Causes of Landscape Pattern Land Use

Land Use: Human employment of the land- settlement, cultivation, pasture, rangeland, recreation, forestry, etc. Different from Land Cover: Physical state of the land, such as vegetation type, water, materials, crop types, urban.

US Geological Survey/NASA Garden City, Kansas Image taken 9/25/2000 Center pivot irrigation systems create red circles of healthy vegetation in this image of croplands near Garden City, Kansas. Garden City can be found on Landsat 7 WRS Path 30 Row 34, center: 37.48,

From Corner and MacLean 1996; photograph by A. MacLean

How important is land use as a cause of landscape pattern? Human actions now major source of changes in the biosphere Understanding these forces, and social drivers, critical importance  Understanding processes  Modeling, prediction  Management- response to change

Two sources of global environmental change  Industrial processes  Land transformation From Meyer and Turner 1994, Chap. 2

Industrial processes Energy, material flows, pollution, due to production, consumption Land transformation Cover type conversion--and physical change, e.g., forest clearing, plowing grassland, converting ag land to subdivision Land Use change that is not cover change- Land cover modification: change within cover type category, e.g., Beginning use of chemical fertilizer

From World Resources

During most of history of human land use, modification concerns largely limited to impacts on soils and biota due to agriculture Land transformation seen as good (“development”, “improvement”) until very recent times (still is somewhat) Post-agricultural society did not mean land transformation lessened - It diversified and intensified (Why?) Population increase, economic globalization, technological capacity

Early writers dealing with land use issues and effects: George Perkins Marsh (mid-19 th c.) documenting modification of land by human use. V. I. Vernadsky (Russian, early 20 th c.) analyzed growing human impacts on major biogeochemical cycles. Forest thinning, or change in composition

Consequences of land use intensification e.g.,: Species loss, domestication, translocation Functional losses, e.g., - wetlands drainage

From Whitney 1994

US Geological Survey/NASA Florida Everglades Image taken 2/5/2000 Spanning the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula and most of Florida Bay, Everglades National Park is the only subtropical preserve in North America. It contains both temperate and tropical plant communities, including sawgrass prairie, mangrove and cypress swamps, pinelands, and hardwood hammocks, as well as marine and estuarine environments. The park is known for its rich bird life, particularly large wading birds, such as the roseate spoonbill, wood stork, great blue heron, and a variety of egrets. It is also the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles exist side by side. The Everglades can be found on Landsat 7 WRS Path 15 Row 42, center: 26.00,

On one hand no part of the earth is “unmanaged”- Given definition of managed as under direct or indirect influence by humans –Land transformation –Industrial Processes

Yet land use change, or land transformation, is local in its immediate occurrence, often perceived and evaluated as single, small, events Effects often cumulative, from local to global scales E.g., only after mid 20 th c. did fossil fuel combustion C release surpass that from land transformation - still a large part

Global human demand likely to continue growing, and not linearly - increasing rate

Many of worlds most productive ag lands have been under continuous use, increasing productivity for centuries or longer, some failed China, for 2000 yrs Parts of Mideast, central America Europe

What is improvement, what is degradation? Sustainability? Not totally objective - colored by our context

In N Am, some areas had fairly high populations around agricultural development in Pre-European settlement times From Corner and MacLean 1996; photograph by A. MacLean

From Sisk 1998, Chap. 2

Despite these changes -- Have the luxury of standard of a high degree of “naturalness”. E.g., compared to Europe, or China, or many other areas.

Evaluating effects of land transformation and consequences important -- Prediction of future consequences –Resources, functional capacity of ecosystem processes –Value to future generations, other species Whatever our values or world view, scientific knowledge needed as base

Historically, land cover study was in realm of physical and biological sciences Land use study was done by social scientists Agents of human land use and land cover change are proximate sources of change- not ultimate causes or drivers –Biomass burning, fertilizer application, forest cutting, plowing Land use change research on effects, and prediction due to agents, requires mix of social and physical, biological sciences

Land use conversions are direct effects of agents of change Changes also produce secondary effects— trace gas and C emissions, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, albedo alteration (sun energy reflection/absorption)

From Sisk 1998, Chap. 4

From World Resources

Ultimate sources of change are driving human forces Drive proximate sources causing all effects Socio-economic and cultural attributes of humankind.

Land use change and prediction of effects - Important but difficult Global aggregation of changes does not always capture regional effects –E.g., in Italy and other parts of Europe, rural land being abandoned, afforestation occurring

Much of the tropics, huge pressure on remaining undeveloped forest land for agricultural use US Geological Survey/NASA Bolivian Deforestation Image taken 8/1/2000 Once a vast carpet of healthy vegetation and virgin forest, the Amazon rain forest is changing rapidly. This image of Bolivia shows dramatic deforestation in the Amazon Basin. Loggers have cut long paths into the forest, while ranchers have cleared large blocks for their herds. Fanning out from these clear-cut areas are settlements built in radial arrangements of fields and farms. Healthy vegetation appears bright red in this image. This deforestation can be found on Landsat 7 WRS Path 230 Row 72, center: ,

Rate and direction of change can vary over space (different locations) as well as time Global trends and effects remain, but make prediction difficult –Danger of developing global prescriptions that will not apply to all regions

Also, can’t make global predictions from aggregated data of dissimilar regions –Danger of making predictions from assumption of linear trends –Need for prediction from models that consider interaction human and environmental variables, feedbacks through time Regional societal context important Character of local bio-physical environment

Additional complication is that land use/cover effects felt far removed from source Acid rain, N deposition Atmospheric deposition of chlorinated compounds from pesticides Mercury from coal burning Groundwater and river basin flows

Demands also come from far removed origins Developed world demand for tropical timber, or general agricultural products Global economy means environmental and social costs can be more easily exported, in space or time E.g., pollution effects of certain processes, deforestation Exported in time by valuing costs and benefits so that future generations will pay

From Sisk 1998, Chap. 3