit developments to the exploitation of sustainable potentials arise in Latin America, Africa and Developing Asia, while new opportunities emerge for Transition Economies and OECD countries to cultivate marginal land.

  18. Land Use and Land Cover Change Modeling Using Remote Sensing and Soft Computing Approach to Assess Sugarcane Expansion Impacts in Tropical Agriculture

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Vicente, L. E.; Koga-Vicente, A.; Friedel, M. J.; Victoria, D.; Zullo, J., Jr.; Gomes, D.; Bayma-Silva, G.

    2014-12-01

    Agriculture is related with land-use/cover changes (LUCC) over large areas and, in recent years, increase in demand of ethanol fuel has been influence in expansion of areas occupied with corn and sugar cane, raw material for ethanol production. Nevertheless, there´s a concern regarding the impacts on food security, such as, decrease in areas planted with food crops. Considering that the LUCC is highly dynamic, the use of Remote Sensing is a tool for monitoring changes quickly and precisely in order to provide information for agricultural planning. In this work, Remote Sensing techniques were used to monitor the LUCC occurred in municipalities of São Paulo state- Brazil related with sugarcane crops expansion in order to (i) evaluate and quantify the previous land cover in areas of sugarcane crop expansion, and (ii) provide information to elaborate a future land cover scenario based on Self Organizing Map (SOM) approach. The land cover classification procedure was based on Landsat 5 TM images, obtained from the Global Land Survey. The Landsat images were then segmented into homogeneous objects, with represent areas on the ground with similar spatial and spectral characteristics. These objects are related to the distinct land cover types that occur in each municipality. The segmentation procedure resulted in polygons over the three time periods along twenty years (1990-2010). The land cover for each object was visually identified, based on its shape, texture and spectral characteristics. Land cover types considered were: sugarcane plantations, pasture lands, natural cover, forest plantation, permanent crop, short cycle crop, water bodies and urban areas. SOM technique was used to estimate the values for the future land cover scenarios for the selected municipalities, using the information of land change provided by the remote sensing and data from official sources.

  19. Shifts in allochthonous input and autochthonous production in streams along an agricultural land-use gradient

    Treesearch

    Elizabeth Hagen; Matthew McTammany; Jackson Webster; Ernest Benfield

    2010-01-01

    Relative contributions of allochthonous inputs and autochthonous production vary depending on terrestrial land use and biome. Terrestrially derived organic matter and in-stream primary production were measured in 12 headwater streams along an agricultural land-use gradient. Streams were examined to see how carbon (C) supply shifts from forested streams receiving...

  20. Land degradation and improvement trends over Iberia in the last three decades

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Gouveia, Célia M.; Páscoa, Patrícia; Russo, Ana; Trigo, Ricardo

    2017-04-01

    Land degradation and desertification are recognised as an important environmental and social problem in arid and semiarid regions, particularly within a climate change context. In the last three decades the entire Mediterranean basin has been affected by more frequent droughts, covering large sectors and often lasting several months. Simultaneously, the stress imposed by land management practices, such as land abandonment and intensification, highlights the need of a continuous monitoring and early detection of degradation. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from GIMMS dataset was used as an indicator of land degradation or improvement over Iberia between 1982 and 2012. The precipitation influence on NDVI was previously removed and the negative/positive trends of the obtained residuals were presumed to indicate land degradation/improvement. Overall the Iberian Peninsula is dominated by widespread land improvement with only a few hot spots of land degradation located in central and southern sectors and also in east Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts. Less than 20% of the area presenting land degradation is located within regions where land cover changes were observed, being the new land cover types associated with transitional woodland-shrub, permanent and annual crops and permanently irrigated land areas. Although being a very small fraction, the pixels of land degradation are mainly located on a semi-arid region. The monotonic changes and trend shifts present in the NDVI dataset were also assessed. The major shifts in vegetation trends and the corresponding year of occurrence were associated with the main disturbances observed in Iberia, namely the major wildfires' seasons in Portugal, and also to land abandonment and to new agricultural practices that resulted from the construction of new dams. The results obtained provide a new outlook of the real nature of degradation or improvement of vegetation in Iberia in the last three decades

  1. Extreme temperature trends in major cropping systems and their relation to agricultural land use change

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Mueller, N. D.; Butler, E. E.; McKinnon, K. A.; Rhines, A. N.; Tingley, M.; Siebert, S.; Holbrook, N. M.; Huybers, P. J.

    2015-12-01

    High temperature extremes during the growing season can reduce agricultural production. At the same time, agricultural practices can modify temperatures by altering the surface energy budget. Here we investigate growing season climate trends in major cropping systems and their relationship with agricultural land use change. In the US Midwest, 100-year trends exhibit a transition towards more favorable conditions, with cooler summer temperature extremes and increased precipitation. Statistically significant correspondence is found between the cooling pattern and trends in cropland intensification, as well as with trends towards greater irrigated land over a small subset of the domain. Land conversion to cropland, often considered an important influence on historical temperatures, is not significantly associated with cooling. We suggest that cooling is primarily associated with agricultural intensification increasing the potential for evapotranspiration, consistent with our finding that cooling trends are greatest for the highest temperature percentiles, and that increased evapotranspiration generally leads to greater precipitation. Temperatures over rainfed croplands show no cooling trend during drought conditions, consistent with evapotranspiration requiring adequate soil moisture, and implying that modern drought events feature greater warming as baseline cooler temperatures revert to historically high extremes. Preliminary results indicate these relationships between temperature extremes, irrigation, and intensification are also observed in other major summer cropping systems, including northeast China, Argentina, and the Canadian Prairies.

  2. eFarm: A Tool for Better Observing Agricultural Land Systems

    PubMed Central

    Yu, Qiangyi; Shi, Yun; Tang, Huajun; Yang, Peng; Xie, Ankun; Liu, Bin; Wu, Wenbin

    2017-01-01

    Currently, observations of an agricultural land system (ALS) largely depend on remotely-sensed images, focusing on its biophysical features. While social surveys capture the socioeconomic features, the information was inadequately integrated with the biophysical features of an ALS and the applications are limited due to the issues of cost and efficiency to carry out such detailed and comparable social surveys at a large spatial coverage. In this paper, we introduce a smartphone-based app, called eFarm: a crowdsourcing and human sensing tool to collect the geotagged ALS information at the land parcel level, based on the high resolution remotely-sensed images. We illustrate its main functionalities, including map visualization, data management, and data sensing. Results of the trial test suggest the system works well. We believe the tool is able to acquire the human–land integrated information which is broadly-covered and timely-updated, thus presenting great potential for improving sensing, mapping, and modeling of ALS studies. PMID:28245554

  3. Integrating Geomorphic and Social Dynamics in the Analysis of Anthropogenic Landforms: Examining Landscape Evolution of Terrain Modified by Agricultural Terracing

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Glaubius, J.; Maerker, M.

    2016-12-01

    Anthropogenic landforms, such as mines and agricultural terraces, are impacted by both geomorphic and social processes at varying intensities through time. In the case of agricultural terraces, decisions regarding terrace maintenance are intertwined with land use, such as when terraced fields are abandoned. Furthermore, terrace maintenance and land use decisions, either jointly or separately, may be in response to geomorphic processes, as well as geomorphic feedbacks. Previous studies of these complex geomorphic systems considered agricultural terraces as static features or analyzed only the geomorphic response to landowner decisions. Such research is appropriate for short-term or binary landscape scenarios (e.g. the impact of maintained vs. abandoned terraces), but the complexities inherent in these socio-natural systems requires an approach that includes both social and geomorphic processes. This project analyzes feedbacks and emergent properties in terraced systems by implementing a coupled landscape evolution model (LEM) and agent-based model (ABM) using the Landlab and Mesa modeling libraries. In the ABM portion of the model, agricultural terraces are conceptualized using a life-cycle stages schema and implemented using Markov Decision Processes to simulate the changing geomorphic impact of terracing based on human decisions. This paper examines the applicability of this approach by comparing results from a LEM-only model against the coupled LEM-ABM model for a terraced region. Model results are compared by quantify and spatial patterning of sediment transport. This approach fully captures long-term landscape evolution of terraced terrain that is otherwise lost when the life-cycle of terraces is not considered. The coupled LEM-ABM approach balances both environmental and social processes so that the socio-natural feedbacks in such anthropogenic systems can be disentangled.

  4. Aligning land use with land potential

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    Current agricultural land use is dominated by an emphasis on provisioning services by applying energy-intensive inputs through relatively uniform production systems across variable landscapes. This approach to agricultural land use is not sustainable. Integrated agricultural systems (IAS) are uphe...

  5. Soil respiration and carbon loss relationship with temperature and land use conversion in freeze-thaw agricultural area.

    PubMed

    Ouyang, Wei; Lai, Xuehui; Li, Xia; Liu, Heying; Lin, Chunye; Hao, Fanghua

    2015-11-15

    Soil respiration (Rs) was hypothesized to have a special response pattern to soil temperature and land use conversion in the freeze-thaw area. The Rs differences of eight types of land use conversions during agricultural development were observed and the impacts of Rs on soil organic carbon (SOC) loss were assessed. The land use conversions during last three decades were categorized into eight types, and the 141 SOC sampling sites were grouped by conversion type. The typical soil sampling sites were subsequently selected for monitoring of soil temperature and Rs of each land use conversion types. The Rs correlations with temperature at difference depths and different conversion types were identified with statistical analysis. The empirical mean error model and the biophysical theoretical model with Arrhenius equation about the Rs sensitivity to temperature were both analyzed and shared the similar patterns. The temperature dependence of soil respiration (Q10) analysis further demonstrated that the averaged value of eight types of land use in this freeze-thaw agricultural area ranged from 1.15 to 1.73, which was lower than the other cold areas. The temperature dependence analysis demonstrated that the Rs in the top layer of natural land covers was more sensitive to temperature and experienced a large vertical difference. The natural land covers exhibited smaller Rs and the farmlands had the bigger value due to tillage practices. The positive relationships between SOC loss and Rs were identified, which demonstrated that Rs was the key chain for SOC loss during land use conversion. The spatial-vertical distributions of SOC concentration with the 1.5-km grid sampling showed that the more SOC loss in the farmland, which was coincided with the higher Rs in farmlands. The analysis of Rs dynamics provided an innovative explanation for SOC loss in the freeze-thaw agricultural area. The analysis of Rs dynamics provided an innovative explanation for SOC loss in the freeze

  6. Salamander abundance along road edges and within abandoned logging roads in Appalachian forests.

    PubMed

    Semlitsch, Raymond D; Ryan, Travis J; Hamed, Kevin; Chatfield, Matt; Drehman, Bethany; Pekarek, Nicole; Spath, Mike; Watland, Angie

    2007-02-01

    Roads may be one of the most common disturbances in otherwise continuous forested habitat in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Despite their obvious presence on the landscape, there is limited data on the ecological effects along a road edge or the size of the "road-effect zone." We sampled salamanders at current and abandoned road sites within the Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina (U.S.A.) to determine the road-effect zone for an assemblage of woodland salamanders. Salamander abundance near the road was reduced significantly, and salamanders along the edges were predominantly large individuals. These results indicate that the road-effect zone for these salamanders extended 35 m on either side of the relatively narrow, low-use forest roads along which we sampled. Furthermore, salamander abundance was significantly lower on old, abandoned logging roads compared with the adjacent upslope sites. These results indicate that forest roads and abandoned logging roads have negative effects on forest-dependent species such as plethodontid salamanders. Our results may apply to other protected forests in the southern Appalachians and may exemplify a problem created by current and past land use activities in all forested regions, especially those related to road building for natural-resource extraction. Our results show that the effect of roads reached well beyond their boundary and that abandonment or the decommissioning of roads did not reverse detrimental ecological effects; rather, our results indicate that management decisions have significant repercussions for generations to come. Furthermore, the quantity of suitable forested habitat in the protected areas we studied was significantly reduced: between 28.6% and 36.9% of the area was affected by roads. Management and policy decisions must use current and historical data on land use to understand cumulative impacts on forest-dependent species and to fully protect biodiversity on national lands.

  7. Afforestation of marginal agricultural land in the lower Mississippi River Alluvial Valley, U.S.A.

    Treesearch

    John A. Stanturf; Callie J. Schweitzer; Emile S. Gardiner

    1998-01-01

    Afforestation of marginal agricultural land in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV) relies on native species, planted mostly in single-species plantations. Hard mast species such as oak and pecan are favored for their value to wildlife, especially on public land. Successful afforestation requires an understanding of site variation within floodplains and...

  8. Evaluation of fire as a management tool for controlling Schinus terebinthifolius as secondary successional growth on abandoned agricultural land

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Doren, Robert F.; Whiteaker, Louis D.; Larosa, Anne Marie

    1991-01-01

    Schinus terebinthifolius, native to South America, has become an aggressive woody weed in southern Florida, displacing native vegetation as well as rapidly invading disturbed sites. Studies to evaluate the effectiveness of fire as a management option for controlling Schinus on abandoned farmland in Everglades National Park, known as the “Hole-in-the-Donut,” began in 1979. Study plots were established to monitor any change(s) in herbaceous cover and in numbers and size of Schinus stems. Except in the control plot (which was not burned), each site was burned as often as fuel conditions permitted (usually once every one or two years), through 1985. Results indicated that both the number and density of Schinus stems increased over the course of the study. While plots that burned showed a reduction in the rate of Schinus invasion, invasion still progressed rapidly with or without the occurrence of fire. The increase in Schinus stem density from 1980 to 1985 was highly significant in all transects except one. Herbaceous cover showed no clear trends relative to burning.

  9. Gender and Agricultural Science: Evidence from Two Surveys of Land-Grant Scientists.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Buttel, Frederick H.; Goldberger, Jessica R.

    2002-01-01

    Analysis of surveys of land-grant agricultural scientists in 1979 and 1996 found significant gender differences in postdoctoral work experience, academic rank, employment of graduate students, book publication, and links with private industry. Gender differences were found in attitudes toward biotechnology and university-industry links, but not in…

  10. Impacts of Biofuel-Induced Agricultural Land Use Changes on Watershed Hydrology and Water Quality

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lin, Z.; Zheng, H.

    2015-12-01

    The US Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 has contributed to widespread changes in agricultural land uses. The impact of these land use changes on regional water resources could also be significant. Agricultural land use changes were evaluated for the Red River of the North Basin (RRNB), an international river basin shared by the US and Canada. The influence of the land use changes on spring snowmelt flooding and downstream water quality was also assessed using watershed modeling. The planting areas for corn and soybean in the basin increased by 62% and 18%, while those for spring wheat, forest, and pasture decreased by 30%, 18%, and 50%, from 2006 to 2013. Although the magnitude of spring snowmelt peak flows in the Red River did not change from pre-EISA to post-EISA, our uncertainty analysis of the normalized hydrographs revealed that the downstream streamflows had a greater variability under the post-EISA land use scenario, which may lead to greater uncertainty in predicting spring snowmelt floods in the Red River. Hydrological simulation also showed that the sediment and nutrient loads at the basin's outlet in the US and Canada border increased under the post-EISA land use scenario, on average sediment increasing by 2.6%, TP by 14.1%, nitrate nitrogen by 5.9%, and TN by 9.1%. Potential impacts of the future biofuel crop scenarios on watershed hydrology and water quality in the RRNB were also simulated through integrated economic-hydrologic modeling.

  11. The impact of agricultural land use on stream chemistry in the Middle Hills of the Himalayas, Nepal

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Collins, Robert; Jenkins, Alan

    1996-11-01

    The chemistry of streams draining agricultural and forested catchments in the Middle Hills of Nepal is described. Differences between mean streamwater chemistry are attributable to the effects of the terraced agriculture and land management practices. The agricultural catchments were found to exhibit higher mean concentrations of base cations (Na, Mg, K), bicarbonate, acid anions (SO 4, Cl), metals (Al, Fe) and nutrients (NO 3, PO 4). Increased base cations apparently result from tillage practices exposing fresh soil material to weathering. Increased acid anions result from inputs of inorganic fertiliser, notably ammonium sulphate, and from an apparent increase in evapotranspiration from the flooded terraces in the agricultural catchments. Increased metal concentrations may be promoted by increased weathering and erosion rates, and this is further supported by observations of dramatically higher turbidity in the streamwater draining the agricultural catchments. Higher levels of nutrients are the direct result of fertiliser input but concentrations are generally low from all catchments as a result of denitrification, indicating that eutrophication downstream is not a likely consequence of land use change. The major dynamics of water chemistry occur during the monsoon, which is also the main season for agricultural production. Mean wet season concentrations of base cations tend to be lower than in the dry season at all catchments as higher flow dilutes the relatively constant weathering input. Ammonium concentrations are higher from the agricultural catchments in the wet season as a result of direct washout of fertiliser. Detailed monitoring through storm periods at one agricultural catchment indicates that the chemistry responds very rapidly to changing flow, with cations decreasing and acid anions increasing followed by equally rapid recovery as flow recedes. Bicarbonate concentrations also decline markedly but are still sufficiently high to maintain pH near

  12. Geological characterization of agricultural terraces as a tool for the territorial safeguard and for the valorization of "Terroir"

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Brancucci, Gerardo; Brancucci, Michele; Marescotti, Pietro; Poggi, Eugenio; Solimano, Monica; Vegnuti, Roberto; Giostrella, Paola; Tarolli, Paolo

    2017-04-01

    The progressive abandonment of the terraced areas of Liguria (NW Italy) is determining an inexorable land degradation, which causes, among other things, the erosive processes and the slope failure. Several studies highlighted the need of strategies for the recovery of abandoned agricultural lands by encouraging the productive reuse. Nevertheless, it is well known that agricultural activities in rural areas with steep slopes are strongly penalized by the high production costs determined by the adverse geomorphological conditions. For these reasons, one of the possible solutions is to encourage the production of high-quality agricultural crops, and to promote the uniqueness of the products. The uniqueness of the local products can be promoted not only by means of marketing strategy, mostly based on historical and traditional aspects of the productions, but also by correlating the product with the geological features (e.g., lithology, mineralogy and geochemistry) of the agricultural soils and parental rocks. These features are typically peculiar of a geographic area and thus strictly correlated with the site of production. This approach, together with the biological characterization of the crop, can link the cultivar to the geographical area of production thus evidencing peculiarities that are inimitable elsewhere. With this work we present the experimental results of investigations performed on several types of agricultural products (grapes and wines, olives and olive oils, apples) as well as on wild mushroom of the Boletus family. The analyses have been carried out either in laboratory and by means of field portable instruments (FP-EDXRF and FP-FTIR) which permitted a large number of in situ analyses, in a cost efficient and timely manner, thus allowing the realization of high spatial resolution compositional maps. This analytical approach also resulted particularly effective to improve the information obtained by traditional pedological and agronomical

  13. A spatially-explicit data driven approach to assess the effect of agricultural land occupation on species groups

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Elshout, P.; van Zelm, R.; Karuppiah, R.; Laurenzi, I.; Huijbregts, M.

    2013-12-01

    Change of vegetation cover and increased land use intensity can directly affect the natural habitat and the wildlife it houses. The actual impact of agricultural land use is region specific as crops are grown under various climatic conditions and ways of cultivation and refining. Furthermore, growing a specific crop in a tropical region may require clearance of rainforest while the same crop may replace natural grasslands in temperate regions. Within life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), methods to address impacts of land use on a global scale are still in need of development. We aim to extend existing methods to improve the robustness of LCIA by allowing spatial differentiation of agricultural land use impacts. The goal of this study is to develop characterization factors for the direct impact of land use on biodiversity, which results from the replacement of natural habitat with farmland. The characterization factor expresses the change in species richness under crop cultivation compared to the species richness in the natural situation over a certain area. A second goal was to identify the differences in impacts caused by cultivation of different crop types, sensitivity of different taxonomic groups, and differences in natural land cover. Empirical data on species richness were collected from literature for both natural reference situations and agricultural land use situations. Reference situations were selected on an ecoregion or biome basis. We calculated characterization factors for four crop groups (oil palm, low crops, cereals, and perennial grasses), four species groups (arthropods, birds, mammals, vascular plants), and six biomes.

  14. Water quality and agricultural practices: the case study of southern Massaciuccoli reclaimed land (Tuscany, Italy)

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Pistocchi, Chiara; Baneschi, Ilaria; Basile, Paolo; Cannavò, Silvia; Guidi, Massimo; Risaliti, Rosalba; Rossetto, Rudy; Sabbatini, Tiziana; Silvestri, Nicola; Bonari, Enrico

    2010-05-01

    Owing to increasing anthropogenic impacts, lagoons and wetlands are being exposed to environmental degradation. Therefore, the sustainable management of these environmental resources is a fundamental issue to maintain either the ecosystems and the human activity. The Massaciuccoli Lake is a coastal lake of fresh to brackish water surrounded by a marsh, which drains a total catchment of about 114 km2. Large part of the basin has been reclaimed since 1930 by means of pumping stations forcing water from the drained areas into the lake. The system is characterized by: high complexity of the hydrological setting; subsidence of the peaty soils in the reclaimed area (2 to 3 m in 70 years), that left the lake perched; reclaimed land currently devoted mainly to conventional agriculture (e.g.: maize monoculture) along with some industrial sites, two sewage treatment plants and some relevant urban settlements; social conflicts among different land users because of the impact on water quality and quantity. The interaction between such a fragile natural system and human activities leads to an altered ecological status mainly due to eutrophication and water salinisation. Hence, the present work aims at identifying and assessing the sources of nutrients (phosphorous in particular) into the lake, and characterising land use and some socio-economic aspects focusing on agricultural systems, in order to set up suitable mitigation measures. Water quantity and quality in the most intensively cultivated sub-catchment, placed 0.5 to 3 m under m.s.l. were monitored in order to underlain the interaction between water and its nutrient load. Questionnaires and interviews to farmers were conducted to obtain information about agricultural practices, farm management, risks and constraints for farming activities. The available information about the natural system and land use were collected and organised in a GIS system: a conceptual model of surface water hydrodinamics was build up and 14

  15. From jhum to broom: Agricultural land-use change and food security implications on the Meghalaya Plateau, India.

    PubMed

    Behera, Rabi Narayan; Nayak, Debendra Kumar; Andersen, Peter; Måren, Inger Elisabeth

    2016-02-01

    Human population growth in the developing world drives land-use changes, impacting food security. In India, the dramatic change in demographic dynamics over the past century has reduced traditional agricultural land-use through increasing commercialization. Here, we analyze the magnitude and implications for the farming system by the introduction of cash-cropping, replacing the traditional slash and burn rotations (jhum), of the tribal people on the Meghalaya Plateau, northeast India, by means of agricultural census data and field surveys conducted in seven villages. Land-use change has brought major alterations in hill agricultural practices, enhanced cash-cropping, promoted mono-cropping, changed food consumption patterns, underpinned the emergence of a new food system, and exposed farmers and consumers to the precariousness of the market, all of which have both long- and short-term food security implications. We found dietary diversity to be higher under jhum compared to any of the cash-crop systems, and higher under traditional cash-cropping than under modern cash-cropping.

  16. Polarization signatures for abandoned agricultural fields in the Manix Basin area of the Mojave Desert - Can polarimetric SAR detect desertification?

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Ray, Terrill W.; Farr, Tom G.; Van Zyl, Jakob J.

    1992-01-01

    Radar backscatter from abandoned circular alfalfa fields in the Manix Basin area of the Mojave desert shows systematic changes with length of abandonment. The obliteration of circular planting rows by surface processes could account for the disappearance of bright spokes, which seem to be reflection patterns from remnants of the planting rows, with increasing length of abandonment. An observed shift in the location of the maximum L-band copolarization return away from VV, as well as an increase in surface roughness, both occurring with increasing age of abandonment, seems to be attributable to the formation of wind ripples on the relatively vegetationless fields.

  17. Parcels versus pixels: modeling agricultural land use across broad geographic regions using parcel-based field boundaries

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Sohl, Terry L.; Dornbierer, Jordan; Wika, Steve; Sayler, Kristi L.; Quenzer, Robert

    2017-01-01

    Land use and land cover (LULC) change occurs at a local level within contiguous ownership and management units (parcels), yet LULC models primarily use pixel-based spatial frameworks. The few parcel-based models being used overwhelmingly focus on small geographic areas, limiting the ability to assess LULC change impacts at regional to national scales. We developed a modified version of the Forecasting Scenarios of land use change model to project parcel-based agricultural change across a large region in the United States Great Plains. A scenario representing an agricultural biofuel scenario was modeled from 2012 to 2030, using real parcel boundaries based on contiguous ownership and land management units. The resulting LULC projection provides a vastly improved representation of landscape pattern over existing pixel-based models, while simultaneously providing an unprecedented combination of thematic detail and broad geographic extent. The conceptual approach is practical and scalable, with potential use for national-scale projections.

  18. [Spatial-temporal pattern of sustainable intensification of agricultural land-use in Shandong Province, China.

    PubMed

    Niu, Shan Dong; Lyu, Xiao; Shi, Yang Yang

    2018-02-01

    Under the theoretical framework of sustainable intensification of agricultural land-use (SIALU), We used material flow analysis (MFA) method to establish evaluation index system for SIALU by utilizing data in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 to quantify the level of SIALU of 17 cities in Shandong Province, and analyzed the variation in input-output of resources factors of agricultural land, spatial distribution of resource productivity and environmental economic efficiency, in order to reveal spatial-temporal differentiation of SIALU. Results showed that the direct material input to agricultural lands decreased, whereas hidden flow, stock and pollutant emissions increased gradually from 2000 to 2015. The material productivity of all cities in the province showed that the coastal areas in the peninsula were relatively lower than the southern region, and the level of material productivity in the northwest region was relatively higher. Environmental economic efficiency was gradually enhanced, and the western region was relatively higher than coastal area of the peninsula. During the period examined here, the spatial pattern of SIALU of various cities showed clustered distribution change, with the western region tending to gradually increase and the eastern region tending to gradually reduce. The dynamics of SIALU among different regions were divided into six grades: Northwestern Shandong > Northern Shandong > Southwestern Shandong > Southern Shandong > Central Shandong > Coastal areas of Shandong Peninsula.

  19. Benchmarking the performance of a land data assimilation system for agricultural drought monitoring

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    The application of land data assimilation systems to operational agricultural drought monitoring requires the development of (at least) three separate system sub-components: 1) a retrieval model to invert satellite-derived observations into soil moisture estimates, 2) a prognostic soil water balance...

  20. "Left High and Dry": Federal Land Policies and Pima Agriculture, 1860-1910

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dejong, David H.

    2009-01-01

    The Akimel O'odham, or "River People" (Pima), have lived in the middle Gila River Valley for centuries, irrigating and cultivating the same land as their Huhugam ancestors did for millennia. Continuing their irrigated agricultural economy bequeathed to them by their Huhugam ancestors, the Pima leveraged a favorable geopolitical setting into a…

  1. The agroecological matrix as alternative to the land-sparing/agriculture intensification model.

    PubMed

    Perfecto, Ivette; Vandermeer, John

    2010-03-30

    Among the myriad complications involved in the current food crisis, the relationship between agriculture and the rest of nature is one of the most important yet remains only incompletely analyzed. Particularly in tropical areas, agriculture is frequently seen as the antithesis of the natural world, where the problem is framed as one of minimizing land devoted to agriculture so as to devote more to conservation of biodiversity and other ecosystem services. In particular, the "forest transition model" projects an overly optimistic vision of a future where increased agricultural intensification (to produce more per hectare) and/or increased rural-to-urban migration (to reduce the rural population that cuts forest for agriculture) suggests a near future of much tropical aforestation and higher agricultural production. Reviewing recent developments in ecological theory (showing the importance of migration between fragments and local extinction rates) coupled with empirical evidence, we argue that there is little to suggest that the forest transition model is useful for tropical areas, at least under current sociopolitical structures. A model that incorporates the agricultural matrix as an integral component of conservation programs is proposed. Furthermore, we suggest that this model will be most successful within a framework of small-scale agroecological production.

  2. Land clearing and the biofuel carbon debt.

    PubMed

    Fargione, Joseph; Hill, Jason; Tilman, David; Polasky, Stephen; Hawthorne, Peter

    2008-02-29

    Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low-carbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a "biofuel carbon debt" by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.

  3. Experiments in Globalisation, Food Security and Land Use Decision Making

    PubMed Central

    Brown, Calum; Murray-Rust, Dave; van Vliet, Jasper; Alam, Shah Jamal; Verburg, Peter H.; Rounsevell, Mark D.

    2014-01-01

    The globalisation of trade affects land use, food production and environments around the world. In principle, globalisation can maximise productivity and efficiency if competition prompts specialisation on the basis of productive capacity. In reality, however, such specialisation is often constrained by practical or political barriers, including those intended to ensure national or regional food security. These are likely to produce globally sub-optimal distributions of land uses. Both outcomes are subject to the responses of individual land managers to economic and environmental stimuli, and these responses are known to be variable and often (economically) irrational. We investigate the consequences of stylised food security policies and globalisation of agricultural markets on land use patterns under a variety of modelled forms of land manager behaviour, including variation in production levels, tenacity, land use intensity and multi-functionality. We find that a system entirely dedicated to regional food security is inferior to an entirely globalised system in terms of overall production levels, but that several forms of behaviour limit the difference between the two, and that variations in land use intensity and functionality can substantially increase the provision of food and other ecosystem services in both cases. We also find emergent behaviour that results in the abandonment of productive land, the slowing of rates of land use change and the fragmentation or, conversely, concentration of land uses following changes in demand levels. PMID:25437010

  4. Experiments in globalisation, food security and land use decision making.

    PubMed

    Brown, Calum; Murray-Rust, Dave; van Vliet, Jasper; Alam, Shah Jamal; Verburg, Peter H; Rounsevell, Mark D

    2014-01-01

    The globalisation of trade affects land use, food production and environments around the world. In principle, globalisation can maximise productivity and efficiency if competition prompts specialisation on the basis of productive capacity. In reality, however, such specialisation is often constrained by practical or political barriers, including those intended to ensure national or regional food security. These are likely to produce globally sub-optimal distributions of land uses. Both outcomes are subject to the responses of individual land managers to economic and environmental stimuli, and these responses are known to be variable and often (economically) irrational. We investigate the consequences of stylised food security policies and globalisation of agricultural markets on land use patterns under a variety of modelled forms of land manager behaviour, including variation in production levels, tenacity, land use intensity and multi-functionality. We find that a system entirely dedicated to regional food security is inferior to an entirely globalised system in terms of overall production levels, but that several forms of behaviour limit the difference between the two, and that variations in land use intensity and functionality can substantially increase the provision of food and other ecosystem services in both cases. We also find emergent behaviour that results in the abandonment of productive land, the slowing of rates of land use change and the fragmentation or, conversely, concentration of land uses following changes in demand levels.

  5. Sustainable land management and tree conservation practices among livestock farmer groups in dehesa land use systems in Cáceres, Extremadura

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Pietersen, Sjoerd; Stoltenborg, Didi; Kessler, Aad; Pulido, Manuel

    2017-04-01

    Dehesas or montados in the South West of the Iberian Peninsula are one of the most low productive and extensive land use systems of Europe. . Due to a mosaic of various land use systems and associated practices, Dehesas display various forms of agricultural management. As a result of successive reforms of the European common agricultural policy (CAP) as well as regional socio economic decelopments, over the past decades landowners have abandoned extensive farming practices, . In order to counter this irreversible development, regional rural development plans started to promote the implementation of sustainable land management practices to conserve the original and unique nature of the dehesas. However, recent assessments indicated a gap between the requirements that are formulated in regional land use policies and the local conditions of sustainable farmer managed dehesas. Tthe objective of this study was to explore determinants that explain these differences amongst the targeted livestock farmer groups. Quantitative data on farm characteristics and institutional arrangements were collected from 64 farmers. In addition qualitative data on the influence of land use policies on dehesas was retrieved from key stakeholders and literature review. The results indicate that livestock farmers indeed display a high degree of heterogeneity in terms of farm characteristics and associated institutional arrangements, resulting in an overall ad-hoc approach to improve sustainable land use management. For example, farmers with large properties (<1000 ha) seem to invest significantly more in sustainable land management practices than smallholder farmers (>100 ha). Furthermore, younger farmers (>40 years) perceive significantly more frequently the adverse effects of land degradation processes in dehesas as potentially detrimental than aging farmers (<65). Interviews with key stakeholders further suggest that there seems to be a need to assist farmers with the implementation of

  6. Sustainable Land Use Requires Attention to Ecological Signals

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Halvorson, W.L.; Castellanos, A.E.; Murrieta-Saldivar, J.

    2003-01-01

    This case study details the difficulties of landscape management, highlighting the challenges inherent in managing natural resources when multiple agencies are involved, when the land users have no incentive for conservation, and when government agencies have too few resources for effective management. Pumping of groundwater from the aquifer of La Costa de Hermosillo in the state of Sonora, Mexico, began in 1945 and developed so quickly that by the late 1950s salinity intrusion from the Gulf of California was occurring in the wells. In the 1970s, the irrigatable land in La Costa peaked at 132,516 ha and the extracted volume of water from the aquifer peaked at around 1.14 billion cubic meters annually. By the 1980s, 105 wells of the total of 498 were contaminated with seawater and, therefore, identified for closure. At present La Costa de Hermosillo still represents 15% of the total harvested land, 16% of the total annual production, and 23% of the gross agricultural production of the state of Sonora. However, there are approximately 80,000 ha of abandoned fields due to salt water intension, lack of water and/or lack of credit available to individual farmers. This unstable situation resulted from the interplay of water management policies and practices, and farm-land policies and practices. While government agencies have been able to enforce better water use for agricultural production, there remains a significant area that requires restoration from its degraded state. For this piece of the ecosystem management puzzle, government agencies have thus far been unable to affect a solution.

  7. Impact of the Spatial Arrangement of Agricultural Land Use on Ecosystems Services and Peri-Urban Livelihoods at the Landscape Scale.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Inkoom, J. N.; Fürst, C.

    2014-12-01

    The relationship between agricultural land uses (ALU) and their impact on ecosystems services (ES) including biodiversity conservation is complex. This complexity has been augmented by isolated research on the impact of ALU on the landscape's capacity to provide ES in most climatically vulnerable areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. Though a considerable number of studies emphasise the nexus between specific land use types and their impact on ES, a sufficient modelling basis for an empirical consideration of spatial interactions between different agricultural land uses at the landscape scale within peri-urban areas in Sub-Saharan Africa is consistently missing. The need to assess and address significant issues regarding size, shape, spatial location, and interactivity of different land use patches in assessing land use interactions and their impact on ecosystem service provision necessitated this investigation. To formulate a methodology to correspond to this complexity, ES obtained from a characteristically agricultural and urbanizing landscapes were mapped using analytical hierarchical processes and management expert approaches. Further, landscape metrics and mean enrichment factor approaches are explored as neighbourhood assessment tools aimed at assessing the mutual impact gradient of agricultural and adjacent urban land uses on ES provision. Implementation is undertaken in GISCAME using a 2012 rapideye image classification and primary data collected on selected ES from local farmers within the VEA catchment of Upper East, Ghana. The outcome aims to provide the understanding of expected trade-offs and synergies varying ALU could pose to current and potential ES provision within urbanizing landscapes. Policy implications for observed trade-offs and synergies of ALU interaction on ES, rural livelihoods, and food security are communicated to farmers and decision makers. Keywords: Agricultural land use, neighbourhood interaction, ecosystems services, livelihoods, GISCAME.

  8. Dynamics of soil carbon stocks due to large-scale land use changes across the former Soviet Union during the 20th century

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kurganova, Irina; Prishchepov, Alexander V.; Schierhorn, Florian; Lopes de Gerenyu, Valentin; Müller, Daniel; Kuzyakov, Yakov

    2016-04-01

    territory or about 7% of global C loss due to land-use change. However, recent recultivation of abandoned croplands in Russia and Kazakhstan can lead to release more labile forms of SOC stored on abandoned lands during last two decades. Since 2001, about 80 Mt of new sequestered SOC has been lost due to current programs on agricultural development in Russia and Kazakhstan. Our results demonstrate the large effects of land-use policies and institutional changes for the national and global C budgets during the last century.

  9. Performing and updating an inventory of Oregon's expanding irrigated agricultural lands utilizing remote sensing technology

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Hall, M. J.

    1981-01-01

    An inventory technique based upon using remote sensing technology, interpreting both high altitude aerial photography and LANDSAT multispectral scanner imagery, is discussed. It is noted that once the final land use inventory maps of irrigated agricultural lands are available and approximately scaled they may be overlaid directly onto either multispectral scanner or return beam vidicon prints, thereby providing an inexpensive updating procedure.

  10. Compositional diversity of rehabilitated tropical lands supports multiple ecosystem services and buffers uncertainties

    PubMed Central

    Knoke, Thomas; Paul, Carola; Hildebrandt, Patrick; Calvas, Baltazar; Castro, Luz Maria; Härtl, Fabian; Döllerer, Martin; Hamer, Ute; Windhorst, David; Wiersma, Yolanda F.; Curatola Fernández, Giulia F.; Obermeier, Wolfgang A.; Adams, Julia; Breuer, Lutz; Mosandl, Reinhard; Beck, Erwin; Weber, Michael; Stimm, Bernd; Haber, Wolfgang; Fürst, Christine; Bendix, Jörg

    2016-01-01

    High landscape diversity is assumed to increase the number and level of ecosystem services. However, the interactions between ecosystem service provision, disturbance and landscape composition are poorly understood. Here we present a novel approach to include uncertainty in the optimization of land allocation for improving the provision of multiple ecosystem services. We refer to the rehabilitation of abandoned agricultural lands in Ecuador including two types of both afforestation and pasture rehabilitation, together with a succession option. Our results show that high compositional landscape diversity supports multiple ecosystem services (multifunction effect). This implicitly provides a buffer against uncertainty. Our work shows that active integration of uncertainty is only important when optimizing single or highly correlated ecosystem services and that the multifunction effect on landscape diversity is stronger than the uncertainty effect. This is an important insight to support a land-use planning based on ecosystem services. PMID:27292766

  11. Compositional diversity of rehabilitated tropical lands supports multiple ecosystem services and buffers uncertainties.

    PubMed

    Knoke, Thomas; Paul, Carola; Hildebrandt, Patrick; Calvas, Baltazar; Castro, Luz Maria; Härtl, Fabian; Döllerer, Martin; Hamer, Ute; Windhorst, David; Wiersma, Yolanda F; Curatola Fernández, Giulia F; Obermeier, Wolfgang A; Adams, Julia; Breuer, Lutz; Mosandl, Reinhard; Beck, Erwin; Weber, Michael; Stimm, Bernd; Haber, Wolfgang; Fürst, Christine; Bendix, Jörg

    2016-06-13

    High landscape diversity is assumed to increase the number and level of ecosystem services. However, the interactions between ecosystem service provision, disturbance and landscape composition are poorly understood. Here we present a novel approach to include uncertainty in the optimization of land allocation for improving the provision of multiple ecosystem services. We refer to the rehabilitation of abandoned agricultural lands in Ecuador including two types of both afforestation and pasture rehabilitation, together with a succession option. Our results show that high compositional landscape diversity supports multiple ecosystem services (multifunction effect). This implicitly provides a buffer against uncertainty. Our work shows that active integration of uncertainty is only important when optimizing single or highly correlated ecosystem services and that the multifunction effect on landscape diversity is stronger than the uncertainty effect. This is an important insight to support a land-use planning based on ecosystem services.

  12. LUMINATE: Linking agricultural land use, local water quality and Gulf of Mexico hypoxia

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    In this paper, we discuss the importance of developing integrated assessment models to support the design and implementation of policies to address water quality problems associated with agricultural pollution. We describe a new modelling system, LUMINATE, which links land use decisions made at the...

  13. Has the conversion of natural wetlands to agricultural land increased the incidence and severity of damaging freezes in south Florida?

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Marshall, C.H.; Pielke, R.A.; Steyaert, L.T.

    2004-01-01

    On several occasions, winter freezes have wrought severe destruction on Florida agriculture. A series of devastating freezes around the turn of the twentieth century, and again during the 1980s, were related to anomalies in the large-scale flow of the ocean–atmosphere system. During the twentieth century, substantial areas of wetlands in south Florida were drained and converted to agricultural land for winter fresh vegetable and sugarcane production. During this time, much of the citrus industry also was relocated to those areas to escape the risk of freeze farther to the north. The purpose of this paper is to present a modeling study designed to investigate whether the conversion of the wetlands to agriculture itself could have resulted in or exacerbated the severity of recent freezes in those agricultural areas of south Florida.For three recent freeze events, a pair of simulations was undertaken with the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System. One member of each pair employed land surface properties that represent pre-1900s (near natural) land cover, whereas the other member of each pair employed data that represent near-current land-use patterns as derived from analysis of Landsat data valid for 1992/93. These two different land cover datasets capture well the conversion of wetlands to agriculture in south Florida during the twentieth century. Use of current land surface properties resulted in colder simulated minimum temperatures and temperatures that remained below freezing for a longer period at locations of key agricultural production centers in south Florida that were once natural wetlands. Examination of time series of the surface energy budget from one of the cases reveals that when natural land cover is used, a persistent moisture flux from the underlying wetlands during the nighttime hours served to prevent the development of below-freezing temperatures at those same locations. When the model results were subjected to an important sensitivity factor

  14. Land use effects on green water fluxes from agricultural production in Mato Grosso, Brazil

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lathuilliere, M. J.; Johnson, M. S.; Donner, S. D.

    2010-12-01

    The blue water/green water paradigm is increasingly used to differentiate between subsequent routing of precipitation once it reaches the soil. “Blue” water is that which infiltrates deep in the soil to become streams and aquifers, while “green” water is that which remains in the soil and is either evaporated (non-productive green water) or transpired by plants (productive green water). This differentiation in the fate of precipitation has provided a new way of thinking about water resources, especially in agriculture for which better use of productive green water may help to relieve stresses from irrigation (blue water). The state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, presents a unique case for the study of green water fluxes due to an expanding agricultural land base planted primarily to soybean, maize, sugar cane, and cotton. These products are highly dependent on green water resources in Mato Grosso where crops are almost entirely rain-fed. We estimate the change in green water fluxes from agricultural expansion for the 2000-2008 period in the state of Mato Grosso based on agricultural production data from the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatísticas and a modified Penman-Monteith equation. Initial results for seven municipalities suggest an increase in agricultural green water fluxes, ranging from 1-10% per year, due primarily to increases in cropped areas. Further research is underway to elucidate the role of green water flux variations from land use practices on the regional water cycle.

  15. Land quality, sustainable development and environmental degradation in agricultural districts: A computational approach based on entropy indexes

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    Zambon, Ilaria, E-mail: ilaria.zambon@unitus.it; Colantoni, Andrea; Carlucci, Margherita

    Land Degradation (LD) in socio-environmental systems negatively impacts sustainable development paths. This study proposes a framework to LD evaluation based on indicators of diversification in the spatial distribution of sensitive land. We hypothesize that conditions for spatial heterogeneity in a composite index of land sensitivity are more frequently associated to areas prone to LD than spatial homogeneity. Spatial heterogeneity is supposed to be associated with degraded areas that act as hotspots for future degradation processes. A diachronic analysis (1960–2010) was performed at the Italian agricultural district scale to identify environmental factors associated with spatial heterogeneity in the degree of landmore » sensitivity to degradation based on the Environmentally Sensitive Area Index (ESAI). In 1960, diversification in the level of land sensitivity measured using two common indexes of entropy (Shannon's diversity and Pielou's evenness) increased significantly with the ESAI, indicating a high level of land sensitivity to degradation. In 2010, surface area classified as “critical” to LD was the highest in districts with diversification in the spatial distribution of ESAI values, confirming the hypothesis formulated above. Entropy indexes, based on observed alignment with the concept of LD, constitute a valuable base to inform mitigation strategies against desertification. - Highlights: • Spatial heterogeneity is supposed to be associated with degraded areas. • Entropy indexes can inform mitigation strategies against desertification. • Assessing spatial diversification in the degree of land sensitivity to degradation. • Mediterranean rural areas have an evident diversity in agricultural systems. • A diachronic analysis carried out at the Italian agricultural district scale.« less

  16. Effects of Pre-industrial Agricultural Expansion and Epidemics on the Climate and the Carbon Cycle

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Pongratz, J.; Raddatz, T.; Reick, C.; Claussen, M.

    2008-12-01

    To assess the effects of anthropogenic land cover change on the pre-industrial climate and carbon cycle we apply a new, detailed reconstruction of land cover for the last millennium in a general circulation model. A transient simulation including the marine and terrestrial carbon cycle suggests that the agricultural expansion increased the atmospheric CO2 concentration by about 3.5 ppm between AD 800 and the late pre- industrial period. Taking into account land cover change prior to the last millennium, up to 5 ppm of the Holocene CO2 increase may be attributed to changes in vegetation and soil carbon as a consequence of agricultural activity. This value is smaller but of similar magnitude than the estimates by Ruddiman (2007). In contrast to his study the ocean is simulated to be a sink rather than a source of carbon at least during the last millennium, leaving much of the observed pre-industrial CO2 increase unexplained. On a regional scale, epidemics have the potential to change land cover by allowing natural vegetation to regrow on abandoned agricultural areas. While the land cover reconstruction indicates only small absolute changes in agricultural areas after European conquest of the Americas, it indicates forest regrowth on about 0.18 million km2 in Europe as a consequence of the medieval Black Death. For this event, simulations of radiative forcing show that the energy balance is significantly altered by the changes in surface albedo. This suggests that local to regional climate may be modified by the biogeophysical effects of vegetation changes induced by epidemics. First results, however, indicate that the amount of carbon taken up by the regrowing vegetation may not suffice to counterbalance the emissions of expanding agriculture in the other parts of the world. The effect on atmospheric CO2 concentrations may thus be small. Ensemble simulations are planned to compare the effects of epidemics on atmospheric CO2 with natural variability.

  17. Impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on land use and transboundary freshwater resources.

    PubMed

    Müller, Marc François; Yoon, Jim; Gorelick, Steven M; Avisse, Nicolas; Tilmant, Amaury

    2016-12-27

    Since 2013, hundreds of thousands of refugees have migrated southward to Jordan to escape the Syrian civil war that began in mid-2011. Evaluating impacts of conflict and migration on land use and transboundary water resources in an active war zone remains a challenge. However, spatial and statistical analyses of satellite imagery for the recent period of Syrian refugee mass migration provide evidence of rapid changes in land use, water use, and water management in the Yarmouk-Jordan river watershed shared by Syria, Jordan, and Israel. Conflict and consequent migration caused ∼50% decreases in both irrigated agriculture in Syria and retention of winter rainfall in Syrian dams, which gave rise to unexpected additional stream flow to downstream Jordan during the refugee migration period. Comparing premigration and postmigration periods, Syrian abandonment of irrigated agriculture accounts for half of the stream flow increase, with the other half attributable to recovery from a severe drought. Despite this increase, the Yarmouk River flow into Jordan is still substantially below the volume that was expected by Jordan under the 1953, 1987, and 2001 bilateral agreements with Syria.

  18. Climate risks to agriculture in Amazon arc-of-deforestation create incentives to conserve local forests

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Costa, M. H.; Fleck, L. C.; Cohn, A.; Abrahão, G. M.; Brando, P. M.; Coe, M. T.; Fu, R.; Lawrence, D.; Pires, G. F.; Pousa, R.; Soares, B. Filh

    2017-12-01

    Intensification of agriculture is a necessary condition for sustainably meeting global food demands without increasing deforestation. In southern Amazonia, a region that produces 7% of the world's soybeans, double cropping has become the preferred system for the intensification of agriculture, which is essentially rainfed. Rainy season is shortening in the region, due to climate change, and is predicted to become shorter in the future. The climate risks are worsened by the region's land use change. This increases the climate risk and even threat the intensive double-cropping agriculture that is currently practiced in that region, with potential perverse consequences to everyone. Repeated or widespread climate-driven crop failure could prompt a return to the single cropping system or even cropland abandonment. A shift to single cropping could decrease the agriculture output in this critical region, push up global food prices and heighten incentives to convert regional ecosystems to agricultural land. Further agricultural expansion into ecosystems would increase climate change. The more forest lost, the higher the climate risk will be, due to climate feedbacks from deforestation itself, triggering a spiraling decline of the rainforests and rainfall over southern Amazonia and other critical agricultural regions known to depend on the forests of Amazonia for rainfall. We show that there are economic and social reasons to preserve the forests, and it is in the best interest of the agribusiness, local governments and people, to conserve the remaining forests. The adaptation and mitigation needs, and policies to reconcile production and protection while mitigating supply chains risks are also discussed.

  19. Potential Land Mapping for Agricultural Extentification in Mengwi Sub-district to Support Food Balance in Badung Regency, Indonesia

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Made Trigunasih, Ni; Lanya, Indayati; Ratna Adi, I. G. P.; Hutauruk, Jeremia; Feronika

    2017-12-01

    The availability of agricultural land for food crops, especially in Bali, is rapidly declining every year. The availability of rice fields in Badung regency, especially in Mengwi Sub-district until 2040 is no longer exist, this means that Mengwi Sub-district has lost the rice fields. The existence of land conversion will affect food availability for the country, so there will be food deficit. The food balance in Badung Regency in 2015 with Cultivation Index (IP) and initial productivity in each Sub-district showed a food deficit of 32,843.44 tons, then after increasing IP of 2,5 the productivity in Kecamatan Petang and Kuta at 7 tons / ha, and Abiansemal, Mengwi and North Kuta Sub-districts with 8 tons / ha which indicate a surplus in 2020 and 2030 respectively of 25,155.19 tons, and 3,401.79 tons. But in 2040 and 2050 there was a food deficiency of 18,434.78 tons and 11,824.82 tons respectively. Considering that productivity improvement efforts cannot rely solely on intensification approaches, but also need to be done with extensification or expansion of agricultural areas to support food production. This research was conducted in Mengwi Sub-district, Badung Regency. Mengwi Sub-district consists of 20 villages. The objectives of this research are: (1) to map potential land that can be converted to agricultural land of food crops, and (2) to know the amount of food demand to supply food balance in Badung Regency in 2040. Research methodology includes (1) preliminary study, (2) interpretation of satellite images, (3) mapping and measurement of land area, and (4) calculation of additional food availability. The results indicate that the potential land that can be converted to agricultural land for food crops is 132 ha, consists of 128.51 ha of mixed plantation and 3.49 ha of bare land/bush. The result of additional land produced 1601.73 tons of rice that increased the food availability in Mengwi Sub-district to 45425.7 tons. The addition of surplus in 2040 in Mengwi

  20. Drought Impacts on Agricultural Production and Land Fallowing in California's Central Valley in 2015

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Rosevelt, C.; Melton, F. S.; Johnson, L.; Guzman, A.; Verdin, J. P.; Thenkabail, P. S.; Mueller, R.; Jones, J.; Willis, P.

    2015-12-01

    The ongoing drought in California substantially reduced surface water supplies for millions of acres of irrigated farmland in California's Central Valley. Rapid assessment of drought impacts on agricultural production can aid water managers in assessing mitigation options, and guide decision making with respect to mitigation of drought impacts. Satellite remote sensing offers an efficient way to provide quantitative assessments of drought impacts on agricultural production and increases in fallow acreage associated with reductions in water supply. A key advantage of satellite-based assessments is that they can provide a measure of land fallowing that is consistent across both space and time. We describe an approach for monthly and seasonal mapping of uncultivated agricultural acreage developed as part of a joint effort by USGS, USDA, NASA, and the California Department of Water Resources to provide timely assessments of land fallowing during drought events. This effort has used the Central Valley of California as a pilot region for development and testing of an operational approach. To provide quantitative measures of uncultivated agricultural acreage from satellite data early in the season, we developed a decision tree algorithm and applied it to timeseries of data from Landsat TM, ETM+, OLI, and MODIS. Our effort has been focused on development of indicators of drought impacts in the March - August timeframe based on measures of crop development patterns relative to a reference period with average or above average rainfall. To assess the accuracy of the algorithms, monthly ground validation surveys were conducted across 650 fields from March - September in 2014 and 2015. We present the algorithm along with updated results from the accuracy assessment, and data and maps of land fallowing in the Central Valley in 2015.

  1. Current Status and Future Potential of Energy Derived from Chinese Agricultural Land: A Review

    PubMed Central

    Mao, Chunlan; Feng, Yongzhong; Zhang, Tong; Xing, Zhenjie; Wang, Yanhong; Zou, Shuzhen; Yin, Dongxue; Han, Xinhui; Ren, Guangxin; Yang, Gaihe

    2015-01-01

    Energy crisis is receiving attention with regard to the global economy and environmental sustainable development. Developing new energy resources to optimize the energy supply structure has become an important measure to prevent energy shortage as well as achieving energy conservation and emission reduction in China. This study proposed the concept of energy agriculture and constructed an energy agricultural technical support system based on the analysis of energy supply and demand and China's foreign dependence on energy resources, combined with the function of agriculture in the energy field. Manufacturing technology equipment and agricultural and forestry energy, including crop or forestry plants and animal feces, were used in the system. The current status and future potential of China's marginal land resources, energy crop germplasm resources, and agricultural and forestry waste energy-oriented resources were analyzed. Developing the function of traditional agriculture in food production may promote China's social, economic, and environmental sustainable development and achieve energy saving and emission reduction. PMID:25874229

  2. Current status and future potential of energy derived from Chinese agricultural land: a review.

    PubMed

    Zhai, Ningning; Mao, Chunlan; Feng, Yongzhong; Zhang, Tong; Xing, Zhenjie; Wang, Yanhong; Zou, Shuzhen; Yin, Dongxue; Han, Xinhui; Ren, Guangxin; Yang, Gaihe

    2015-01-01

    Energy crisis is receiving attention with regard to the global economy and environmental sustainable development. Developing new energy resources to optimize the energy supply structure has become an important measure to prevent energy shortage as well as achieving energy conservation and emission reduction in China. This study proposed the concept of energy agriculture and constructed an energy agricultural technical support system based on the analysis of energy supply and demand and China's foreign dependence on energy resources, combined with the function of agriculture in the energy field. Manufacturing technology equipment and agricultural and forestry energy, including crop or forestry plants and animal feces, were used in the system. The current status and future potential of China's marginal land resources, energy crop germplasm resources, and agricultural and forestry waste energy-oriented resources were analyzed. Developing the function of traditional agriculture in food production may promote China's social, economic, and environmental sustainable development and achieve energy saving and emission reduction.

  3. Evaluating Nitrate Contributions From Different Land Use Types Across a Regional Watershed Using Flow and Transport Models

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Spansky, M. C.; Hyndman, D. W.; Long, D. T.; Pijanowski, B. C.

    2004-05-01

    Regional inputs of non-point source pollutants to groundwater, such as agriculturally-derived nitrate, have typically proven difficult to model due to sparse concentration data and complex system dynamics. We present an approach to evaluate the relative contribution of various land use types to groundwater nitrate across a regional Michigan watershed using groundwater flow and transport models. The models were parameterized based on land use data, and calibrated to a 20 year database of nitrate measured in drinking water wells. The database spans 1983-2003 and contains approximately 27,000 nitrate records for the five major counties encompassed by the watershed. The Grand Traverse Bay Watershed (GTBW), located in the northwest Lower Peninsula of Michigan, was chosen for this research. Groundwater flow and nitrate transport models were developed for the GTBW using MODFLOW2000 and RT3D, respectively. In a preliminary transport model, agricultural land uses were defined as the sole source of groundwater nitrate. Nitrate inputs were then refined to reflect variations in nitrogen loading rates for different agriculture types, including orchards, row crops, and pastureland. The calibration dataset was created by assigning spatial coordinates to each water well sample using address matching from a geographic information system (GIS). Preliminary results show that there is a significant link between agricultural sources and measured groundwater nitrate concentrations. In cases where observed concentrations remain significantly higher than simulated values, other sources of nitrate (e.g. septic tanks or abandoned agricultural fields) will be evaluated. This research will eventually incorporate temporal variations in fertilizer application rates and changing land use patterns to better represent fluid and solute fluxes at a regional scale.

  4. Abandoned Mine Lands Program - Division of Mining, Land, and Water

    Science.gov Websites

    , safety, general welfare and property from extreme danger resulting from the adverse effects of past coal mining practices. 2. Protection of public health, safety and general welfare from adverse effects of past lands and waters and the environment previously degraded by adverse effects of past coal mining

  5. Humanitarian Consequences of Land Mines.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rutherford, Ken

    1997-01-01

    Investigates the human and economic consequences of the continuing use and abandonment of land mines. Discusses the reasons for the worldwide proliferation (over 85 million uncleared mines in at least 62 countries) and the legal complexities in curtailing their use. Includes a brief account by a land-mine victim. (MJP)

  6. Reduction of suspended solid and nutrient loss from agricultural lands by tailwater recovery systems

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    Best management practices are being implemented throughout the Lower Mississippi River Alluvial Valley with the aim of alleviating pressures placed on downstream aquatic systems by sediment and nutrient losses from agricultural land; however, research evaluating the performance of one practice, tail...

  7. Abandoning wells working group

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    NONE

    The primary objective of this working group is to identify major technical, regulatory, and environmental issues that are relevant to the abandonment of offshore wellbores. Once the issues have been identified, the working group also has the objective of making recommendations or providing potential solutions for consideration. Areas for process improvement will be identified and {open_quotes}best practices{close_quotes} will be discussed and compared to {open_quotes}minimum standards.{close_quotes} The working group will primarily focus on wellbore abandonment in the Gulf of Mexico. However, workshop participants are encouraged to discuss international issues which may be relevant to wellbore abandonment practices in the Gulf ofmore » Mexico. The Abandoning Wells Group has identified several major areas for discussion that have concerns related to both operators and service companies performing wellbore abandonments in the Gulf of Mexico. The following broad topics were selected for the agenda: (1) MMS minimum requirements and state regulations. (2) Co-existence of best practices, new technology, and P & A economics. (3) Liability and environmental issues relating to wellbore abandonment.« less

  8. Microbial Community and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Abandoned Rice Paddies with Different Vegetation.

    PubMed

    Kim, Sunghyun; Lee, Seunghoon; McCormick, Melissa; Kim, Jae Geun; Kang, Hojeong

    2016-10-01

    The area of rice paddy fields has declined continuously in East Asian countries due to abandonment of agriculture and concurrent socioeconomic changes. When they are abandoned, rice paddy fields generally transform into wetlands by natural succession. While previous studies have mainly focused on vegetation shifts in abandoned rice paddies, little information is available about how these changes may affect their contribution to wetland functions. As newly abandoned fields proceed through succession, their hydrology and plant communities often change. Moreover, the relationships between these changes, soil microbial characteristics, and emissions of greenhouse gasses are poorly understood. In this study, we examined changes over the course of secondary succession of abandoned rice paddies to wetlands and investigated their ecological functions through changes in greenhouse gas fluxes and microbial characteristics. We collected gas and soil samples in summer and winter from areas dominated by Cyperaceae, Phragmites, and Sphagnum in each site. We found that CO2 emissions in summer were significantly higher than those in winter, but CH4 and N2O emission fluxes were consistently at very low levels and were similar among seasons and locations, due to their low nutrient conditions. These results suggest that microbial activity and abundance increased in summer. Greenhouse gas flux, soil properties, and microbial abundance were not affected by plant species, although the microbial community composition was changed by plant species. This information adds to our basic understanding of the contribution of wetlands that are transformed from abandoned rice paddy systems.

  9. Abandoned babies and absent policies.

    PubMed

    Mueller, Joanne; Sherr, Lorraine

    2009-12-01

    Although infant abandonment is a historical problem, we know remarkably little about the conditions or effects of abandonment to guide evidence driven policies. This paper briefly reviews the existing international evidence base with reference to potential mental health considerations before mapping current UK guidelines and procedures, and available incidence data. Limitations arising from these findings are discussed with reference to international practice, and interpreted in terms of future pathways for UK policy. A systematic approach was utilized to gather available data on policy information and statistics on abandoned babies in the UK. A review of the limited literature indicates that baby abandonment continues to occur, with potentially wide-ranging mental health ramifications for those involved. However, research into such consequences is lacking, and evidence with which to understand risk factors or motives for abandonment is scarce. International approaches to the issue remain controversial with outcomes unclear. Our systematic search identified that no specific UK policy relating to baby abandonment exists, either nationally or institutionally. This is compounded by a lack of accurate of UK abandonment statistics. Data that does exist is not comprehensive and sources are incompatible, resulting in an ambiguous picture of UK baby abandonment. Available literature indicates an absence of clear provision, policy and research on baby abandonment. Based on current understanding of maternal and child mental health issues likely to be involved in abandonment, existing UK strategy could be easily adapted to avoid the 'learning from scratch' approach. National policies on recording and handling of baby abandonments are urgently needed, and future efforts should be concentrated on establishing clear data collection frameworks to inform understanding, guide competent practice and enable successfully targeted interventions.

  10. Water and Land Limitations to Future Agricultural Production in the Middle East

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Koch, J. A. M.; Wimmer, F.; Schaldach, R.

    2015-12-01

    Countries in the Middle East use a large fraction of their scarce water resources to produce cash crops, such as fruit and vegetables, for international markets. At the same time, these countries import large amounts of staple crops, such as cereals, required to meet the nutritional demand of their populations. This makes food security in the Middle East heavily dependent on world market prices for staple crops. Under these preconditions, increasing food demand due to population growth, urban expansion on fertile farmlands, and detrimental effects of a changing climate on the production of agricultural commodities present major challenges to countries in the Middle East that try to improve food security by increasing their self-sufficiency rate of staple crops.We applied the spatio-temporal land-use change model LandSHIFT.JR to simulate how an expansion of urban areas may affect the production of agricultural commodities in Jordan. We furthermore evaluated how climate change and changes in socio-economic conditions may influence crop production. The focus of our analysis was on potential future irrigated and rainfed production (crop yield and area demand) of fruit, vegetables, and cereals. Our simulation results show that the expansion of urban areas and the resulting displacement of agricultural areas does result in a slight decrease in crop yields. This leads to almost no additional irrigation water requirements due to the relocation of agricultural areas, i.e. there is the same amount of "crop per drop". However, taking into account projected changes in socio-economic conditions and climate conditions, a large volume of water would be required for cereal production in order to safeguard current self-sufficiency rates for staple crops. Irrigation water requirements are expected to double until 2025 and to triple until 2050. Irrigated crop yields are projected to decrease by about 25%, whereas there is no decrease in rainfed crop yields to be expected.

  11. Impact of changes in labor resources and transfers of land use rights on agricultural non-point source pollution in Jiangsu Province, China.

    PubMed

    Lu, Hua; Xie, Hualin

    2018-02-01

    This study systematically explores the likely mechanisms driving the effect of the transfer of agricultural land use rights (ALURs) on agricultural non-point source pollution (ANSP) in the context of changing agricultural labor resources. It quantitatively estimates the direction and degree of this influence from a microeconomic perspective using data from rural households. The results reveal that economies of scale caused by ALURs transfers contribute to reducing both the ANSP and marginal costs of inputs. Changes in agricultural labor resources lead to reductions in agricultural labor supply and negatively impact on ANSP. Encouraging farmers to participate in ALURs transfers, therefore, helps to reduce ANSP. The government and related departments should implement policies that support farmers who decide to rent an entire village's land or the adjacent land to achieve economies of scale. Accelerating the development of small farm machinery that is suitable for smaller farm plots and the elderly can serve to reduce the use of chemical fertilizer and promote green production and sustainable agricultural development. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Disentangling Climate and Land-use Impacts on Grassland Carbon and Water Fluxes

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Brunsell, N. A.; Nippert, J. B.

    2014-12-01

    Regional climate and land cover interact in a complex, non-linear manner to alter the local cycling of mass and energy. It is often difficult to isolate the role of either mechanism on the resultant fluxes. Here, we attempt to isolate these mechanisms through the use of network of 4 Ameriflux eddy covariance towers installed over different land cover and land use classes along a pronounced rainfall gradient. The land cover types include: annually burned C4 grassland, a 4 year burn site experiencing woody encroachment, an abandoned agricultural field and a new perennial agricultural site. We investigated the impact of rainfall variability, drought, and heat waves on the water and carbon budgets using data analysis, remote sensing, and modeling approaches. In addition, we have established a network of mini-meteorological stations at the annually and 4-year burn sites to assess micro-scale variability within the footprints of the towers as a function of topographic position, soil depth and soil water availability. Through the use of a wavelet multiscale decomposition and information theory metrics, we have isolated the role of environmental factors (temperature, humidity, soil moisture, etc.) on the fluxes across the different sites. By applying a similar analysis to model output, we can assess the ability of land-surface models to recreate the observed sensitity. Results indicate the utility of a network of measurement systems used in conjunction with land surface modeling and time series analysis to assess differential impacts to similar regional scale climate forcings. Implications for the role of land cover class in regional and global scale modeling systems will also be discussed.

  13. Visualizing land-use and management complexity within biogeochemical cycles of an agricultural landscape

    Treesearch

    Kai Nils Nitzsche; Gernot Verch; Katrin Premke; Arthur Gessler; Zachary Kayler

    2016-01-01

    Crop fields are cultivated across continuities of soil, topography, and local climate that drive biological processes and nutrient cycling at the landscape scale; yet land management and agricultural research are often performed at the field scale, potentially neglecting the context of the surrounding landscape. Adding to this complexity is the overlap of ecosystems...

  14. Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Fargione, Joseph; Hill, Jason; Tilman, David; Polasky, Stephen; Hawthorne, Peter

    2008-02-01

    Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low-carbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a “biofuel carbon debt” by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.

  15. Optimization of land use of agricultural farms in Sumedang regency by using linear programming models

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zenis, F. M.; Supian, S.; Lesmana, E.

    2018-03-01

    Land is one of the most important assets for farmers in Sumedang Regency. Therefore, agricultural land should be used optimally. This study aims to obtain the optimal land use composition in order to obtain maximum income. The optimization method used in this research is Linear Programming Models. Based on the results of the analysis, the composition of land use for rice area of 135.314 hectares, corn area of 11.798 hectares, soy area of 2.290 hectares, and peanuts of 2.818 hectares with the value of farmers income of IDR 2.682.020.000.000,-/year. The results of this analysis can be used as a consideration in decisions making about cropping patterns by farmers.

  16. Blasting for abandoned-mine land reclamation (closure of individual subsidence features and erratic, undocumented underground coal-mine workings). Final report

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    Workman, J.L.; Thompson, J.

    1991-01-01

    The study has examined the feasibility of blasting for mitigating various abandoned mine land features on AML sites. The investigation included extensive field trial blasts at sites in North Dakota and Montana. A blasting technique was used that was based on spherical cratering concepts. At the Beulah, North Dakota site thirteen individual vertical openings (sinkholes) were blasted with the intent to fill the voids. The blasts were designed to displace material laterally into the void. Good success was had in filling the sinkholes. At the White site in Montana erratic underground rooms with no available documentation were collapsed. An aditmore » leading into the mine was also blasted. Both individual room blasting and area pattern blasting were studied. A total of eight blasts were fired on the one acre area. Exploration requirements and costs were found to be extensive.« less

  17. Assessment of Spatio-temporal Barren-lands Expansion and Agricultural Adaptation due to Climate Change and Anthropogenic Activity: A Geospatial Approach in Hot Semi-arid Region of Maharashtra State, India

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Roy, A.; Inamdar, A. B.

    2017-12-01

    Major parts of Upper Godavari River Basin are intensely drought prone and climate vulnerable in Maharashtra State, India. The economy of the state depends on the agronomic productivity of this region. So, it is necessary to monitor and regulate the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activity on agricultural land in that region. This study investigates and maps the barren-lands and alteration of agricultural lands, their decadal deviations with the multi-temporal LANDSAT satellite images; and finally quantifies the agricultural adaptations. This work involves the utilization of remote sensing and GIS tools and modeling. First, climatic trend analysis is carried out with dataset obtained from India Meteorological Department. Then, multi-temporal LANDSAT images are classified (Level I, hybrid classification technique are followed) to determine the decadal Land Use Land Cover (LULC) changes and correlated with the agricultural water demand. Finally, various LANDSAT band analysis is conducted to determine irrigated and non-irrigated cropping area estimation and identifying the agricultural adaptations. The analysis of LANDSAT images shows that barren-lands are most increased class during the study period. The overall spatial extent of barren-lands are increased drastically during the study period. The geospatial study (class-to-class conversion study) shows that, most of the conversion of the barren-lands are from the agricultural land and reserve or open forests. The barren-lands are constantly increasing and the agricultural land is linearly decreasing. Hence, there is an inverse correlation between barren-lands and agricultural land. Moreover, there is a shift to non-irrigated and less water demanding crops, from more water demanding crops, which is a noticeable adaptation. The surface-water availability is highly dependent on rainfall and/or climatic conditions. It is changing either way in a random fashion based upon the quantity of rainfall occurred in

  18. Patterns and Drivers of Scattered Tree Loss in Agricultural Landscapes: Orchard Meadows in Germany (1968-2009)

    PubMed Central

    Plieninger, Tobias; Levers, Christian; Mantel, Martin; Costa, Augusta; Schaich, Harald; Kuemmerle, Tobias

    2015-01-01

    Scattered trees support high levels of farmland biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes, but they are threatened by agricultural intensification, urbanization, and land abandonment. This study aimed to map and quantify the decline of orchard meadows (scattered fruit trees of high nature conservation value) for a region in Southwestern Germany for the 1968 2009 period and to identify the driving forces of this decline. We derived orchard meadow loss from 1968 and 2009 aerial images and used a boosted regression trees modelling framework to assess the relative importance of 18 environmental, demographic, and socio-economic variables to test five alternative hypothesis explaining orchard meadow loss. We found that orchard meadow loss occurred in flatter areas, in areas where smaller plot sizes and fragmented orchard meadows prevailed, and in areas near settlements and infrastructure. The analysis did not confirm that orchard meadow loss was higher in areas where agricultural intensification was stronger and in areas of lower implementation levels of conservation policies. Our results demonstrated that the influential drivers of orchard meadow loss were those that reduce economic profitability and increase opportunity costs for orchards, providing incentives for converting orchard meadows to other, more profitable land uses. These insights could be taken up by local- and regional-level conservation policies to identify the sites of persistent orchard meadows in agricultural landscapes that would be prioritized in conservation efforts. PMID:25932914

  19. Agriculture's impact on microbial diversity and associated fluxes of carbon dioxide and methane

    PubMed Central

    Levine, Uri Y; Teal, Tracy K; Robertson, G Philip; Schmidt, Thomas M

    2011-01-01

    Agriculture has marked impacts on the production of carbon dioxide (CO2) and consumption of methane (CH4) by microbial communities in upland soils—Earth's largest biological sink for atmospheric CH4. To determine whether the diversity of microbes that catalyze the flux of these greenhouse gases is related to the magnitude and stability of these ecosystem-level processes, we conducted molecular surveys of CH4-oxidizing bacteria (methanotrophs) and total bacterial diversity across a range of land uses and measured the in situ flux of CH4 and CO2 at a site in the upper United States Midwest. Conversion of native lands to row-crop agriculture led to a sevenfold reduction in CH4 consumption and a proportionate decrease in methanotroph diversity. Sites with the greatest stability in CH4 consumption harbored the most methanotroph diversity. In fields abandoned from agriculture, the rate of CH4 consumption increased with time along with the diversity of methanotrophs. Conversely, estimates of total bacterial diversity in soil were not related to the rate or stability of CO2 emission. These combined results are consistent with the expectation that microbial diversity is a better predictor of the magnitude and stability of processes catalyzed by organisms with highly specialized metabolisms, like CH4 oxidation, as compared with processes driven by widely distributed metabolic processes, like CO2 production in heterotrophs. The data also suggest that managing lands to conserve or restore methanotroph diversity could mitigate the atmospheric concentrations of this potent greenhouse gas. PMID:21490688

  20. Modeling the fate and transport of bacteria in agricultural and pasture lands using APEX

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    The Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX) model is a whole farm to small watershed scale continuous simulation model developed for evaluating various land management strategies. The current version, APEX0806, does not have the modeling capacity for fecal indicator bacteria fate and trans...

  1. Alternative Land-Use Scenarios for Bioenergy Production in the U.S. and Brazil

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Campbell, J. E.; Spak, S.; Tsao, C. C.; Mena, M.; Chen, Y.

    2015-12-01

    Agriculture is historically a dominant form of global environmental degradation, and the potential for increased future degradation may be enhanced by growing demand for biofuels. Here, we apply high-resolution cropland inventories and agronomic models to characterize land-use impacts and mitigation scenarios for bioenergy production in the U.S. and Brazil. In the U.S., our gridded historical cropland maps show potential for production in the U.S. on 68 Mha of abandoned croplands in the U.S. which is as much as 70% larger than previous estimates due to a reduction in aggregation effects. In Brazil, a critical land-use impact is associated with non-GHG air pollutants from the management and expansion of sugarcane feedstocks. Our bottom-up estimate for these Brazilian land-use emissions is seven times larger than estimated from remote-sensing data due to the improved spatial resolution of our approach. While current land-use policies in Brazil and the U.S. seek to reduce life-cycle biofuel emissions, these policies may not support the mitigation alternatives identified here.

  2. Assessing the shelf life of cost-efficient conservation plans for species at risk across gradients of agricultural land use.

    PubMed

    Robillard, Cassandra M; Kerr, Jeremy T

    2017-08-01

    High costs of land in agricultural regions warrant spatial prioritization approaches to conservation that explicitly consider land prices to produce protected-area networks that accomplish targets efficiently. However, land-use changes in such regions and delays between plan design and implementation may render optimized plans obsolete before implementation occurs. To measure the shelf life of cost-efficient conservation plans, we simulated a land-acquisition and restoration initiative aimed at conserving species at risk in Canada's farmlands. We accounted for observed changes in land-acquisition costs and in agricultural intensity based on censuses of agriculture taken from 1986 to 2011. For each year of data, we mapped costs and areas of conservation priority designated using Marxan. We compared plans to test for changes through time in the arrangement of high-priority sites and in the total cost of each plan. For acquisition costs, we measured the savings from accounting for prices during site selection. Land-acquisition costs and land-use intensity generally rose over time independent of inflation (24-78%), although rates of change were heterogeneous through space and decreased in some areas. Accounting for spatial variation in land price lowered the cost of conservation plans by 1.73-13.9%, decreased the range of costs by 19-82%, and created unique solutions from which to choose. Despite the rise in plan costs over time, the high conservation priority of particular areas remained consistent. Delaying conservation in these critical areas may compromise what optimized conservation plans can achieve. In the case of Canadian farmland, rapid conservation action is cost-effective, even with moderate levels of uncertainty in how to implement restoration goals. © 2016 Society for Conservation Biology.

  3. 25 CFR 166.815 - How will the BIA determine the amount of damages to Indian agricultural land?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2013-04-01 2013-04-01 false How will the BIA determine the amount of damages to Indian agricultural land? 166.815 Section 166.815 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Trespass Penalties, Damages, and Costs § 166.815 How will the BIA...

  4. 25 CFR 166.815 - How will the BIA determine the amount of damages to Indian agricultural land?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2014-04-01 2014-04-01 false How will the BIA determine the amount of damages to Indian agricultural land? 166.815 Section 166.815 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Trespass Penalties, Damages, and Costs § 166.815 How will the BIA...

  5. 25 CFR 166.815 - How will the BIA determine the amount of damages to Indian agricultural land?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2012-04-01 2011-04-01 true How will the BIA determine the amount of damages to Indian agricultural land? 166.815 Section 166.815 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Trespass Penalties, Damages, and Costs § 166.815 How will the BIA determine...

  6. 25 CFR 166.815 - How will the BIA determine the amount of damages to Indian agricultural land?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false How will the BIA determine the amount of damages to Indian agricultural land? 166.815 Section 166.815 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Trespass Penalties, Damages, and Costs § 166.815 How will the BIA...

  7. 25 CFR 166.815 - How will the BIA determine the amount of damages to Indian agricultural land?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false How will the BIA determine the amount of damages to Indian agricultural land? 166.815 Section 166.815 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Trespass Penalties, Damages, and Costs § 166.815 How will the BIA...

  8. Combining Landsat and MODIS Data to Assess Trends in Bioproductivity in the Context of Land Use/Land Cover Change in Semi-arid West Africa

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Herrmann, S. M.; Tappan, G. G.

    2015-12-01

    Semi-arid West Africa is experiencing change at many levels (climatic, agricultural, socioeconomic), which leaves an imprint on the land surface that can be characterized by a range of long term satellite observations. This research addresses the questions of (1) what dominant trajectories of land use/land cover (LULC) change have occurred in the region and (2) whether particular LULC trajectories are associated with significant positive or negative trends in bioproductivity. Two types of satellite data were used in complementary fashion: (1) Landsat multispectral data were visually interpreted using the traditional dot grid method, whereby the interpreter identifies and attributes LULC at point locations spaced 2km apart. Interpreted LULC maps were produced for three points in time (1975, 2000, 2013), and LULC change statistics extracted from them. (2) The MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used as a proxy for bioproductivity and temporal trends of annual mean, maximum and minimum NDVI extracted at the sampling dots of known LULC for the period 2000-2013. The trends were analyzed with respect to the most prominent LULC classes and transitions, in particular from agriculture to natural vegetation and vice versa, and stratified by regions of similar mean annual precipitation. The most important LULC change over the almost 40-year period is a progressive expansion of agricultural lands, which has been responsible for major incursions into the region's remaining savannas and woodlands. To a lesser extent, abandonment of agriculture has given rise to long term fallow and eventually reversion to steppe or savanna. Another important change observed is the expansion of open steppe at the expense of savanna in the Sahel region. In terms of bioproductivity, while no significant trends in NDVI predominate overall, there are more instances of positive than of negative significant trends across the region. Contrary to our initial expectations, preliminary

  9. Data model for the collaboration between land administration systems and agricultural land parcel identification systems.

    PubMed

    Inan, Halil Ibrahim; Sagris, Valentina; Devos, Wim; Milenov, Pavel; van Oosterom, Peter; Zevenbergen, Jaap

    2010-12-01

    The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) has dramatically changed after 1992, and from then on the CAP focused on the management of direct income subsidies instead of production-based subsidies. For this focus, Member States (MS) are expected to establish Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS), including a Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) as the spatial part of IACS. Different MS have chosen different solutions for their LPIS. Currently, some MS based their IACS/LPIS on data from their Land Administration Systems (LAS), and many others use purpose built special systems for their IACS/LPIS. The issue with these different IACS/LPIS is that they do not have standardized structures; rather, each represents a unique design in each MS, both in the case of LAS based or special systems. In this study, we aim at designing a core data model for those IACS/LPIS based on LAS. For this purpose, we make use of the ongoing standardization initiatives for LAS (Land Administration Domain Model: LADM) and IACS/LPIS (LPIS Core Model: LCM). The data model we propose in this study implies the collaboration between LADM and LCM and includes some extensions. Some basic issues with the collaboration model are discussed within this study: registration of farmers, land use rights and farming limitations, geometry/topology, temporal data management etc. For further explanation of the model structure, sample instance level diagrams illustrating some typical situations are also included. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Research Needs for Carbon Management in Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Negra, C.; Lovejoy, T.; Ojima, D. S.; Ashton, R.; Havemann, T.; Eaton, J.

    2009-12-01

    Improved management of terrestrial carbon in agriculture, forestry, and other land use sectors is a necessary part of climate change mitigation. It is likely that governments will agree in Copenhagen in December 2009 to incentives for improved management of some forms of terrestrial carbon, including maintaining existing terrestrial carbon (e.g., avoiding deforestation) and creating new terrestrial carbon (e.g., afforestation, soil management). To translate incentives into changes in land management and terrestrial carbon stocks, a robust technical and scientific information base is required. All terrestrial carbon pools (and other greenhouse gases from the terrestrial system) that interact with the atmosphere at timescales less than centuries, and all land uses, have documented mitigation potential, however, most activity has focused on above-ground forest biomass. Despite research advances in understanding emissions reduction and sequestration associated with different land management techniques, there has not yet been broad-scale implementation of land-based mitigation activity in croplands, peatlands, grasslands and other land uses. To maximize long-term global terrestrial carbon volumes, further development of relevant data, methodologies and technologies are needed to complement policy and financial incentives. The Terrestrial Carbon Group, in partnership with UN-REDD agencies, the World Bank and CGIAR institutions, is reviewing literature, convening leading experts and surveying key research institutions to develop a Roadmap for Terrestrial Carbon: Research Needs for Implementation of Carbon Management in Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses. This work will summarize the existing knowledge base for emissions reductions and sequestration through land management as well as the current availability of tools and methods for measurement and monitoring of terrestrial carbon. Preliminary findings indicate a number of areas for future work. Enhanced information

  11. Agricultural terraces and slope instability at Cinque Terre (NW Italy)

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Brandolini, Pierluigi; Cevasco, Andrea

    2015-04-01

    Cinque Terre, located in the eastern Liguria, are one of the most representative examples of terraced coastal landscape within the Mediterranean region. They are the result of a century-old agricultural practice and constitute an outstanding example of human integration with the natural landscape. For this highly unusual man-made coastal landscape, the Cinque Terre have been recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1997 and became National Park in 1999. The complex network of retaining dry stone walls and drainage networks ensured through times the control of shallow water erosion and therefore, indirectly, favoured debris cover stability. The lack of maintenance of terracing due to farmer abandonment since the 1950s led to widespread slope erosion phenomena. The effects of such phenomena culminated during the 25 October 2011 storm rainfall event, when slope debris materials charged by streams gave rise to debris floods affecting both Monterosso and Vernazza villages. As the analysis of the relationships between geo-hydrological processes and land use in the Vernazza catchment highlighted, abandoned and not well maintained terraces were the most susceptible areas to shallow landsliding and erosion triggered by intense rainfall. As a consequence, the thousands of kilometres of dry stone walls retaining millions of cubic metres of debris cover at Cinque Terre currently constitute a potential menace for both villages, that are mainly located at the floor of deep cut valleys, and tourists. Given the increasing human pressure due to tourist activities, geo-hydrological risk mitigation measures are urgently needed. At the same time, restoration policies are necessary to preserve this extraordinary example of terraced coastal landscape. In this framework, the detailed knowledge of the response of terraced areas to intense rainfall in terms of slope instability is a topic issue in order to identify adequate land planning strategies as well as the areas where

  12. Land cover change or land-use intensification: simulating land system change with a global-scale land change model.

    PubMed

    van Asselen, Sanneke; Verburg, Peter H

    2013-12-01

    Land-use change is both a cause and consequence of many biophysical and socioeconomic changes. The CLUMondo model provides an innovative approach for global land-use change modeling to support integrated assessments. Demands for goods and services are, in the model, supplied by a variety of land systems that are characterized by their land cover mosaic, the agricultural management intensity, and livestock. Land system changes are simulated by the model, driven by regional demand for goods and influenced by local factors that either constrain or promote land system conversion. A characteristic of the new model is the endogenous simulation of intensification of agricultural management versus expansion of arable land, and urban versus rural settlements expansion based on land availability in the neighborhood of the location. Model results for the OECD Environmental Outlook scenario show that allocation of increased agricultural production by either management intensification or area expansion varies both among and within world regions, providing useful insight into the land sparing versus land sharing debate. The land system approach allows the inclusion of different types of demand for goods and services from the land system as a driving factor of land system change. Simulation results are compared to observed changes over the 1970-2000 period and projections of other global and regional land change models. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  13. 25 CFR 162.599 - What happens if the lessee abandons the leased premises?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2013-04-01 2013-04-01 false What happens if the lessee abandons the leased premises? 162.599 Section 162.599 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER LEASES AND PERMITS Wind and Solar Resource Leases Wsr Lease Effectiveness, Compliance, and Enforcement...

  14. 25 CFR 162.599 - What happens if the lessee abandons the leased premises?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2014-04-01 2014-04-01 false What happens if the lessee abandons the leased premises? 162.599 Section 162.599 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER LEASES AND PERMITS Wind and Solar Resource Leases Wsr Lease Effectiveness, Compliance, and Enforcement...

  15. Watershed Analysis of Nitrate Transport as a Result of Agricultural Inputs for Varying Land Use/Land Cover and Soil Type

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Scott, M. E.; Sykes, J. F.

    2006-12-01

    The Grand River Watershed is one of the largest watersheds in southwestern Ontario with an area of approximately 7000 square kilometers. Ninety percent of the watershed is classified as rural, and 80 percent of the watershed population relies on groundwater as their source of drinking water. Management of the watershed requires the determination of the effect of agricultural practices on long-term groundwater quality and to identify locations within the watershed that are at a higher risk of contamination. The study focuses on the transport of nitrate through the root zone as a result of agricultural inputs with attenuation due to biodegradation. The driving force for transport is spatially and temporally varying groundwater recharge that is a function of land use/land cover, soil and meteorological inputs that yields 47,229 unique soil columns within the watershed. Fertilizer sources are determined from Statistics Canada's Agricultural Census and include livestock manure and a popular commercial fertilizer, urea. Accounting for different application rates yields 60,066 unique land parcels of which 22,809 are classified as croplands where manure and inorganic fertilizes are directly applied. The transport for the croplands is simulated over a 14-year period to investigate the impact of seasonal applications of nitrate fertilizers on the concentration leaching from the root zone to the water table. Based on land use/land cover maps, ArcView GIS is used to define the location of fertilizer applications within the watershed and to spatially visualize data and analyze results. The large quantity of input data is stored and managed using MS-Access and a relational database management system. Nitrogen transformations and ammonium and nitrate uptake by plants and transport through the soil column are simulated on a daily basis using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) within MS-Access modules. Nitrogen transformations within the soil column were simplified using

  16. 30 CFR 874.12 - Eligible coal lands and water.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Eligible coal lands and water. 874.12 Section... INTERIOR ABANDONED MINE LAND RECLAMATION GENERAL RECLAMATION REQUIREMENTS § 874.12 Eligible coal lands and water. Coal lands and water are eligible for reclamation activities if— (a) They were mined for coal or...

  17. 30 CFR 874.12 - Eligible coal lands and water.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Eligible coal lands and water. 874.12 Section... INTERIOR ABANDONED MINE LAND RECLAMATION GENERAL RECLAMATION REQUIREMENTS § 874.12 Eligible coal lands and water. Coal lands and water are eligible for reclamation activities if— (a) They were mined for coal or...

  18. 30 CFR 874.12 - Eligible coal lands and water.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Eligible coal lands and water. 874.12 Section... INTERIOR ABANDONED MINE LAND RECLAMATION GENERAL RECLAMATION REQUIREMENTS § 874.12 Eligible coal lands and water. Coal lands and water are eligible for reclamation activities if— (a) They were mined for coal or...

  19. 30 CFR 874.12 - Eligible coal lands and water.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Eligible coal lands and water. 874.12 Section... INTERIOR ABANDONED MINE LAND RECLAMATION GENERAL RECLAMATION REQUIREMENTS § 874.12 Eligible coal lands and water. Coal lands and water are eligible for reclamation activities if— (a) They were mined for coal or...

  20. 30 CFR 874.12 - Eligible coal lands and water.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-07-01

    ... 30 Mineral Resources 3 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Eligible coal lands and water. 874.12 Section... INTERIOR ABANDONED MINE LAND RECLAMATION GENERAL RECLAMATION REQUIREMENTS § 874.12 Eligible coal lands and water. Coal lands and water are eligible for reclamation activities if— (a) They were mined for coal or...

  1. [Impact of land use type on stability and organic carbon of soil aggregates in Jinyun Mountain].

    PubMed

    Li, Jian-Lin; Jiang, Chang-Sheng; Hao, Qing-Ju

    2014-12-01

    Soil aggregates have the important effect on soil fertility, soil quality and the sustainable utilization of soil, and they are the mass bases of water and fertilizer retention ability of soil and the supply or release of soil nutrients. In this paper, in order to study the impact of land use type on stability and organic carbon of soil aggregates in Jinyun Mountain, we separated four land use types of soil, which are woodland, abandoned land, orchard and sloping farmland by wet sieving method, then we got the proportion of large macroaggregates (> 2 mm), small macroaggregates (0.25-2 mm), microaggregates (53 μm-0.25 mm) and silt + clay (< 53 μm) and measured the content of organic carbon in each aggregate fraction in soil depth of 0-60 cm and calculated the total content of organic carbon of all aggregates fraction in each soil. The results showed that reclamation of woodland will lead to fragmentation of macroaggregates and deterioration of soil structure, and the proportion of macroaggrgates (> 0.25 mm) were 44.62% and 32.28% respectively in the soils of orchard and sloping farmland, which reduced 38.58% (P < 0.05) and 91.52% (P < 0.05) compared with woodland. While after changing the sloping farmland to abandoned land, which lead to the conversion of soil fraction from silt + clay to large macroaggregates and small macroaggregates, so it will improve the soil structure. MWD (mean weight diameter) and GMD (geometric mean diameter) are important indicators of evaluating the stability of soil aggregates. We found the MWD and GWD in soil depth of 0-60 cm in orchards and sloping farmland were significantly lower than those in woodland (P < 0.05), while after changing the sloping farmland to abandoned land, the MWD and GWD increased significantly (P < 0.05), which indicated that reclamation of woodland will lead to the decrease of stability of soil aggregates, and they will be separated more easily by water. However, after changing the sloping farmland to abandoned

  2. Application of Sludges and Wastewaters on Agricultural Land: A Planning and Educational Guide, MCD-35. Research Bulletin 1090.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Knezek, Bernard D., Ed.; Miller, Robert H., Ed.

    This report addresses the application of agricultural processing wastes, industrial and municipal wastes on agricultural land as both a waste management and resource recovery and reuse practice. The document emphasizes the treatment and beneficial utilization of sludge and wastewater as opposed to waste disposal. These objectives are achieved…

  3. Low-Intensity Agricultural Landscapes in Transylvania Support High Butterfly Diversity: Implications for Conservation

    PubMed Central

    Loos, Jacqueline; Dorresteijn, Ine; Hanspach, Jan; Fust, Pascal; Rakosy, László; Fischer, Joern

    2014-01-01

    European farmland biodiversity is declining due to land use changes towards agricultural intensification or abandonment. Some Eastern European farming systems have sustained traditional forms of use, resulting in high levels of biodiversity. However, global markets and international policies now imply rapid and major changes to these systems. To effectively protect farmland biodiversity, understanding landscape features which underpin species diversity is crucial. Focusing on butterflies, we addressed this question for a cultural-historic landscape in Southern Transylvania, Romania. Following a natural experiment, we randomly selected 120 survey sites in farmland, 60 each in grassland and arable land. We surveyed butterfly species richness and abundance by walking transects with four repeats in summer 2012. We analysed species composition using Detrended Correspondence Analysis. We modelled species richness, richness of functional groups, and abundance of selected species in response to topography, woody vegetation cover and heterogeneity at three spatial scales, using generalised linear mixed effects models. Species composition widely overlapped in grassland and arable land. Composition changed along gradients of heterogeneity at local and context scales, and of woody vegetation cover at context and landscape scales. The effect of local heterogeneity on species richness was positive in arable land, but negative in grassland. Plant species richness, and structural and topographic conditions at multiple scales explained species richness, richness of functional groups and species abundances. Our study revealed high conservation value of both grassland and arable land in low-intensity Eastern European farmland. Besides grassland, also heterogeneous arable land provides important habitat for butterflies. While butterfly diversity in arable land benefits from heterogeneity by small-scale structures, grasslands should be protected from fragmentation to provide

  4. Evaluation of land capability and suitability for irrigated agriculture in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE, using an integrated AHP-GIS model

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Aldababseh, A.; Temimi, M.; Maghelal, P.; Branch, O.; Wulfmeyer, V.

    2017-12-01

    The rapid economic development and high population growth in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have impacted utilization and management of agricultural land. The development of large-scale agriculture in unsuitable areas can severely impact groundwater resources in the UAE. More than 60% of UAE's water resources are being utilized by the agriculture, forestry, and urban greenery sectors. However, the contribution of the agricultural sector to the national GDP is negligible. Several programs have been introduced by the government aimed at achieving sustainable agriculture whilst preserving valuable water resources. Local subsistence farming has declined considerably during the past few years, due to low soil moisture content, sandy soil texture, lack of arable land, natural climatic disruptions, water shortages, and declined rainfall. The limited production of food and the continuing rise in the food prices on a global and local level are expected to increase low-income households' vulnerability to food insecurity. This research aims at developing a suitability index for the evaluation and prioritization of areas in the UAE for large-scale agriculture. The AHP-GIS integrated model developed in this study facilitates a step by step aggregation of a large number of datasets representing the most important criteria, and the generation of agricultural suitability and land capability maps. To provide the necessary criteria to run the model, a comprehensive geospatial database was built, including climate conditions, water potential, soil capabilities, topography, and land management. A hieratical structure is built as a decomposition structure that includes all criteria and sub-criteria used to define land suitability based on literature review and experts' opinions. Pairwise comparisons matrix are used to calculate criteria' weights. The GIS Model Builder function is used to integrate all spatial processes to model land suitability. In order to preserve some flexibility

  5. Evaluation of land capability and suitability for irrigated agriculture in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE, using an integrated AHP-GIS model

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Aldababseh, Amal; Temimi, Marouane; Maghelal, Praveen; Branch, Oliver; Wulfmeyer, Volker

    2017-12-01

    The rapid economic development and high population growth in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have impacted utilization and management of agricultural land. The development of large-scale agriculture in unsuitable areas can severely impact groundwater resources in the UAE. More than 60% of UAE's water resources are being utilized by the agriculture, forestry, and urban greenery sectors. However, the contribution of the agricultural sector to the national GDP is negligible. Several programs have been introduced by the government aimed at achieving sustainable agriculture whilst preserving valuable water resources. Local subsistence farming has declined considerably during the past few years, due to low soil moisture content, sandy soil texture, lack of arable land, natural climatic disruptions, water shortages, and declined rainfall. The limited production of food and the continuing rise in the food prices on a global and local level are expected to increase low-income households' vulnerability to food insecurity. This research aims at developing a suitability index for the evaluation and prioritization of areas in the UAE for large-scale agriculture. The AHP-GIS integrated model developed in this study facilitates a step by step aggregation of a large number of datasets representing the most important criteria, and the generation of agricultural suitability and land capability maps. To provide the necessary criteria to run the model, a comprehensive geospatial database was built, including climate conditions, water potential, soil capabilities, topography, and land management. A hierarchical structure is built as a decomposition structure that includes all criteria and sub-criteria used to define land suitability based on literature review and experts' opinions. Pairwise comparisons matrix are used to calculate criteria' weights. The GIS Model Builder function is used to integrate all spatial processes to model land suitability. In order to preserve some flexibility

  6. Implementation of Sentinel-2 Data in the M4Land System for the Generation of Continuous Information Products in Agriculture

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Klug, P.; Schlenz, F.; Hank, T.; Migdall, S.; Weiß, I.; Danner, M.; Bach, H.; Mauser, W.

    2016-08-01

    The analysis system developed in the frame of the M4Land project (Model based, Multi-temporal, Multi scale and Multi sensorial retrieval of continuous land management information) has proven its capabilities of classifying crop type and creating products on the intensity of agricultural production using optical remote sensing data from Landsat and RapidEye. In this study, Sentinel-2 data is used for the first time together with Landsat 7 ETM+ and 8 OLI data within the M4Land analysis system to derive continuously crop type and the agricultural intensity of fields in an area north of Munich, Germany and the year 2015.

  7. Object-Based Retro-Classification Of A Agricultural Land Use: A Case Study Of Irrigated Croplands

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Dubovyk, Olena; Conrad, Christopher; Khamzina, Asia; Menz, Gunter

    2013-12-01

    Availability of the historical crop maps is necessary for the assessment of land management practices and their effectiveness, as well as monitoring of environmental impacts of land uses. Lack of accurate current and past land-use information forestalls assessment of the occurred changes and their consequences and, thus, complicates knowledge-driven agrarian policy development. At the same time, lack of the sampling dataset for the past years often restrict mapping of historical land use. We proposed a methodology for a retro-assessment of several crops, based on multitemporal Landsat 5 TM imagery and a limited sampling dataset. The overall accuracy of the retro-map was 81% while accuracies for specific crop classes varied from 60% to 93%. If further elaborated, the developed method could be a useful tool for the generation of historical data on agricultural land use.

  8. The accumulation of heavy metals in agricultural land and the associated potential ecological risks in Shenzhen, China.

    PubMed

    Wu, Jiansheng; Song, Jing; Li, Weifeng; Zheng, Maokun

    2016-01-01

    Accumulation of heavy metals in agricultural land and their ecological risks are key issues in soil security studies. This study investigated the concentrations of six heavy metals--copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), lead (Pb), nickel (Ni), and chromium (Cr) in Shenzhen's agricultural lands and examined the potential hazards and possible sources of these metals. Eighty-two samples from agricultural topsoil were collected. Potential ecological risk index was used to calculate the potential risk of heavy metals. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to explore pollution sources of the metals. Finally, Kriging was used to predict the spatial distribution of the metals' potential ecological risks. The concentrations of the heavy metals were higher than their background values. Most of them presented little potential ecological risk, except for the heavy metal cadmium (Cd). Four districts (Longgang, Longhua, Pingshan, and Dapeng) exhibited some degree of potential risk, which tended to have more industries and road networks. Three major sources of heavy metals included geochemical processes, industrial pollutants, and traffic pollution. The heavy metal Cd was the main contributor to the pollution in agricultural land during the study period. It also poses the potential hazard for the future. High potential risk is closely related to industrial pollution and transportation. Since the 1980s, the sources of heavy metals have evolved from parent rock weathering, erosion, degradation of organics, and mineralization to human disturbances resulting in chemical changes in the soil.

  9. Quantify the Biophysical and Socioeconomic Drivers of Changes in Forest and Agricultural Land in South and Southeast Asia

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Xu, X.; Jain, A. K.; Calvin, K. V.

    2017-12-01

    Due to the rapid socioeconomic development and biophysical factors, South and Southeast Asia (SSEA) has become a hotspot region of land use and land cover changes (LULCCs) in past few decades. Uncovering the drivers of LULCC is crucial for improving the understanding of LULCC processes. Due to the differences from spatiotemporal scales, methods and data sources in previous studies, the quantitative relationships between the LULCC activities and biophysical and socioeconomic drivers at the regional scale of SSEA have not been established. Here we present a comprehensive estimation of the biophysical and socioeconomic drivers of the major LULCC activities in SSEA: changes in forest and agricultural land. We used the Climate Change Initiative land cover data developed by European Space Agency to reveal the dynamics of forest and agricultural land from 1992 to 2015. Then we synthesized 200 publications about LULCC drivers at different spatial scales in SSEA to identify the major drivers of these LULCC activities. Corresponding representative variables of the major drivers were collected. The geographically weighted regression was employed to assess the spatiotemporally heterogeneous drivers of LULCC. Moreover, we validated our results with some national level case studies in SSEA. The results showed that both biophysical conditions such as terrain, soil, and climate, and socioeconomic factors such as migration, poverty, and economy played important roles in driving the changes of forest and agricultural land. The major drivers varied in different locations and periods. Our study integrated the bottom-up knowledge from local scale case studies with the top-down estimation of LULCC drivers, therefore generated more accurate and credible results. The identified biophysical and socioeconomic components could be used to improve the LULCC modelling and projection.

  10. Clustering of Multi-Temporal Fully Polarimetric L-Band SAR Data for Agricultural Land Cover Mapping

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Tamiminia, H.; Homayouni, S.; Safari, A.

    2015-12-01

    Recently, the unique capabilities of Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) sensors make them an important and efficient tool for natural resources and environmental applications, such as land cover and crop classification. The aim of this paper is to classify multi-temporal full polarimetric SAR data using kernel-based fuzzy C-means clustering method, over an agricultural region. This method starts with transforming input data into the higher dimensional space using kernel functions and then clustering them in the feature space. Feature space, due to its inherent properties, has the ability to take in account the nonlinear and complex nature of polarimetric data. Several SAR polarimetric features extracted using target decomposition algorithms. Features from Cloude-Pottier, Freeman-Durden and Yamaguchi algorithms used as inputs for the clustering. This method was applied to multi-temporal UAVSAR L-band images acquired over an agricultural area near Winnipeg, Canada, during June and July in 2012. The results demonstrate the efficiency of this approach with respect to the classical methods. In addition, using multi-temporal data in the clustering process helped to investigate the phenological cycle of plants and significantly improved the performance of agricultural land cover mapping.

  11. Estimating the effects of potential climate and land use changes on hydrologic processes of a large agriculture dominated watershed

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Neupane, Ram P.; Kumar, Sandeep

    2015-10-01

    Land use and climate are two major components that directly influence catchment hydrologic processes, and therefore better understanding of their effects is crucial for future land use planning and water resources management. We applied Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to assess the effects of potential land use change and climate variability on hydrologic processes of large agriculture dominated Big Sioux River (BSR) watershed located in North Central region of USA. Future climate change scenarios were simulated using average output of temperature and precipitation data derived from Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) (B1, A1B, and A2) for end-21st century. Land use change was modeled spatially based on historic long-term pattern of agricultural transformation in the basin, and included the expansion of corn (Zea mays L.) cultivation by 2, 5, and 10%. We estimated higher surface runoff in all land use scenarios with maximum increase of 4% while expanding 10% corn cultivation in the basin. Annual stream discharge was estimated higher with maximum increase of 72% in SRES-B1 attributed from higher groundwater contribution of 152% in the same scenario. We assessed increased precipitation during spring season but the summer precipitation decreased substantially in all climate change scenarios. Similar to decreased summer precipitation, discharge of the BSR also decreased potentially affecting agricultural production due to reduced future water availability during crop growing season in the basin. However, combined effects of potential land use change with climate variability enhanced for higher annual discharge of the BSR. Therefore, these estimations can be crucial for implications of future land use planning and water resources management of the basin.

  12. Effects of different agricultural managements in soil microbial community structure in a semi-arid Mediterranean region.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    García-Orenes, Fuensanta; Morugan, Alicia; Mataix-Solera, Jorge; Scow, Kate

    2013-04-01

    Agriculture has been practiced in semi-arid Mediterranean regions for 10.000 years and in many cases these practices have been unsuitable causing land degradation for millennium and an important loss of soil quality. The land management can provide solutions to find the best agricultural practices in order to maintain the soil quality and get a sustainable agriculture model. Microbiological properties are the most sensitive and rapid indicators of soil perturbations and land use managements. The study of microbial community and diversity has an important interest as indicators of changes in soil quality. The main objective of this work was to asses the effect of different agricultural management practices in soil microbial community (evaluated as abundance of phospholipid fatty acids, PLFA). Four different treatments were selected, based on the most commonly practices applied by farmers in the study area, "El Teularet Experimental Station", located at the Enguera Range in the southern part of the Valencia province (eastern Spain). These treatments were: a) ploughing, b) herbicides c) mulch, using the types applied by organic farmers to develop a sustainable agriculture, such as oat straw and d) control that was established as plot where the treatment was abandonment after farming. An adjacent area with the same type of soil, but with natural vegetation was used as a standard or reference high quality soil. Soil samples were taken to evaluate the changes in microbial soil structure, analysing the abundance of PLFA. The results showed a major content of total PLFA in soils treated with oats straw, being these results similar to the content of PLFA in the soil with natural vegetation, also these soils were similar in the distribution of abundance of different PLFA studied. However, the herbicide and tillage treatments showed great differences regarding the soil used as reference (soil under natural vegetation).

  13. Impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on land use and transboundary freshwater resources

    PubMed Central

    Müller, Marc François; Yoon, Jim; Gorelick, Steven M.; Avisse, Nicolas; Tilmant, Amaury

    2016-01-01

    Since 2013, hundreds of thousands of refugees have migrated southward to Jordan to escape the Syrian civil war that began in mid-2011. Evaluating impacts of conflict and migration on land use and transboundary water resources in an active war zone remains a challenge. However, spatial and statistical analyses of satellite imagery for the recent period of Syrian refugee mass migration provide evidence of rapid changes in land use, water use, and water management in the Yarmouk–Jordan river watershed shared by Syria, Jordan, and Israel. Conflict and consequent migration caused ∼50% decreases in both irrigated agriculture in Syria and retention of winter rainfall in Syrian dams, which gave rise to unexpected additional stream flow to downstream Jordan during the refugee migration period. Comparing premigration and postmigration periods, Syrian abandonment of irrigated agriculture accounts for half of the stream flow increase, with the other half attributable to recovery from a severe drought. Despite this increase, the Yarmouk River flow into Jordan is still substantially below the volume that was expected by Jordan under the 1953, 1987, and 2001 bilateral agreements with Syria. PMID:27930317

  14. Impact of shifts in agriculture practices on lake ecosystems from SE Romania

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Iurian, Andra-Rada; Csaba Begy, Robert; Szabolcs, Kelemen; Simon, Hedvig; Martonos, Ildiko Melinda; Mircea Margineanu, Romul

    2017-04-01

    Well preserved lacustrine and wetland areas of special ecological interest from Ialomitei and Danube River Basins were investigated with the aim to assess temporal and spatial variability in sediment accumulation rates in relation to the multiple socio-economic and political changes that occurred with the rise and fall of socialism (1948-1989) in Romania. These shifts in the political systems resulted in space dynamics of the main land use/cover classes and their quality, a new type of landed property and land exploitation. The temporal context for the study (last 100 years) was provided by Pb-210 geochronology with Chernobyl Cs-137 as independent chronological marker. The study sites are located on the Southern Romanian Plain (Danube Plain), the main agricultural area in Romania, well known for high productivity of soils and good crop yields. The post-communist land reform resulted in the excessive fragmentation of farm land and the marked degradation of soil quality, leading to increased land vulnerability to extreme weathering and eventually to its abandonment in low-productive regions. The results are discussed in the context of the chronological data, sediment composition and historic meteorological records. Acknowledgements: This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNCS - UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-1772.

  15. A multi-tracer approach to assess fingerprints of nitrate in an aquifer under agriculturally used land

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Pasten-Zapata, Ernesto; Ledesma-Ruiz, Rogelio; Ramirez, Aldo; Harter, Thomas; Mahlknecht, Jürgen

    2014-05-01

    To effectively manage groundwater quality it is essential to understand sources of contamination and underground processes. The objective of the study was to identify sources and fate of nitrate pollution occurring in an aquifer underneath a sub-humid to humid region in NE Mexico which provides 10% of national citrus production. Nitrate isotopes and halide ratios were applied to understand nitrate sources and transformations in relation to land use/land cover. It was found that the study area is subject to diverse nitrate sources including organic waste and wastewater, synthetic fertilizers and soil processes. Animal manure and sewage from septic tanks were the causes of groundwater nitrate pollution within orchards and vegetable agriculture. Dairy activities within a radius of 1,000m from a sampling point increased nitrate pollution. Leachates from septic tanks incited nitrate pollution in residential areas. Soil nitrogen and animal waste were the sources of nitrate in groundwater under shrubland and grassland. Partial denitrification processes were evidenced. The denitrification process helped to attenuate nitrate concentration in the agricultural lands and grassland particularly during summer months.

  16. Using Local Data to Address Abandoned Property: Lessons Learned From a Community Health Partnership.

    PubMed

    Teixeira, Samantha; Kolke, Demi

    A growing body of research highlights the role of the built environment in promoting or impeding health. This research suggests that environmental issues like abandoned properties exact a toll on physical and mental health. We describe a community partnership aimed at improving community health through equitable land use policies and blight remediation. A collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh and Operation Better Block, Inc. (OBB), a community development corporation in Pittsburgh, was formed. We implemented an intervention to address property abandonment using data-driven techniques. In addition to successful advocacy for city-wide policies addressing abandonment, 80% of the properties that were part of our intervention were improved or addressed by the city. Balancing the needs of community and academic partners can be challenging, but our experiences suggest that community health partnerships to address built environmental issues may be an important conduit to health promotion.

  17. Estimating potential wind erosion of agricultural lands in northern China using the Revised Wind Erosion Equation (RWEQ) and GIS

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    Fine materials emissions from severe wind-induced soil erosion have multiple impacts on land degradation and environmental pollution in the agro-pastoral ecotone in northern China (APEC). Assessment of wind erosion for the agricultural land management systems in APEC are needed to determine which sy...

  18. 25 CFR 166.812 - What are the penalties, damages, and costs payable by trespassers on Indian agricultural land?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2013-04-01 2013-04-01 false What are the penalties, damages, and costs payable by trespassers on Indian agricultural land? 166.812 Section 166.812 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Trespass Penalties, Damages, and Costs § 166.812 What...

  19. 25 CFR 166.812 - What are the penalties, damages, and costs payable by trespassers on Indian agricultural land?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false What are the penalties, damages, and costs payable by trespassers on Indian agricultural land? 166.812 Section 166.812 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Trespass Penalties, Damages, and Costs § 166.812 What...

  20. 25 CFR 166.812 - What are the penalties, damages, and costs payable by trespassers on Indian agricultural land?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false What are the penalties, damages, and costs payable by trespassers on Indian agricultural land? 166.812 Section 166.812 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Trespass Penalties, Damages, and Costs § 166.812 What...

  1. 25 CFR 166.812 - What are the penalties, damages, and costs payable by trespassers on Indian agricultural land?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2014-04-01 2014-04-01 false What are the penalties, damages, and costs payable by trespassers on Indian agricultural land? 166.812 Section 166.812 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Trespass Penalties, Damages, and Costs § 166.812 What...

  2. 25 CFR 166.812 - What are the penalties, damages, and costs payable by trespassers on Indian agricultural land?

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-04-01

    ... 25 Indians 1 2012-04-01 2011-04-01 true What are the penalties, damages, and costs payable by trespassers on Indian agricultural land? 166.812 Section 166.812 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR LAND AND WATER GRAZING PERMITS Trespass Penalties, Damages, and Costs § 166.812 What...

  3. 18 CFR 157.216 - Abandonment.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-04-01

    ... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false Abandonment. 157.216 Section 157.216 Conservation of Power and Water Resources FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION, DEPARTMENT... facilities to be abandoned. (5) For any abandonment resulting in earth disturbance, a USGS 71/2-minute-series...

  4. 18 CFR 157.216 - Abandonment.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-04-01

    ... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2012-04-01 2012-04-01 false Abandonment. 157.216 Section 157.216 Conservation of Power and Water Resources FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION, DEPARTMENT... facilities to be abandoned. (5) For any abandonment resulting in earth disturbance, a USGS 71/2-minute-series...

  5. 18 CFR 157.216 - Abandonment.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-04-01

    ... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2013-04-01 2013-04-01 false Abandonment. 157.216 Section 157.216 Conservation of Power and Water Resources FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION, DEPARTMENT... facilities to be abandoned. (5) For any abandonment resulting in earth disturbance, a USGS 71/2-minute-series...

  6. 18 CFR 157.216 - Abandonment.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-04-01

    ... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2014-04-01 2014-04-01 false Abandonment. 157.216 Section 157.216 Conservation of Power and Water Resources FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION, DEPARTMENT... facilities to be abandoned. (5) For any abandonment resulting in earth disturbance, a USGS 71/2-minute-series...

  7. 18 CFR 157.216 - Abandonment.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-04-01

    ... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Abandonment. 157.216 Section 157.216 Conservation of Power and Water Resources FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION, DEPARTMENT... facilities to be abandoned. (5) For any abandonment resulting in earth disturbance, a USGS 71/2-minute-series...

  8. Development of the Land-use and Agricultural Management Practice web-Service (LAMPS) for generating crop rotations in space and time

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    Agroecosystem models and conservation planning tools require spatially and temporally explicit input data about agricultural management operations. The Land-use and Agricultural Management Practices web-Service (LAMPS) provides crop rotation and management information for user-specified areas within...

  9. Assessments of the contribution of land use change to the dust emission in Central Asia

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Xi, X.; Sokolik, I. N.

    2015-12-01

    While the dust emission from arid and semi-arid regions is known as a natural process induced by wind erosion, human may affect the dust emission directly through land use disturbances and indirectly by climate change. There has been much debate on the relative importance of climate change and land use to the global dust budget, as past estimates on the proportion of dust contributed by land use, in particular agricultural practices, remains very uncertain. This to the large extent stems from the way how human-made dust sources are identified and how they are treated in models. This study attempts to assess the land use contribution to the dust emission in Central Asia during 2000-2014 by conducting multiple experiments on the total emission in the WRF-Chem-DuMo model, and applying two methods to separate the natural and anthropogenic sources. The model experiments include realistic treatments of agriculture (e.g., expansion and abandonment) and water body changes (e.g., Aral Sea desiccation) in the land cover map of WRF-Chem-DuMo, but impose no arbitrary labeling of dust source type or adjustment to the erosion threshold. Intercomparison of the model experiments will be focused on the magnitude, interannual variability, and climate sensitivity of dust fluxes resulting from the selections of surface input data and dust flux parameterizations. Based on annual land use intensity maps, the sensitivity of the anthropogenic dust proportion to selection of the threshold value will be evaluated. In conjunction with the empirical method, satellite-derived annual land classifications will be used to track the land cover dynamics, and separate potential human-made source areas.

  10. Arbuscular mycorrhizal propagules in soils from a tropical forest and an abandoned cornfield in Quintana Roo, Mexico: visual comparison of most-probable-number estimates.

    PubMed

    Ramos-Zapata, José A; Guadarrama, Patricia; Navarro-Alberto, Jorge; Orellana, Roger

    2011-02-01

    The present study was aimed at comparing the number of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) propagules found in soil from a mature tropical forest and that found in an abandoned cornfield in Noh-Bec Quintana Roo, Mexico, during three seasons. Agricultural practices can dramatically reduce the availability and viability of AMF propagules, and in this way delay the regeneration of tropical forests in abandoned agricultural areas. In addition, rainfall seasonality, which characterizes deciduous tropical forests, may strongly influence AMF propagules density. To compare AMF propagule numbers between sites and seasons (summer rainy, winter rainy and dry season), a "most probable number" (MPN) bioassay was conducted under greenhouse conditions employing Sorgum vulgare L. as host plant. Results showed an average value of 3.5 ± 0.41 propagules in 50 ml of soil for the mature forest while the abandoned cornfield had 15.4 ± 5.03 propagules in 50 ml of soil. Likelihood analysis showed no statistical differences in MPN of propagules between seasons within each site, or between sites, except for the summer rainy season for which soil from the abandoned cornfield had eight times as many propagules compared to soil from the mature forest site for this season. Propagules of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi remained viable throughout the sampling seasons at both sites. Abandoned areas resulting from traditional slash and burn agriculture practices involving maize did not show a lower number of AMF propagules, which should allow the establishment of mycotrophic plants thus maintaining the AMF inoculum potential in these soils.

  11. Trends in Global Agricultural Land Use: Implications for Environmental Health and Food Security.

    PubMed

    Ramankutty, Navin; Mehrabi, Zia; Waha, Katharina; Jarvis, Larissa; Kremen, Claire; Herrero, Mario; Rieseberg, Loren H

    2018-04-29

    The eighteenth-century Malthusian prediction of population growth outstripping food production has not yet come to bear. Unprecedented agricultural land expansions since 1700, and technological innovations that began in the 1930s, have enabled more calorie production per capita than was ever available before in history. This remarkable success, however, has come at a great cost. Agriculture is a major cause of global environmental degradation. Malnutrition persists among large sections of the population, and a new epidemic of obesity is on the rise. We review both the successes and failures of the global food system, addressing ongoing debates on pathways to environmental health and food security. To deal with these challenges, a new coordinated research program blending modern breeding with agro-ecological methods is needed. We call on plant biologists to lead this effort and help steer humanity toward a safe operating space for agriculture.

  12. Estimation of Agricultural Pesticide Use in Drainage Basins Using Land Cover Maps and County Pesticide Data. National Water-Quality Assessment Program

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2005-01-01

    National Water-Quality Assessment Program NCFAP National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy NLCD 92 National Land Cover Data 1992 NLCDe 92 enhanced...cropland acreage and state agricultural pesticide use in the early to mid-1990s reported by the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy (NCFAP...Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). [17]. The National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy (NCFAP) is a

  13. Agricultural land cover mapping in the context of a geographically referenced digital information system. [Carroll, Macon, and Gentry Counties, Missouri

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Stoner, E. R.

    1982-01-01

    The introduction of soil map information to the land cover mapping process can improve discrimination of land cover types and reduce confusion among crop types that may be caused by soil-specific management practices and background reflectance characteristics. Multiple dates of LANDSAT MSS digital were analyzed for three study areas in northern Missouri to produce cover types for major agricultural land cover classes. Digital data bases were then developed by adding ancillary data such as digitized soil and transportation network information to the LANDSAT-derived cover type map. Procedures were developed to manipulate the data base parameters to extract information applicable to user requirements. An agricultural information system combining such data can be used to determine the productive capacity of land to grow crops, fertilizer needs, chemical weed control rates, irrigation suitability, and trafficability of soil for planting.

  14. Evaluation of current state of agricultural land using problem-oriented fuzzy indicators in GIS environment

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    Current state of agricultural lands is defined under influence of processes in soil, plants and atmosphere and is described by observation data, complicated models and subjective opinion of experts. Problem-oriented indicators summarize this information in useful form for decision of the same specif...

  15. Agricultural land use and water quality in the upper St. Joseph River basin, Michigan

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Cummings, T. Ray

    1978-01-01

    Land use in the upper St. Joseph River basin of south-central Michigan is primarily agricultural. In the 144-square-mile area, the chemical and physical characteristics of water are determined by the climate and soils, as well as by land conservation practices. Municipal waste discharges affect water quality at some locations, as do the larger lakes and ponds. Data indicate that mean discharge from the basin is 135 cubic feet per second. About half this flow is contributed to the St. Joseph River by three major tributaries: Beebe Creek (36 cubic feet per second); Sand Creek (24 cubic feet per second); and Soap Creek (13 cubic feet per second). Runoff from 21 drainage areas delineated for the investigation ranged from 0.22 to 4.07 cubic feet per second per square mile; both the higher and lower values are largely the result of naturally occurring inter- and intrabasin transfers of water.Suspended-sediment concentrations are low throughout the basin, rarely exceeding 100 milligrams per liter. Mean concentrations at four daily sampling stations on the major tributaries and on the St. Joseph River ranged from 9.7 milligrams per liter to 38 milligrams per liter. The maximum sediment yield was 182 pounds per acre per year. Deposition of sediment in five of the 21 areas resulted in a net loss of sediment transported, and thus “negative” yields.Nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations do not vary greatly from site to site. Mean concentrations of total nitrogen at downstream sites on Beebe, Sand, and Soap Creeks, and on the St. Joseph River ranged from 1.5 to 1.8 milligrams per liter. About 90 percent of all nitrogen, and 66 percent of all phosphorus, is transported in solution. Land used principally for agriculture has a mean total nitrogen yield of 4.9 pounds per acre per year and a mean total phosphorus yield of 0.13 pounds per year. A comparison of total nitrogen and total phosphorus yields with type of agricultural use showed few relationships; nitrogen yield

  16. Quantifying the climate-change consequences of shifting land use between forest and agriculture.

    PubMed

    Kirschbaum, Miko U F; Saggar, Surinder; Tate, Kevin R; Thakur, Kailash P; Giltrap, Donna L

    2013-11-01

    Land-use change between forestry and agriculture can cause large net emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), and the respective land uses associated with forest and pasture lead to different on-going emission rates of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) and different surface albedo. Here, we quantify the overall net radiative forcing and consequent temperature change from specified land-use changes. These different radiative agents cause radiative forcing of different magnitudes and with different time profiles. Carbon emission can be very high when forests are cleared. Upon reforestation, the former carbon stocks can be regained, but the rate of carbon sequestration is much slower than the rate of carbon loss from deforestation. A production forest may undergo repeated harvest and regrowth cycles, each involving periods of C emission and release. Agricultural land, especially grazed pastures, have much higher N2O emissions than forests because of their generally higher nitrogen status that can be further enhanced through intensification of the nitrogen cycle by animal excreta. Because of its longevity in the atmosphere, N2O concentrations build up nearly linearly over many decades. CH4 emissions can be very high from ruminant animals grazing on pastures. Because of its short atmospheric longevity, the CH4 concentration from a converted pasture accumulates for only a few decades before reaching a new equilibrium when emission of newly produced CH4 is balanced by the oxidation of previously emitted CH4. Albedo changes generally have the opposite radiative forcing from those of the GHGs and partly negate their radiative forcing. Overall and averaged over 100 years, CO2 is typically responsible for 50% of radiative forcing and CH4 and N2O for 25% each. Albedo changes can negate the radiative forcing by the three greenhouse gases by 20-25%. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Changes in Nitrogen Cycling during Tropical Forest Secondary Succession on Abandoned Pastures

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Mirza, S.; Rivera, R. J.; Marin-Spiotta, E.

    2017-12-01

    Nitrogen (N) plays two important roles in Earth's climate. As a plant nutrient, the availability of N affects plant growth and the uptake of carbon (C) from the atmosphere into plant biomass. The accumulation of C in long-lived biomass and in soils contributes to reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Secondly, excess N can lead to the production of N2O, which is a more potent greenhouse than CO2. Humans have altered the cycling of N in terrestrial ecosystems, affecting their potential to sequester C and help mitigate climate change. Land-use change, specifically deforestation and reforestation, can affect N availability for plant growth and N2O production. Long-term agricultural use can deplete nitrogen sources, even in tropical soils where N is not expected to limit productivity. Secondary succession and reforestation can allow for the recovery of N stocks and fluxes, with implications for C cycling and N2O emissions. N limitation in pastures and early successional forests increases the demand for N-fixing tree species, but previous research has shown that there is a greater abundance of N-fixing species in older forests (Batterman et. al 2013). Successional trends in N mineralization and denitrification vary across studies, with some showing greater rates in agricultural soils or in mature forest soils, compared to early successional sites. Here we examine changes in N-fixing species, above and belowground N pools, and N cycling rates in secondary forests on former pastures on Oxisols in the wet tropical forest life zone of Puerto Rico. The availability of a long-term well-replicated chronosequence provides us with the opportunity to study decadal trends in N processes during forest recovery after agricultural abandonment.

  18. Combining Landsat and MODIS Long Term Data Records to Assess Trends in Bioproductivity in the Context of Land Use/Land Cover Change in Semi-Arid West Africa

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Herrmann, S. M.; Tappan, G. G.

    2014-12-01

    Semi-arid West Africa is experiencing change at many levels (climatic, agricultural, socioeconomic), which leaves an imprint on the land surface that can be characterized by a range of long term satellite observations. This research addresses the questions of (1) what dominant trajectories of land use/land cover (LULC) change have occurred in the region and (2) whether particular LULC trajectories are associated with significant positive or negative trends in bioproductivity. Two types of satellite data were used in complementary fashion: (1) Landsat multispectral data were visually interpreted using the traditional dot grid method, whereby the interpreter identifies and attributes LULC at point locations spaced 2km apart. Interpreted LULC maps were produced for three points in time (1975, 2000, 2013), and LULC change statistics extracted from them. (2) The MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used as a proxy for bioproductivity and temporal trends of annual mean, maximum and minimum NDVI extracted at the sampling dots of known LULC for the period 2000-2013. The trends were analyzed with respect to the most prominent LULC classes and transitions, in particular from agriculture to natural vegetation and vice versa, and stratified by regions of similar mean annual precipitation. The most important LULC change over the almost 40-year period is a progressive expansion of agricultural lands, which has been responsible for major incursions into the region's remaining savannas and woodlands. To a lesser extent, abandonment of agriculture has given rise to long term fallow and eventually reversion to steppe or savanna. Another important change observed is the expansion of open steppe at the expense of savanna in the Sahel region. In terms of bioproductivity, while no significant trends in NDVI predominate overall, there are more instances of positive than of negative significant trends across the region. Contrary to our initial expectations, preliminary

  19. New Jersey Land-Use Planning Techniques and Legislation. Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin AE-338.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schneider, Lee D.

    In response to recent urban to rural migration trends and the development of rather piecemeal land use policies and practices by local, state, and Federal decision makers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has established a regional project (NE-78) and this report reflects the first of three major project objectives (to describe and appraise…

  20. Linking river nutrient concentrations to land use and rainfall in a paddy agriculture-urban area gradient watershed in southeast China.

    PubMed

    Xia, Yongqiu; Ti, Chaopu; She, Dongli; Yan, Xiaoyuan

    2016-10-01

    The effects of land use and land-use changes on river nutrient concentrations are not well understood, especially in the watersheds of developing countries that have a mixed land use of rice paddy fields and developing urban surfaces. Here, we present a three-year study of a paddy agricultural-urban area gradient watershed in southeast China. The annual anthropogenic nitrogen (N) input from the agricultural region to the urban region was high, yet the results showed that the monthly nutrient concentrations in the river were low in the rainy seasons. The nutrient concentrations decreased continuously as the river water passed through the traditional agriculture region (TAR; paddy rice and wheat rotation) and increased substantially in the city region (CR). The traditional agricultural reference region exported most of the nutrient loads at high flows (>1mmd(-1)), the intensified agricultural region (IAR, aquaculture and poultry farming) exported most of the nutrient loads at moderate flows (between 0.5 and 1mmd(-1)), and the CR reference area exported most of the nutrient loads under low to moderate flows. We developed a statistical model to link variations in the nutrient concentrations to the proportion of land-use types and rainfall. The statistical results showed that impervious surfaces, which we interpret as a proxy for urban activities including sewage disposal, were the most important drivers of nutrient concentrations, whereas water surfaces accounted for a substantial proportion of the nutrient sinks. Therefore, to efficiently reduce water pollution, sewage from urban areas must be addressed as a priority, although wetland restoration could also achieve substantial pollutant removal. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.