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Post-USSR Land Cover Change in Eastern Europe: Socioeconomic Forcings, Effects on Biodiversity, and Future Scenarios

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Post-USSR Land Cover Change in Eastern Europe: Socioeconomic Forcings, Effects on Biodiversity, and Future Scenarios Volker C. Radeloff, Department of Forest Ecology and Management, University of Wisconsin-Madison Post-USSR land cover change in Eastern Europe: socioeconomic forcings, effects on biodiversity, and future scenarios Background Approach Education Plan Eastern European land cover has ò MODIS will provide data on current land use pattern. Informal education about LULCC will be facilitated via a changed substantially since Spectral mixture analysis will be used to distinguish web-based active learning tool allowing simple the breakdown of the USSR plowed from fallow fields wildlife habitat analysis and LULCC scenario in 1990 ò Landsat TM/ETM+ data from modeling targeted for middle-school students ò In some areas more than half of the farm- 1985 to 2002 will provide ò Web page visitors will examine LULCC from the perspective land has been abandoned and is information on land cover of a European bison (Carpathians), a brown bear converting to shrublands and forest change (North-central Russia) and a ò Eastern Europe is ‘re-wilding’ and that ò Landsat scenes are selected saiga antelope (Kalmykia) offers opportunities for biodiversity along political borders to ò The challenge to web page visitors conservation separate environmental is to identify what makes good Fig. 3: Landsat scenes selected for Fig. 1 Change in agricultural constraints of LULCC from ò This project will assess habitat land cover change analysis and habitat. They will overlay area in Russian oblasts from socioeconomic forcings cross-border comparisons change affecting umbrella 1991 to 19971 animal locations on maps of species for biodiversity roads, landcover, settlements, ò The hypothesis is that agricultural Fig. 6: Radiocollared bison in Poland etc. and rank the factors the Carpathians, Dec. 2004 ò Socio-economic trends and land abandonment is controlled at broad cover change differ markedly scales by the national economy Formal education will include six research internships for among neighboring countries Slovakia and climate, and at fine scales by young scientists from Eastern Europe interested with similar ecological conditions Ukraine distance to markets, major roads, in remote sensing and LULCC science topography, and soil quality ò This provides the opportunity to study N ò Interns will join the research team for three months over the transboundary differences in space Hungary ò Resource selection function will summer and take active part in this project 20 0 20 40 60 Kilometer s Fig. 2 Change in nighttime ò The comparison of pre- and post-1990 identify habitat availability for ò Their main task will be a land cover classification for one lights 1993-2000. Yellow and Fig. 4: Landsat TM scene European bison, brown bear and red: more lights, blue: fewer land cover change provides data on 186/26 Sep. 2000, bands 4,5,3. Landsat scene in the study area lights2 transboundary phenomena in time Note differences in forest cover saiga antelopes, three umbrella at the Polish-Ukrainian border species for biodiversity ò Prior to their internship, candidates will collect ground truth The project uses this ‘natural experiment’ to test data in the field hypotheses on the relative importance of ò Three LULCC scenarios will be modeled using a land cover ò Collaboration will continue after interns return home environmental versus socioeconomic factors as transition model controls and forcings of land cover and land use ò Model results will reveal change potential future forest de-fragmentation and Significance wildlife habitat change Fig. 5: Parcelization in the Ukrainian Carpathians. The project uses state-of-the-art remote sensing methods to Study Objectives monitor the patterns of land cover change in Eastern Europe, thus describing the variability of global change 1) Monitor land use and land cover change (LULCC) across Timeline It integrates land cover with socioeconomic and environmental Eastern Europe from 1985 to 2002 using MODIS and data in a ’natural experiment’ to examine the role of Landsat TM/ETM+ Year Milestones socioeconomic change as a primary forcing function on the Earth’s systems 2) Examine the role of socioeconomic and political changes 2005 MODIS/TM image processing, socioeconomic data as primary forcing functions affecting LULCC collecting, conceptual education web page design The response of ecosystems to these changes and the consequences are assessed via the habitat analysis 3) Examine effects of LULCC in Eastern Europe on habitat 2006 MODIS/TM image processing, regression LULCC for umbrella species for biodiversity in Eastern Europe. availability for umbrella species for biodiversity versus socioeconomics, resource selection functions And lastly, scenario modeling will predict the effects of different 4) Spatially model potential future LULCC scenarios across 2007 Accuracy assessment, future scenarios simulations, future land use trajectories on land cover and Eastern Europe and examine potential biodiversity journal articles, web page dissemination biodiversity in Eastern Europe changes Footnotes Collaborators Contact Information 1 Data: www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/russia/ Linas Balciauskas (Vilnius University, Lithuania), Leonid Baskin (Russian Academy of Volker Radeloff 2 Red: lights much brighter in 2000; yellow: new lights in 2000; blue: lights dimmer or Sciences, Moscow), Patrick Hostert (Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany), Anna Department of Forest Ecology and Management Phone: 608-263-4349 missing in 2000; black: bright lights at both dates; gray: dim lights at both dates Lushchekina (Russian MAB Program and Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow), University of Wisconsin-Madison Fax: 608-262-9922 oblasts from 1991 to 1997 Data courtesy of C. Elvidge, NOAA-NESDIS Kajetan Perzanowski, (Polish Academy of Sciences, Ustrzyki Dolne, Poland), 1630 Linden Drive E-mail: [email protected] Wolfgang Schröder (Technical University Munich, Germany) Madison, WI 53706 http://silvis.forest.wisc.edu.
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