scholarly journals Density of Biogas Power Plants as An Indicator of Bioenergy Generated Transformation of Agricultural Landscapes

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 2500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nandor Csikos ◽  
Malte Schwanebeck ◽  
Michael Kuhwald ◽  
Peter Szilassi ◽  
Rainer Duttmann

The increasing use of biogas, produced from energy crops like silage maize, is supposed to noticeably change the structures and patterns of agricultural landscapes in Europe. The main objective of our study is to quantify this assumed impact of intensive biogas production with the example of an agrarian landscape in Northern Germany. Therefore, we used three different datasets; Corine Land Cover (CLC), local agricultural statistics (Agrar-Struktur-Erhebung, ASE), and data on biogas power plants. Via kernel density analysis, we delineated impact zones which represent different levels of bioenergy-generated transformations of agrarian landscapes. We cross-checked the results by the analyses of the land cover and landscape pattern changes from 2000 to 2012 inside the impact zones. We found significant correlations between the installed electrical capacity (IC) and land cover changes. According to our findings, the landscape pattern of cropland—expressed via landscape metrics (mean patch size (MPS), total edge (TE), mean shape index (MSI), mean fractal dimension index (MFRACT)—increased and that of pastures decreased since the beginning of biogas production. Moreover, our study indicates that the increasing number of biogas power plants in certain areas is accompanied with a continuous reduction in crop diversity and a homogenization of land use in the same areas. We found maximum degrees of land use homogenisation in areas with highest IC. Our results show that a Kernel density map of the IC of biogas power plants might offer a suitable first indicator for monitoring and quantifying landscape change induced by biogas production.

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Kandziora ◽  
Katja Dörnhöfer ◽  
Natascha M. Oppelt ◽  
Felix Müller

Land use and land cover (LULC) and their changes in share and number of classes can be documented by remote sensing techniques. Information on LULC is needed for the assessment of ecosystem services and is used as input data for mapping and modelling. This information is important for decision-making and management of ecosystems and landscapes. In this study, LULC were analysed in two agricultural areas in Northern Germany by means of a pixel-based maximum likelihood classification approach of 11 Landsat TM 5 scenes between 1987 and 2011 followed by a post-classification refinement using the tool IRSeL. In this time period, grassland declined by about 50 % in both case study areas. This loss in grassland area can be associated with changes in provisioning ecosystem services as the supply of fodder and crops and the number of livestock declined from 1987 to 2007. Furthermore, an on-going increase in maize cultivation area, which is nowadays more and more used as biomass for biogas production, documents the addition of another provisioning service, i.e., biomass for energy. Combining remote sensing and research on ecosystem services supports the assessment and monitoring of ecosystem services on different temporal, spatial, and semantic scales.


Author(s):  
Qijiao Xie ◽  
Qi Sun

Aerosols significantly affect environmental conditions, air quality, and public health locally, regionally, and globally. Examining the impact of land use/land cover (LULC) on aerosol optical depth (AOD) helps to understand how human activities influence air quality and develop suitable solutions. The Landsat 8 image and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol products in summer in 2018 were used in LULC classification and AOD retrieval in this study. Spatial statistics and correlation analysis about the relationship between LULC and AOD were performed to examine the impact of LULC on AOD in summer in Wuhan, China. Results indicate that the AOD distribution expressed an obvious “basin effect” in urban development areas: higher AOD values concentrated in water bodies with lower terrain, which were surrounded by the high buildings or mountains with lower AOD values. The AOD values were negatively correlated with the vegetated areas while positively correlated to water bodies and construction lands. The impact of LULC on AOD varied with different contexts in all cases, showing a “context effect”. The regression correlations among the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), normalized difference built-up index (NDBI), normalized difference water index (NDWI), and AOD in given landscape contexts were much stronger than those throughout the whole study area. These findings provide sound evidence for urban planning, land use management and air quality improvement.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thais M. Rosan ◽  
Kees Klein Goldewijk ◽  
Raphael Ganzenmüller ◽  
Michael O'Sullivan ◽  
Julia Pongratz ◽  
...  

<p>Brazil is responsible for about one third of the global land use and land cover change (LULCC) carbon dioxide emissions. However, there is a disagreement among different methodologies on the magnitude and trends in emissions and their geographic distribution. One of the main uncertainties is associated with different LULCC datatasets used as input in the different approaches. In this work we perform an evaluation of LULCC datasets for Brazil, including the global dataset (HYDE 3.2) used in the annual Global Carbon Budget (GCB), and national Brazilian dataset (MapBiomas) over the period 2000-2018. We also analyze the latest global HYDE 3.3 dataset based on new FAO inventory estimates and multi-annual ESA CCI satellite-based land cover maps. Results show that the new HYDE 3.3 can represent well the observed spatial variation in cropland and pastures areas over the last decades compared to national data (MapBiomas) and shows an improvement compared to HYDE 3.2 used in GCB. However, the magnitude of LULCC assessed with HYDE 3.3 is lower than national estimates from MapBiomas. Finally, we used HYDE 3.3 as input to two different approaches included in GCB, a global bookkeeping model (BLUE) and a process-based Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (JULES-ES) to determine the impact of the new version of HYDE dataset on Brazil’s land-use emissions trends over the period 2000-2017. Both JULES-ES and BLUE now simulate a negative land-use emissions trend for the last two decades. This negative trend is in agreement with Brazilian INPE-EM, global H&N bookkeeping models, FAO and as reported in National GHG inventories (NGHGI), although magnitudes differ among approaches. Overall, the inclusion of the multi-annual ESA CCI Land Cover dataset to allocate spatially the FAO statistical data has improved spatial representation of agricultural area change in Brazil in the last two decades, contributing to improve global model capability to simulate Brazil’s LULCC emissions in agreement with national trends estimates and spatial distribution.</p>


2006 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Pongratz ◽  
Lahouari Bounoua ◽  
Ruth S. DeFries ◽  
Douglas C. Morton ◽  
Liana O. Anderson ◽  
...  

Abstract The sensitivity of surface energy and water fluxes to recent land cover changes is simulated for a small region in northern Mato Grosso, Brazil. The Simple Biosphere Model (SiB2) is used, driven by biophysical parameters derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) at 250-m resolution, to compare the effects of different land conversion types. The mechanisms through which changes in vegetation alter surface fluxes of energy, momentum, water, and carbon are analyzed for both wet and dry seasons. It is found that morphological changes contribute to warming and drying of the atmosphere while physiological changes, particularly those associated with a plant’s photosynthetic pathway, counterbalance or exacerbate the warming depending on the type of conversion and the season. Furthermore, this study’s results indicate that initial clearing of evergreen and transition forest to bare ground increases canopy temperature by up to 1.7°C. For subsequent land use such as pasture or cropland, the largest effect is seen for the conversion of evergreen forest to C3 cropland during the wet season, with a 21% decrease of the latent heat flux and 0.4°C increase in canopy temperature. The secondary conversion of pasture to cropland resulted in slight warming and drying during the wet season driven mostly by the change in carbon pathway from C4 to C3. For all conversions types, the daily temperature range is amplified, suggesting that plants replacing forest clearing require more temperature tolerance than the trees they replace. The results illustrate that the effect of deforestation on climate depends not only on the overall extent of clearing but also on the subsequent land use type.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lang Wang ◽  
Amos P. K. Tai ◽  
Chi-Yung Tam ◽  
Mehliyar Sadiq ◽  
Peng Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract. Surface ozone (O3) is an important air pollutant and greenhouse gas. Land use and land cover (LULC) is one of the critical factors influencing ozone, in addition to anthropogenic emissions and climate. LULC change can on the one hand affect ozone biogeochemically, i.e., via dry deposition and biogenic emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). LULC change can on the other hand alter regional- to large-scale climate through modifying albedo and evapotranspiration, which can lead to changes in surface temperature, hydrometeorology and atmospheric circulation that can ultimately impact ozone biogeophysically over local and remote areas. Such biogeophysical effects of LULC on ozone are largely understudied. This study investigates the individual and combined biogeophysical and biogeochemical effects of LULC on ozone, and explicitly examines the critical pathway for how LULC change impacts ozone pollution. A global coupled atmosphere–chemistry–land model is driven by projected LULC changes from the present day (2000) to future (2050) under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, focusing on the boreal summer. Results reveal that when considering biogeochemical effects only, surface ozone is predicted to have slight changes by up to 2 ppbv maximum in some areas due to LULC changes. It is primarily driven by changes in isoprene emission and dry deposition counteracting each other in shaping ozone. In contrast, when considering the integrated effect of LULC, ozone is more substantially altered by up to 6 ppbv over several regions, reflecting the importance of biogeophysical effects on ozone changes. Furthermore, large areas of these ozone changes are found over the regions without LULC changes where the biogeophysical effect is the only pathway for such changes. The mechanism is likely that LULC change induces a regional circulation response, in particular the formation of anomalous stationary high-pressure systems, shifting of moisture transport, and near-surface warming over the middle-to-high northern latitudes in boreal summer, owing to associated changes in albedo and surface energy budget. Such temperature changes then alter ozone substantially. We conclude that the biogeophysical effect of LULC is an important pathway for the influence of LULC change on ozone air quality over both local and remote regions, even in locations without significant LULC changes. Overlooking the impact of biogeophysical effect may cause evident underestimation of the impacts of LULC change on ozone pollution.


Author(s):  
Андрій Юрійович Шелестов ◽  
Алла Миколаївна Лавренюк ◽  
Богдан Ялкапович Яйлимов ◽  
Ганна Олексіївна Яйлимова

Ukraine is an associate member of the European Union and in the coming years it is expected that all data and services already used by EU countries will be available to Ukraine. The lack of quality national products for assessing the development and planning of urban growth makes it impossible to assess the impact of cities on the environment and human health. The first steps to create such products for the cities of Ukraine were initiated within the European project "SMart URBan Solutions for air quality, disasters and city growth" (SMURBS), in which specialists from the Space Research Institute of NAS of Ukraine and SSA of Ukraine received the first city atlas for the Kyiv city, which was similar to the European one. However, the resulting product had significantly fewer types of land use than the European one and therefore the question of improving the developed technology arose. The main purpose of the work is to analyze the existing technology of European service Urban Atlas creation and its improvement by developing a unified algorithm for building an urban atlas using all available open geospatial and satellite data for the cities of Ukraine. The development of such technology is based on our own technology for classifying satellite time series with a spatial resolution of 10 meters to build a land cover map, as well as an algorithm for unifying open geospatial data to urban atlases Copernicus. The technology of construction of the city atlas developed in work, based on the intellectual model of classification of a land cover, can be extended to other cities of Ukraine. In the future, the creation of such a product on the basis of data for different years will allow to assess changes in land use and make a forecast for further urban expansion. The proposed information technology for constructing the city atlas will be useful for assessing the dynamics of urban growth and closely related social and economic indicators of their development. Based on it, it is also possible to assess indicators of achieving the goals of sustainable development, such as 11.3.1 "The ratio of land consumption and population growth." The study shows that the city atlas obtained for the Kyiv city has a high level of quality and has comparable land use classes with European products. It indicates that such a product can be used in government decision-making services.


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