Is Africa Losing Its Natural Vegetation? Monitoring Trajectories of Land-Cover Change Using Landsat Imagery

2016 ◽  
pp. 390-399 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Landsat Imagery ◽  
Natural Vegetation ◽  
Vegetation Monitoring

scholarly journals Transformasi Lanskap dan Layanan Ekosistem Budaya di Area Peri-Urban: Wisata Alam dan Permukiman di Bandung Selatan

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-78
Author(s):  
Medria Shekar Rani
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Landsat Imagery ◽  
Urban Ecosystem ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Destination Area ◽  
Landscape Alteration ◽  
Increasing Demand

Peri-urban provides complementary urban ecosystem services when green areas in cities are decreasing due to densification. However, land cover change in the area from natural landscapes to agriculture and settlements affects the ecosystem's capacity to provide services. This study aims to identify landscape transformation using a model and analyze its effects on cultural ecosystem services at Kawah Putih (White Crater) nature-based tourism destination area in the peri-urban in South Bandung, Indonesia. This study also analyzes how cultural ecosystem services and the increasing demand for new settlements in the area have influenced tourist visitation. Landscape change in the area (1989-2019) was identified from mapsdeveloped from Landsat imagery, using the Land Change Modeler (LCM) module in Terrset. A spatial assessment of offered cultural ecosystem services was then conducted using three indicators based on the land cover change near Kawah Putih. It is found that the composition of developed areas in the district has increased from 6.09% to 10.79% in 30 years. The quality of cultural ecosystem service has decreased, which is arguably influenced by the landscape alteration in the area. However, there was an increasing trend in the number of tourists (2016-2019) despite the deterioration of landscape quality. It is argued that the result is influenced by the visitors' perception of the landscape in the case study area. The rapid land cover change in the area was affected by the nearby city's growth, in which the tourism industry is one of the elements of such transformation.

scholarly journals Satellite-Based Assessment of Grassland Conversion and Related Fire Disturbance in the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Hess ◽  
Cheila Cullen ◽  
Jeanette Cobian-Iñiguez ◽  
Jacob Ramthun ◽  
Victor Lenske ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Landsat Imagery ◽  
Fire Danger ◽  
Fire Disturbance ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Kenai Peninsula ◽  
Spruce Beetle ◽  
Grassland Conversion ◽  
The Relationship

Spruce beetle-induced (Dendroctonus rufipennis (Kirby)) mortality on the Kenai Peninsula has been hypothesized by local ecologists to result in the conversion of forest to grassland and subsequent increased fire danger. This hypothesis stands in contrast to empirical studies in the continental US which suggested that beetle mortality has only a negligible effect on fire danger. In response, we conducted a study using Landsat data and modeling techniques to map land cover change in the Kenai Peninsula and to integrate change maps with other geospatial data to predictively map fire danger for the same region. We collected Landsat imagery to map land cover change at roughly five-year intervals following a severe, mid-1990s beetle infestation to the present. Land cover classification was performed at each time step and used to quantify grassland encroachment patterns over time. The maps of land cover change along with digital elevation models (DEMs), temperature, and historical fire data were used to map and assess wildfire danger across the study area. Results indicate the highest wildfire danger tended to occur in herbaceous and black spruce land cover types, suggesting that the relationship between spruce beetle damage and wildfire danger in costal Alaskan forested ecosystems differs from the relationship between the two in the forests of the coterminous United States. These change detection analyses and fire danger predictions provide the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge (KENWR) ecologists and other forest managers a better understanding of the extent and magnitude of grassland conversion and subsequent change in fire danger following the 1990s spruce beetle outbreak.

scholarly journals Land-cover change threatens tropical forests and biodiversity in the Littoral Region, Cameroon

Oryx ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
pp. 882-891 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud I. Mahmoud ◽  
Mason J. Campbell ◽  
Sean Sloan ◽  
Mohammed Alamgir ◽  
William F. Laurance
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Landsat Imagery ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Littoral Region ◽  
Equatorial Africa ◽  
Forest Regions ◽  
Forested Areas ◽  
Major Factors

AbstractTropical forest regions in equatorial Africa are threatened with degradation, deforestation and biodiversity loss as a result of land-cover change. We investigated historical land-cover dynamics in unprotected forested areas of the Littoral Region in south-western Cameroon during 1975–2017, to detect changes that may influence this important biodiversity and wildlife area. Processed Landsat imagery was used to map and monitor changes in land use and land cover. From 1975 to 2017 the area of high-value forest landscapes decreased by c. 420,000 ha, and increasing forest fragmentation caused a decline of c. 12% in the largest patch index. Conversely, disturbed vegetation, cleared areas and urban areas all expanded in extent, by 32% (c. 400,000 ha), 5.6% (c. 26,800 ha) and 6.6% (c. 78,631 ha), respectively. The greatest increase was in the area converted to oil palm plantations (c. 26,893 ha), followed by logging and land clearing (c. 34,838 ha), all of which were the major factors driving deforestation in the study area. Our findings highlight the increasing threats facing the wider Littoral Region, which includes Mount Nlonako and Ebo Forest, both of which are critical areas for regional conservation and the latter a proposed National Park and the only sizable area of intact forest in the region. Intact forest in the Littoral Region, and in particular at Ebo, merits urgent protection.

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