Spatiotemporal Changes of Farming-Pastoral Ecotone in Northern China, 1954–2005: A Case Study in Zhenlai County, Jilin Province

Analyzing spatiotemporal changes in land use and land cover could provide basic information for appropriate decision-making and thereby plays an essential role in promoting the sustainable use of land resources, especially in ecologically fragile regions. In this paper, a case study was taken in Zhenlai County, which is a part of the farming-pastoral ecotone of Northern China. This study integrated methods of bitemporal change detection and temporal trajectory analysis to trace the paths of land cover change for every location in the study area from 1954 to 2005, using published land cover data based on topographic and environmental background maps and also remotely sensed images including Landsat MSS (Multispectral Scanner) and TM (Thematic Mapper). Meanwhile, the Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient derived from economic models were also used to study the land use structure changes to gain a better understanding of human impact on this fragile ecosystem. Results of bitemporal change detection showed that the most common land cover transition in the study area was an expansion of arable land at the expense of grassland and wetland. Plenty of grassland was converted to other unused land, indicating serious environmental degradation in Zhenlai County during the past decades. Trajectory analysis of land use and land cover change demonstrated that settlement, arable land, and water bodies were relatively stable in terms of coverage and spatial distribution, while grassland, wetland, and forest land had weak stability. Natural forces were still dominating the environmental processes of the study area, while human-induced changes also played an important role in environmental change. In addition, different types of land use displayed different concentration trends and had large changes during the study period. Arable land was the most decentralized, whereas forest land was the most concentrated. The above results not only revealed notable spatiotemporal features of land use and land cover change in the time series, but also confirmed the applicability and effectiveness of the methodology in our research, which combined bitemporal change detection, temporal trajectory analysis, and a Lorenz curve/Gini coefficient in analyzing spatiotemporal changes in land use and land cover

Integrating spatial continuous wavelet transform and normalized difference vegetation index to map the agro-pastoral transitional zone in Northern China

The agro-pastoral transitional zone (APTZ) in Northern China is one of the most important ecological barriers of the world. The commonly-used method to identify the spatial distribution of ATPZ is to apply a threshold rule on climatic or land use indicators. This approach is highly subjective, and the quantity standards vary among the studies. In this study, we adopted the spatial continuous wavelet transform (SCWT) technique to detect the spatial fluctuation in normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) sequences, and as such identify the APTZ. To carry out this analysis, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) NDVI 1-month data (MODND1M) covering the period 2006–2015 were used. Based on the spatial variation in NDVI, we identified two sub-regions within the APTZ. The temporal change of APTZ showed that although vegetation spatial pattern changed annually, certain areas appeared to be stable, while others showed higher sensitivity to environmental variance. Through correlation analysis between the dynamics of APTZ and precipitation, we found that the mean center of the APTZ moved toward the southeast during dry years and toward the northwest during humid years. By comparing the APTZ spatial pattern obtained in the present study with the outcome following the traditional approach based on mean annual precipitation data, it can be concluded that our study provides a reliable basis to advance the methodological framework to identify accurately transitional zones. The identification framework is of high importance to support decision-making in land use management in Northern China as well as other similar regions around the world

The Ecological and Social Effects of Eco-Environmental Policies on Grassland Rehabilitation in China

Grassland degradation and desertification in China have challenged the sustainability of these invaluable natural resources. Since the beginning of 21st century, the Chinese government has set a lot of eco-environmental policies and programs to deal with these problems. To illustrate the effectiveness of these policies and programs in ecological and socio-economic dimensions, a quantitative assessment was conducted through collecting and analyzing the up-to-date information and data in this study. The results indicate that the ecological restoration projects facilitated by the grassland eco-environment policies and programs such as “Returning to Grassland by Excluding Grazing (RGEG)”, “Beijing-Tianjin Sand Source Control Engineering (BTSSCE)” and “Comprehensive Management of Karst Areas in Southwestern China (CMKASC)” have greatly improved the grassland eco-environment and promoted the local livelihood at the same time. These policies and programs should be sustained for further improvement of grassland eco-environments in China. There is the call for more fully integrated and more relevant studies to provide effective guidance to rationalize the sustainable grassland management strategies in China

Desertification

IPCC SPECIAL REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND LAND (SRCCL) Chapter 3: Climate Change and Land: An IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystem

Effects of land-use change on grassland ecosystem services in Inner Mongolia and their implications for livelihoods and sustainable management

Grassland degradation has become a major challenge in many parts of the world, especially in arid or semi-arid areas, such as the Chinese Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (IMAR). Previous studies of the grassland ecosystems in IMAR focused on climate change and its environmental consequences or on the land-use conflicts between agrarian communities and nomads. For better planning and management, a more integrated analysis of the consequences of land-use change for the livelihood dependence and other benefits (services) of the grasslands in IMAR is needed. Studies on ecosystem services of IMAR’s grasslands are usually based on remote sensing data (TM images) to assess the total value of the grassland ecosystem services using benefit transfer. Thus far, to my knowledge no study collected original data on the detailed use of ecosystem services by pastoralists on the Mongolian Plateau or on their livelihood dependence on these services at the household level. Also, no data is available on the changes over time in contrasting situations for different grassland types (like meadow, steppe and desert steppe). I therefore aim to analyse the interactions between the people and the ecosystems in IMAR in an integrated manner, and especially focus on analysing the different utilization patterns of ecosystem services and the livelihood dependence of local herders and other stakeholders in selected study sites. The ultimate goal of my study is to contribute to sustainable management of the IMAR’s ecosystems. To achieve the goal of my PhD study, the changes in land use, household consumption patterns and their impacts have been addressed and investigated for four selected study sites: Hulun Buir, Xilin Gol, Ordos and Alxa Right. These sites are in a ‘transect’ from southwest to northeast to capture the gradient in use of ecosystem services in IMAR. The methodological framework of this research combines quantitative and qualitative tools to analyse ecosystem services. It specifies an integrative approach in specific spatial and temporal contexts to evaluate trade-offs between human activities, use of ecosystem services and human well-being. This framework enables to analyse the effects of multiple factors (e.g. policies or climate and geographic conditions) on utilization patterns of ecosystem services and the influence on society. The data used to apply the framework stems from a bottom-up approach by using household surveys and other local field data. The results show that the householders’ intake comprised a low amount of crops, including staple foods, vegetables and fruit with a high amount of meat. However, more crops and less meat are increasingly preferred now. From 1995 to 2010, fuel consumption patterns changed from bio-fuels (especially dung) to mainly electricity and gas. Beside the influences of different environmental conditions and economic development, the grassland restoration policy measures changed grazing activities and basic household consumption patterns. Grazing activities were less affected by seasonal grazing and rotational grazing measures than other policy measures. However, when grazing was prohibited, immigration and livestock rearing control policy measures (e.g. in Xilin Gol and Ordos) fundamentally changed the basic household consumption patterns (especially for food and fuel). Livelihood’s food-consumption highly links to potential water consumption. The results show that compared to the direct water consumption, the indirect water consumption through food production was a major share of total water consumption. From 1995 to 2010, indirect water consumption decreased in Xilin Gol and Ordos because meat consumption decreased and fruit and vegetable consumption increased. The grassland ecosystem degradation in IMAR leads to a shortage of meat production and this causes people to purchase food from outside, but the ability to purchase food also depends on income levels. The implementation of the grassland conservation policies significantly affected household livelihoods and this in turn, affected household use of natural assets (primarily the land), their agricultural assets (farming and grazing activities) and their financial assets (income and consumption). The households developed adaptation measures to account for the dependence of their livelihoods on local ecosystems by initializing strategies (e.g. seeking off-farm work, leasing pasture land, increasing purchases of fodder for stall-fed animals and altering their diet and fuel consumption) to compensate for their changing livelihoods. In general, the household dependence on local grasslands decreased. This indicates a transition from traditional pastoral grazing to control grazing, rising of modern dairy cattle (intensive animal husbandry), diversification of income sources and decreases in land-based employment and in the household food and fuel consumption. These changes increased the diversity of livelihoods, household resilience and environmental sustainability. Five grassland utilization patterns were identified, including no use (natural grasslands), light use, moderate use, intensive use and recovery sites (degraded sites protected from further use). The results show that light use generally provided higher levels of ecosystem services than intensive use and no use. Only supporting ecosystem services differed. Surprisingly, I found no consistently positive effects of the strict conservation activities across the sites, since the results varied spatially and with respect to differences in the land-use patterns. My results suggest that appropriate grassland-utilization patterns likely enhance the supply of ecosystem services and reduce negative effects on both household livelihoods and the environment. For example, in the Hulun Buir grasslands, the precipitation is 50% higher than in the other areas. Therefore the area tolerates a higher grazing intensity before degradation occurs and its grasslands provide more provisioning services but at the cost of decreased regulating and supporting services. After implementing grassland conservation policies, income from cultivation and animal grazing decreased, whereas income from compensation and off-farm activities increased. The herders preferred an annual payment of 99.2 US$ha-1 for participating in conservation activities, but the government prefers to provide only 83.8 US$ ha-1, resulting in an annual gap of 15.4 US$ ha-1. These currently too low payments probably lead some herders to expand their grazing into restricted grasslands or increase their number of animals, particularly if such payment program ends. To create an improved and sustainable payment scheme, solutions are needed that enable the herders to sustain their livelihood, while conserving the grasslands. My findings can help to establish appropriate grassland-utilization patterns and more effective payment schemes for the grasslands of IMAR and similar regions.</p

Urban food strategies in Central and Eastern Europe: what's specific and what's at stake?

Integrating a larger set of instruments into Rural Development Programmes implied an increasing focus on monitoring and evaluation. Against the highly diversified experience with regard to implementation of policy instruments the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework has been set up by the EU Commission as a strategic and streamlined method of evaluating programmes’ impacts. Its indicator-based approach mainly reflects the concept of a linear, measure-based intervention logic that falls short of the true nature of RDP operation and impact capacity on rural changes. Besides the different phases of the policy process, i.e. policy design, delivery and evaluation, the regional context with its specific set of challenges and opportunities seems critical to the understanding and improvement of programme performance. In particular the role of local actors can hardly be grasped by quantitative indicators alone, but has to be addressed by assessing processes of social innovation. This shift in the evaluation focus underpins the need to take account of regional implementation specificities and processes of social innovation as decisive elements for programme performance.

Investigating the relationship between the inter-annual variability of satellite-derived vegetation phenology and a proxy of biomass production in the Sahel

In the Sahel region, moderate to coarse spatial resolution remote sensing time series are used in early warning monitoring systems with the aim of detecting unfavorable crop and pasture conditions and informing stakeholders about impending food security risks. Despite growing evidence that vegetation productivity is directly related to phenology, most approaches to estimate such risks do not explicitly take into account the actual timing of vegetation growth and development. The date of the start of the season (SOS) or of the peak canopy density can be assessed by remote sensing techniques in a timely manner during the growing season. However, there is limited knowledge about the relationship between vegetation biomass production and these variables at regional scale. This study describes a first attempt to increase our understanding of such a relationship through the analysis of phenological variables retrieved from SPOT-VEGETATION time series of the Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR). Two key phenological variables (growing season length, GSL; timing of SOS) and the maximum value of FAPAR attained during the growing season (Peak) are analyzed as potentially related to a proxy of biomass production (CFAPAR, the cumulative value of FAPAR during the growing season). GSL, SOS and Peak all show different spatial patterns of correlation with CFAPAR. In particular, GSL shows a high and positive correlation with CFAPAR over the whole Sahel (mean r = 0.78). The negative correlation between delays in SOS and CFAPAR is stronger (mean r = -0.71) in the southern agricultural band of the Sahel, while the positive correlation between Peak FAPAR and CFAPAR is higher in the northern and more arid grassland region (mean r = 0.75). The consistency of the results and the actual link between remote-sensing derived phenological parameters and biomass production were evaluated using field measurements of aboveground herbaceous biomass of rangelands in Senegal. This study demonstrates the potential of phenological variables as indicators of biomass production. Nevertheless, the strength of the relation between phenological variables and biomass production is not universal and indeed quite variable geographically, with large scattered areas not showing a statistically significant relationship.JRC.H.4-Monitoring Agricultural Resource