Post-USSR land cover change in Eastern Europe

Post-USSR land cover change in Eastern EuropePost-USSR land cover change in Eastern Europe socioeconomic forcings, effects on biodiversity socioeconomic forcings, effects on biodiversity

and future scenariosand future scenarios

Volker Radeloff Volker Radeloff University of Wisconsin-MadisonUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison

Funded by Funded by A NEESPI Project A NEESPI Project

BackgroundBackground

Rapid land cover change in Eastern European since the breakdown of the USSR

Widespread agricultural abandonment followed by conversion to shrublands and forest

Agricultural area change from 1991 to 1997; USDA

BackgroundBackground

Socio-economic trends differ markedly among neighboring countries with similar ecological conditions

Change in nighttime lights 1993-2000. Yellow/red: more lights, blue: fewer lights, NOAA-NESDIS

BackgroundBackground

A ‘natural experiment’ in Eastern Europe allows to test hypotheses on the relative importance of environmental versus socioeconomic factors as controls and forcings of land cover and land cover change and thereby on biodiversity

ObjectivesObjectives

Monitor land cover and land use change (LCLUC) in Eastern Europe

Examine socioeconomic and political changes as forcing functions for LCLUC

Examine effects of LCLUC on biodiversity Simulate future LCLUC scenarios and examine

potential biodiversity effects

ObjectivesObjectives

Biodiversity

Socio-economics

Landcover

ApproachApproach

Current land cover from MODIS data Separating

plowed from fallow fields with spectral mixtureanalysis of MODISreflectance data

Landcover in the study area

ApproachApproach

Land cover change analysis with Landsat TM/ETM+ data

1985 to 2002 data

Landsat sample scenes

Poland

Hungary

Slovakia

Ukraine

N

20 0 20 40 60 Kilometers

Landsat TM Sep. 2000RGB: 4,5,3

Landsat TM1985-88

Classificationbased on TM & ETM+ data from 2000

Landsat TM/ETM+2000

state farms (until 1990)

Poland

Slovakia

ObjectivesObjectives

Biodiversity

Socio-economics

Landcover

ApproachApproach

Regression analysis to identify forcing and controls of LCLUC

Socioeconomic variables GDP, land ownership, urban markets,

employment, population, housing, and households, agricultural statistics, “country”

Environmental variables Climate, topography, soils

ApproachApproach

Hypothesis: Agricultural abandonment is controlled at broad scales by national economic and political conditions, and by climate patterns,and at fine scales by distance to urban markets, distance to major roads, topography, and soil quality

ObjectivesObjectives

Biodiversity

Socio-economics

Landcover

ApproachApproach

Wildlife habitat analysis for three species of conservation concern European Bison Saiga antelope Brown Bear

Umbrella speciesfor biodiversity

Radio-collared bison in the Slovak Carpathians, Dec. 2004

ApproachApproach

Radio-collar locationsas input for resource-selection functions

Habitat variables include land cover,fragmentation indices, and settlements

Saiga with satellite radio-collar

ApproachApproach

Radio-collar locationsas input for resource-selection functions

Habitat variables include land cover,fragmentation indices, and settlements

ApproachApproach

Bear data is collected from local hunting departments viaan ArcGIS server

This allows onlinedigitizing of bearactivity and easydata transfer

Arc/GIS server for bear mapping

ObjectivesObjectives

Biodiversity

Socio-economics

Landcover

TimelineTimeline

Year Milestones

2005 MODIS/TM image processing, socioeconomic data collecting, wildlife occurrence data collecting

2006 MODIS/TM image processing, regression LCLUC versus socioeconomics, habitat analysis

2007 Accuracy assessment, future scenarios simulations, journal articles, web page dissemination

CollaboratorsCollaborators

NGOs WWF Large Herbivore Foundation

Scientists L. Balciauskas, Vilnius University, Lithuania L. Baskin, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow P. Hostert, and T. Kümmerle, Humboldt University A. Lushchekina, Russian MAB Program, Moscow K. Perzanowski, Polish Academy of Sciences W. Schröder, Technical University, Munich

Questions?Questions?

Biodiversity

Socio-economics

Landcover