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Land Cover Land Use Change Program and LBA

Dr. Garik Gutman

LCLUC Program Manager NASA Headquarters

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Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Program

Goals of the LCLUC Program • Further the understanding of the consequences of land-

cover and land-use change on environmental goods and services, the carbon and water cycles, and the management of natural resources.

• Perform reliable, verifiable and repeated global monitoring of land-cover/land-use processes from space.

• Improve the scientific understanding of land-cover and land-use processes from local to global scales.

• Model and forecast land-use and land-cover change and their direct and indirect impacts and evaluate the societal consequences of the observed and predicted changes.

• Contribute to the establishment of the operational provision of data and information products, services, models and tools for multiple users, e.g. scientists, resource managers and policy makers.

Program ManagerProgram Manager:

Garik Gutman

(NASA HQ)

Program ScientistProgram Scientist:

Chris Justice

(U. of Maryland)

LCLUC is an interdisciplinary scientific theme within NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise (ESE).LCLUC is an interdisciplinary scientific theme within NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise (ESE).

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NASA ESE Science Questions

• What changes are occurring in global land cover and land use, and what are their causes?

What are the consequences of land- cover and land-use change for the sustainability of ecosystems and economic productivity?

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LCLUC: Causes and Consequences • Drivers of disturbance/ stress

– Changes in agricultural practices

– Landscape modification

– Fires (natural and human-triggered)

– Natural hazards (droughts, flooding, hurricanes, landslides)

– Forest exploitation and clearing

– Grazing by domestic animals

– Invasive species

– Urbanization

• Impacts on:

– Forestry and agriculture

– Water resources

– Biodiversity

– Habitat degradation and fragmentation

– Carbon storage and release

– Atmospheric processes

– Wetlands and coastal oceans

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LBA Science Questions

• How will changes in land use and climate affect the biological, chemical, and physical functions of Amazonia, including the sustainability of development in the region?

• How do tropical forest conversion, re-growth, and selective logging, influence carbon storage, nutrient dynamics, trace gas fluxes, and the prospect for sustainable land use in Amazonia?

– Rapid pace of land use change: 20,000 km2 per year in Brazil alone– Understanding the pace, pattern, and drivers of land use change is

a critical underpinning for analyses that allows prediction of the future functions of Amazonia

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LBA in LCLUC Program

• Project Office Support

• Research projects– LCLUC

– LCLUC + TE

• First results @ LCLUC Science Team Meeting, Reston, Va in April 2000

$0

$500

$1,000

$1,500

$2,000

$2,500

FY98 FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05

Years

Research Funds Project Office Funds

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LBA-LCLUC Phase I Projects

• Human and physical dimensions of the land use/cover change in Amazonia:Forest Regeneration and Landscape Structure• Measurement and Modeling of the Inter-Annual Dynamics of Deforestation and Regrowth in the Brazilian Amazon: Land Use

Control on the Annual Net Flux of Carbon • Anthropogenic landscape changes, dynamics of Amazonian forest biomass• Modeling the biogeochemical system of the terrestrial Amazon• The Present and Future Effects of Ground Fires on Forest Carbon Stocks, Metabolism, Hydrology, and Economic Value in

Amazonia and Cerrado • Agricultural colonization on the Ecuadorian Amazon:Population, Biophysical, and Geographical Factors Affecting Land

Use/Land Cover Change and Landscape Structure • Land-Cover/Land-Use Change and Carbon Dynamics in an Expanding Frontier in Western Amazonia: Acre,

Brazil

• The Effects of Tropical Forest Conversion: Ecological Research in the Large-Scale Biosphere- Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA)

• A Modeling Synthesis of the Impacts of Tropical Forest Conversion on Carbon Fluxes and Storage, and on Nutrient Dynamics in Amazonia

• Impacts of Deforestation on Carbon and Nutrient Cycles and Trace Gas Exchange in Amazonian Soils Biogeochemical Dynamics in River Corridors of the Amazon Basin and Their Response to Anthropogenic Change

• Influence of Amazonia Land-Use Change on Chemical Constituents in the Atmosphere

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LBA-LCLUC Phase II Projects

• A Basin-Scale Econometric Model for Projecting Future Amazonian Landscapes• Land Cover Conversion and Forest Degradation in Amazonia: Evaluating Environmental and Land Use Controls on

Pasture Sustainability, Forest Integrity and Forest Succession• Human and Physical Dimensions of Land Use/Cover Change in Amazonia: Towards a Multiscale Synthesis• Amazon Scenarios: Modeling Interactions Among Land Use, Fire and Climate• Land-cover Land-Use Changes in the Tri-Frontier Area of Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru: Implications for Sustainable

Land Use in Southwestern Amazonia• Modeling the Scale Dependent Drivers of LCLU Dynamics in Northeastern Ecuador: Simulating Patterns of Landscape

Change and Assessing their Cause and Consequence through Multi- Level Models and Cellular Automata

• Regional Effects of Selective Logging on Canopy Damage and Nutrient Dynamics in Amazonia: Linking Landsat ETM+ and Field Biogeochemical Studies

• Integrating Coarse and Fine Resolution Satellite Data to Monitor Land Cover Change Throughout Amazonia• Anthropogenic Land-use Change and the Dynamics of Amazon Forest Biomass• Modeling the Effects of Land Use Change and Surface Hydrology on Carbon and Trace Gas Fluxes over the Amazon

Region• Effects of Land Use Changes on the Functioning of Soils and Watersheds of Central Brazil Savannas: Impacts on

Nutrient and Carbon Cycles and Trace Gas Exchange

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LBA Results

• Excellent examples of land cover modeling based on socioeconomic drivers, and some excellent examples of land cover mapping.

• Better depiction of the explicit linkages between patterns and processes, between satellite and ground observations, and between scales

• Improved land cover classification using a consistent spectral mixture analysis and decision tree classifier on co-registered LANDSAT MSS, TM, and ETM+ data. .

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LBA Results (cont.)

• Improved understanding of interannual signal, critical to understanding the global signal

• From modeling studies: there is a strong interannual signal in the carbon flux from Amazonia. Land-cover change has strong interannual variability as observed from space.

• Seasonal phenological changes are visible from space.• These are potentially important inputs to data

assimilation models because remote sensing quantifies seasonal and interannual phenological variability.

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LBA-ECO Future Challenges• Regional estimates of logging area and

carbon effects using remotely sensed data

• Prediction of fire risk for logged areas

• Predictions of water quality in regions of explosive land-use change and development (effect of land-cover and land-use change – sustainability)

• A comprehensive dynamic LUCC model, which could be applied basin wide, yet at fine scales at which the LUCC processes occur

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Life After LBA (1996-)

• Solicitations (Amazon)– Water Cycle Science/LCLUC NOW!

– Carbon Cycle/LCLUC (Spring 20004) – LBA Data Analysis (2005)

• Other regional foci– North American Carbon Program (NACP)

– Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI) - multi-disciplinary

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Have a productive time at the meeting and enjoy Fortaleza!