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Monitoring Wind Farms Occupying Grasslands Based on Remote-Sensing

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Monitoring Wind Farms Occupying Grasslands Based on Remote-Sensing G Model RECYCL-3303; No. of Pages 9 ARTICLE IN PRESS Resources, Conservation and Recycling xxx (2016) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Resources, Conservation and Recycling journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec Full length article Monitoring wind farms occupying grasslands based on remote-sensing data from China’s GF-2 HD satellite—A case study of Jiuquan city, Gansu province, China a a b a a a a Ge Shen , Bin Xu , Yunxiang Jin , Shi Chen , Wenbo Zhang , Jian Guo , Hang Liu , a a,∗ Yujing Zhang , Xiuchun Yang a Key Laboratory of Agri-informatics of the Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China b Key Laboratory of Digital Agricultural Early-warning Technology of the Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Agricultural Information, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Wind power is a clean and renewable resource, and it is rapidly becoming an important component of Received 14 April 2016 sustainable development and resource transfer. However, the construction of wind farms impacts the Received in revised form 13 June 2016 environment and has been the subject of considerable research. In this study, we verified whether China’s Accepted 30 June 2016 GF-2 HD satellite (GF-2) could be used to monitor the 10 million kilowatt wind power grassland construc- Available online xxx tion area in Jiuquan City, Gansu Province. Monitoring was performed by comparing the imaging results from the Landsat 8 OLI and China’s GF-1 HD satellite (GF-1). We performed an interactive interpretation Keywords: of the remote sensing images and verified the accuracy of these interpretations using measured field data. Wind farm 2 We evaluated 354 pieces of wind turbine equipment with an average construction density of 0.31 km Grassland monitoring 2 per device. The construction of a single wind turbine was found to damage nearly 3000 m of grassland. China’s GF-2 HD satellite 2 2 Gansu province The average area of grassland damaged by 3 MW and 1.5 MW turbines was 5757 m and 2496 m , respec- 2 tively. Approximately 2.44 km of farmland was occupied by wind power construction and accounted for approximately 2.2% of the study area. Roads covered 60.6% of the farmland occupied by wind power con- struction. The average difference between the measured and calculated GF-2 image data was 0.09, and the overall interpretation accuracy was approximately 84%. Therefore, the use of comprehensive imag- ing analyses and GF-2 image data are feasible for monitoring grasslands under construction for wind power. In addition, the impacts of wind farm construction on vegetation destruction and soil erosion are discussed. In this study, grassland wind farms are explored using remote sensing tools to guide decision making with regards to the rational use of grassland resources and their sustainable development. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction unique advantages, wind power is rapidly developing as impor- tant part of sustainable development and resource transfer in many Wind power is a clean and renewable resource. Compared with countries (Cui et al., 2009; IEA, 2013a,b). According to the Global coal and other conventional energy sources, wind power does not Wind Energy Council, the capacity of newly installed wind power rely on external energy sources, avoids fuel price risk, and mit- reached 51,477 MW in 2014. Since 2003, the average annual growth igates environmental costs, such as carbon emissions (Piepers, rate of China’s wind power installed capacity has increased to more 1981; Apergis and Payne, 2011; Dai et al., 2016). Because of these than 70%. As of 2015, the cumulative installed wind power capac- ity in China reached 145 million kilowatts, which represents a 26.6% increase over the values in 2014. However, an imbalance can be observed in regional wind power development, with rapid ∗ Corresponding author. development occurring in the northeast, north, and, northwest (the E-mail addresses: shenge [email protected] (G. Shen), “Three Northern Regions”), as well as along the southeast coast [email protected] (B. Xu), [email protected] (Y. Jin), [email protected] (S. Chen), (Deng, 2002). The northwestern province Gansu has abundant wind [email protected] (W. Zhang), [email protected] (J. Guo), energy resources and theoretical reserves of 237 million kilowatts liuhang [email protected] (H. Liu), [email protected] (Y. Zhang), [email protected] (X. Yang). (7.3% of the total reserves, 5th highest in the country) (Wang, 2009). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.06.026 0921-3449/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Please cite this article in press as: Shen, G., et al., Monitoring wind farms occupying grasslands based on remote-sensing data from China’s GF-2 HD satellite—A case study of Jiuquan city, Gansu province, China. Resour Conserv Recy (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.06.026 G Model RECYCL-3303; No. of Pages 9 ARTICLE IN PRESS 2 G. Shen et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling xxx (2016) xxx–xxx Table 1 Jiuquan City, which is located in the western end of the Hexi Cor- Study area location information. ridor, has reserves exceeding 40 million KW over an area of nearly 2 10,000 km . Therefore, Gansu Province has proposed the construc- Study area Latitude(N) Longitude(E) tion of a Hexi Corridor wind power zone equivalent to an onshore ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ a 40.33389 –40.34821 96.84701 –96.87339 ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Three Gorges in the west. b 40.2463 –40.29484 96.83449 –96.904 ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Because wind power bases are mostly located in the fragile c 40.17078 –40.24287 96.81527 –96.88903 ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ d 40.16292 –40.24882 96.85096 –96.95114 inland northwest Gobi Desert area, wind power development and construction will inevitably cause ground destruction and soil ero- sion. Once the environment is damaged, it is difficult to restore, and tools to inform decisions regarding the rational use of grassland erosion and desertification in the region will likely be exacerbated resources and their sustainable development. (Sun, 2011). Therefore, understanding the impact of wind farms on the environment prior to construction is essential. The main effects 2. Study area of such damage include soil and vegetation damage, biomass loss, and soil erosion (Wang, 2015). Studies have explored the impact Based on the principles of representativeness, operability and of wind farm construction on wildlife, such as birds (Plonczkier data validity, we selected four areas of the Yumen wind power and Simms, 2012; Parsons and Battley, 2013), and qualitatively and base within the 10 million kilowatt wind-power base in Jiuquan quantitatively evaluated the environmental impacts including cli- City, Gansu Province, which are defined as areas a, b, c, and d mate change by using the relevant models (Ruotolo et al., 2012; 2 (Fig. 1, Table 1). The total study area was 109.33 km . Yumen City Chias and Abad, 2013; Phillips, 2015; Abbasi and Abbasi, 2016; is a county-level city under the administration of Jiuquan City in Bouman et al., 2016; Nagashima et al., 2016). Studies from China Gansu Province. Yumen City is rich in grassland resources, and its have produced qualitative descriptions and established a quanti- flora consists of the typical Asia central shrubs, small shrub desert tative evaluation system for investigating the effects of wind farm steppe and some swampy and flat meadow steppes. Its grassland construction, although the studies are primarily based on sample is divided into grassland, meadow grassland and desert grassland, plots using measured statistical data. Studies have evaluated the and temperate desert steppe is the main grassland type. There is impact of wind farms using chromatographic analyses of vegeta- 2 a total of 11 grasslands, with an area of nearly 11,333 km . This tion biomass, ecosystem productivity, soil physical and chemical area has a typical inland arid desert climate zone and is between composition, as well as other variables (Yun, 2014). Complex eval- 1200 and 2042 m above sea level, and it has approximately 3200 h uation systems can fully characterize the impacts of wind farm of annual sunshine for an average of 71% sunshine and is frost-free construction on the environment; however, because of the myr- ◦ for 147 days. The average temperature is 8 C, the maximum and iad factors involved, they are not practically applicable. The most ◦ minimum temperatures over the past five years were 38 C and direct impact of wind farm construction on grassland environments ◦ ◦ −24 C, respectively, the summer diurnal temperature is 14–17 C is grassland damage. Because wind farms cover large areas, obtain- and the annual average precipitation is 63.3 mm. These values are ing actual measurements of this destruction is impractical. With typical of an agricultural and animal husbandry area. recent advances in remote sensing technology and the rapid devel- opment of remote sensing data processing methods, high spatial 3. Materials and methods and temporal resolution remote sensing data can provide highly accurate information on ground features and enable the large-scale 3.1. Data sources and processing monitoring of wind farms. In this study, we used remote sensing to monitor grassland 3.1.1. Remote sensing data damaged by wind farm construction in the 10 million kilowatt GF-2 is the first civilian optical remote sensing satellite inde- wind-power base in Jiuquan City, Gansu Province based on image pendently developed by China, and it has a spatial resolution better data from China’s GF-2 HD satellite (GF-2).
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