Genetic algorithm-based feature selection for classification of land cover changes using combined LANDSAT and ENVISAT images

This study examines landscape changes in the context of China's national Grain for Green (GFG) policy, one of the world's largest "payment for environmental/ecosystem services" (PES) programs. We explored landscape structures and dynamics between 2000 and 2010 in Shaanxi Province, the Chinese province with the greatest amount of cropland conversion and reforestation in recent decades. We used Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM)-derived data and landscape metrics for six land cover classes to determine (1) the major land cover changes during enforcement of the policy, (2) the spatial and temporal variations in these changes, and (3) the effects of land cover changes on landscape structure and dynamics. The results suggested that provincial-level land cover changes modestly reflected the goals of the GFG. Over the 10-year study period, the forest and grassland coverages expanded from 95,737.9 to 97,017.4km(2) and from 37,235.9 to 40,613.1km(2), respectively, while the cropland coverage decreased from 59,222.8 to 54,007.6km(2). The conversion direction differed regionally: the targeted croplands in Shanbei, namely, types III and IV, were mainly transformed into grassland while those in Shannan were mainly transformed into forestland. Reforestation was associated with increased inter-landscape aggregation and connection. Despite this large-scale reforestation trend, we found notable and significant differences in the land cover changes at the subprovincial level.

Land use, land cover, and climate change impacts are current global challenges that are affecting many sectors, like agricultural production, socio-economic development, water quality, and causing land fragmentation. In developing countries like Uganda, rural areas with high populations dependent on agriculture are the most affected. The development of sustainable management measures requires proper identification of drivers and impacts on the environment and livelihoods of the affected communities. This study applied drivers, pressure, state, impact, and response model in the L. Kyoga basin to determine the drivers and impacts of land use, land cover, and climate change on livelihoods and the environment. The objective of this study was to determine the drivers and impacts of land use, land cover, and climate changes on the environment and livelihoods in the L. Kyoga basin and suggest sustainable mitigation measures. Focus group discussions, key informant interviews, field observations, and literature reviews were used to collect data. Population increase and climate change were the leading drivers, while agriculture and urbanization were the primary pressures, leading to degraded land, wetlands, and forests; loss of soil fertility, hunger, poverty, poor water quality, which are getting worse. The local communities, government, and non-government institutions had responses to impacts, including agrochemicals, restoration, and conservation approaches. Although most responses were at a small/pilot scale level, most responses had promising results. The application of policies and regulations to manage impacts was also found to be weak. Land use, land cover changes, and climate change occur in the L. Kyoga basin with major impacts on land, water, and community livelihoods. With the observed increase in climate change and population growth, drivers and impacts are potentially getting worse. Therefore, it is essential to expand interventions, provide relief, review policies and regulations, and enforce them. The findings are helpful for decisions and policy-makers to design appropriate management options.

The pace of change in land use and cover in Ethiopia depends on three main factors that cause pressure on agriculture land: resettlement programmes, population growth and increasing agricultural investments. Gambella is one of the regions of Ethiopia that attracts large-scale agricultural investments that extensively drive land use and cover changes in the region. The aim of this study is to examine the rate, extent and distribution of various land use and cover changes in Gambella Regional State, Ethiopia, from 1987 to 2017. The analysis is mainly based on Landsat 5 and Sentinel 2A satellite images and fieldwork. Two Landsat Thematic Mapper and a Sentinel 2A image were used for determining the maximum likelihood of land use/cover classification. The results show that farmland decreased by 26 km2 from 1987 to 2000; however, during the last two decades, agricultural land area increased by 599 km2, mainly at the cost of tropical grasslands and forests. We found that areas cultivated by smallholder farmers increased by 9.17% from 1987 to 2000. However, small-scale farm activities decreased by 7% from 2000 to 2017. Areas cultivated by large-scale state farms totalled 202 km2 in 1987; but by 2000, this large-scale state farming had been completely abandoned by the state, and as a result, its land use has decreased to zero. Despite this, in 2017 large-scale farming increased to 746 km2. In addition, Gambella National Park, which is the nation's largest national park and ecosystem, was also largely affected by Land Use and Land Cover changes. The conversion of savannah/tropical grasslands to agricultural farmland has caused varied and extensive environmental degradation to the park. The Land Use and Land Cover changes in the Gambella region are discussed on the basis of underlying socioeconomic factors.

The relationship of land tenure, land use and land cover changes in Lake Victoria basin

Spatial analysis of land use and cover changes: Implications of green legacy initiative on climate action in Upper Awash Basin, Ethiopia

Land use and land cover changes (LULCC) as a part of ecosystems has a significant impact on carbon budget. According to IPCC, approximately 23% of carbon was emitted from the human activities in agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) from 2007 to 2016. However, land cover includes crucial sector for carbon stock, as well. The land cover consists of five categories which are used area, agricultural land, forest, grass, wet land, and barren. Among these categories, forest counts because of its capacity of carbon sequestration. It is essential to manage the land use and land cover changes effectively since it has lots of influences on carbon cycles. Also, the sustainable management of land use and land cover changes could contribute to reducing the carbon emissions such as preventing deforestation and revegetation. Therefore, this study aims at analyzing the frequent land use change region using hot spot analysis in South Korea and North Korea and estimating the carbon emission and removals from land cover changes. First of all, we tracked the land cover changes at 10 years interval from 1980s to 2010s and identified the general trends. The changed area and ratio of each land cover were varied in both countries, but they had similar characteristics which is land cover changes from forest to cropland and from cropland to forest. It occurred for last four decades. To define the which region has been changed, the hot spot analysis was utilized. The change from forest to cropland appeared in southwest region of North Korea, major agriculture land. On the other hand, the transition from agriculture land to forest seemed to be minor, but the distinguished figure was created during the 2000s to 2010s change. The carbon emission was estimated at the hot spot area and these repeated changes led to additional carbon emission. This study would contribute to preventing the land cover changes frequent by defining the region to be managed.

Land use and land cover changes and their driving forces in selected forest reserves in Central Tanzania

As one of the last agricultural frontiers of the humid tropics, Amazonia is the largest area of the world currently undergoing frontier settlement. Although the earliest intrusions of foreign populations into Amazonia date from pre-Hispanic times, the large-scale entrance of peasant colonists into the vast region is a recent phenomenon. Much of this movement represents the spontaneous migration of peoples, but governments in the region have also become increasingly interested in opening up and integrating Amazonia to national and international economies. These actions are frequently seen as potential solutions to a number of national problems, including the need to increase agricultural production, correct spatial imbalances in the distribution of population, exploit frontier lands for reasons of national security, and defuse potentially serious political problems resulting from the existing agrarian structure, landlessness, and unemployment. The upper basin of the Amazon in Ecuador, bordering on the eastern slopes of the Andes, is one such area of frontier settlement. Recent decades have witnessed the rapid conversion of these Amazonian forests to agricultural uses through a series of schemes bearing such labels as land development and colonization. Most forest intervention in the region has come at the hands of colonist farmers attempting to establish land claims along transport routes originally constructed to aid in petroleum exploration and exploitation. These are farmers who formerly have made a living in long-established farmlands and who, for various reasons (population pressures, pervasive poverty, maldistribution of farmland, lack of inputs for intensive cultivation, lack of nonagrarian livelihood opportunities, and generally inadequate rural development) have been increasingly squeezed out of their homelands. A marginal person by virtue of his low socioeconomic and political status, the farmer often perceives

AN ASSESSMENT OF SPATIAL VARIATION OF LAND SURFACE CHARACTERISTICS OF MINNA, NIGER STATE NIGERIA FOR SUSTAINABLE URBANIZATION USING GEOSPATIAL TECHNIQUES

Assessing long-term land cover changes in watershed by spatiotemporal fusion of classifications based on probability propagation: The case of Dniester river basin

A study coordinated by the MapBiomas project highlighted changes in land use and cover in the Caatinga in the period 1985-2020. To carry out the study, around 150,000 images from Landsat satellites were analyzed , with a resolution of 30 meters, available over a period of 35 years. Annual information was collected on twenty-five land use and land cover classes in the biome. In this post, we will highlight the main results of the study, which mapped the changes in the land cover of the Caatinga , in the last decades.

AimThe recent recovery of large carnivores in Europe has been explained as resulting from a decrease in human persecution driven by widespread rural land abandonment, paralleled by forest cover increase and the consequent increase in availability of shelter and prey. We investigated whether land cover and human population density changes are related to the relative probability of occurrence of three European large carnivores: the grey wolf (Canis lupus), the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) and the brown bear (Ursus arctos).LocationEurope, west of 64° longitude.MethodsWe fitted multi‐temporal species distribution models using >50,000 occurrence points with time series of land cover, landscape configuration, protected areas, hunting regulations and human population density covering a 24‐year period (1992–2015). Within the temporal window considered, we then predicted changes in habitat suitability for large carnivores throughout Europe.ResultsBetween 1992 and 2015, the habitat suitability for the three species increased in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, North‐West Iberian Peninsula and Northern Scandinavia, but showed mixed trends in Western and Southern Europe. These trends were primarily associated with increases in forest cover and decreases in human population density, and, additionally, with decreases in the cover of mosaics of cropland and natural vegetation.Main conclusionsRecent land cover and human population changes appear to have altered the habitat suitability pattern for large carnivores in Europe, whereas protection level did not play a role. While projected changes largely match the observed recovery of large carnivore populations, we found mismatches with the recent expansion of wolves in Central and Southern Europe, where factors not included in our models may have played a dominant role. This suggests that large carnivores’ co‐existence with humans in European landscapes is not limited by habitat availability, but other factors such as favourable human tolerance and policy.

Objective: This study aims to appraise woody plant species diversity and their depletion in Abia State, Nigeria with a view of understanding pattern of vegetation loss for a 30-year period through the use of Geographical Information System (GIS) Methodology: The methodology adopted a survey design. The study area was divided into three zones based on vegetation distribution using vegetation map. This was done after preliminary observation of the pattern on the satellite imageries. Landsat 8 satellite imagery for thirty years (1988-2018) was used to determine the rate of vegetation loss. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used to obtain basic information on land cover changes in Abia State. The images were imported into the Erdas Imagine 9.2 environment where they were rectified to a common projection, Universal Traverse Mercator (UTM). Georeferencing was done by assigning geographical information to the datasets. Result and Discussion: The study revealed that Land use land cover (LULC) changes from 1988 to 2018 had serious adverse effects on vegetation distribution in general and woody plant species diversity in particular and these could lead to an irreversible species loss if not total extinction of most exotic woody plant species in the study area. Most importantly, a study of this nature has not been conducted with reference to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are currently the framework for discussion of global environment and development issues. Recommendations were made on measures to encourage and sustain woody plant species conservation and so achieve the sustainable development goals agenda of the United Nations. Research Implications: It was the compelling need to preserve and sustainably manage our environment that led the United Nations to formulate the SDGs in September 2015. This study will contribute to the achievement of SDG 15, which aims to protect, restore and promote the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss. Originality/Value: This study contributes to knowledge by underscoring the invaluable essence of the GIS as an optimal procedure of choice in appraising the pattern of depletion of woody plant species in Abia State, Nigeria. The findings of the study support the recommend policy formulation by Government as well as the enforcement of pro-active measures in line with these policies, to mitigate reckless plundering of Woody Plant Species (WPS), promote and conserve WPS in order to achieve the United Nations SDGs in the study area.

This study was conducted to estimate the land use and land cover (LULC) changes from 1986 to 2016 at Zamora municipality in Venezuela. Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM+, and Landsat 8 (OLI/TIRS) images were obtained to evaluate the shoreline dynamics of the Valencia lake and the magnitude of LULC changes. The images were processed and classified through the object-oriented approach in eCognition Developer 8, for collecting ground-truth data was used Google Earth Engine Python API and Excel software for accuracy assessment. ArcGIS 10.4 and QGIS 2.18 were employed for spatial analysis. It was found that scrublands and farmlands experienced important reductions in area, 13029 ha, and 818 ha respectively, whereas forest, built-up, and water bodies classes showed remarkable increments in area, 11792 ha, 1482 ha, and 634 ha correspondingly. The Valencia lake shoreline underwent an upward trend wherein more than 50% of its raising occurred during the last two study years (2003-2016). It was also observed that land use and land cover changes prompted conflicts with other land uses, 337 ha of lands with high potential for crop yields were affected by the lake shoreline increment and built-up areas grow at a rate of 81 ha /yr. for the last two study years (2003-2016) mainly on lands with high potential for agricultural use.

In some parts of the world, watersheds are experiencing changes in land cover that affect their hydrological regime. This paper presents a methodology to assess the potential hydrological response of the Chaudière River watershed (Québec) to historical land cover changes. The objectives of this study are: (1) to determine acceptable and plausible land cover scenarios for the past 30years based on spatial scenario intercomparison and land cover evolution analyses; and (2) to assess the influence of land cover changes on the hydrological regime of the watershed. Historical land cover changes were assessed from seven optical satellite images using an object-oriented approach. Each scenario was entered into GIBSI, an integrated modeling system. Hydrological simulations showed strong correlations between land cover changes and water discharge at the outlet of the watershed. Results demonstrated a homogeneous effect of land cover on annual runoff. Simulated annual and seasonal low flows were also strongly correlated to agricultural and forested land cover changes. Globally, results corroborate that land cover constitutes a governing factor of watershed hydrology in the Chaudière River watershed.