Research article Special Issues

Land-use impacts on water resources and protected areas: applications of state-and-transition simulation modeling of future scenarios

  • Received: 28 January 2015 Accepted: 19 April 2015 Published: 21 April 2015
  • Human land use will increasingly contribute to habitat loss and water shortages in California, given future population projections and associated land-use demand. Understanding how land-use change may impact future water use and where existing protected areas may be threatened by land-use conversion will be important if effective, sustainable management approaches are to be implemented. We used a state-and-transition simulation modeling (STSM) framework to simulate spatially-explicit (1 km2) historical (1992-2010) and future (2011-2060) land-use change for 52 California counties within Mediterranean California ecoregions. Historical land use and land cover (LULC) change estimates were derived from the Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program dataset and attributed with county-level agricultural water-use data from the California Department of Water Resources. Five future alternative land-use scenarios were developed and modeled using the historical land-use change estimates and land-use projections based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Emission Scenarios A2 and B1 scenarios. Spatial land-use transition outputs across scenarios were combined to reveal scenario agreement and a land conversion threat index was developed to evaluate vulnerability of existing protected areas to proximal land conversion. By 2060, highest LULC conversion threats were projected to impact nearly 10,500 km2 of land area within 10 km of a protected area boundary and over 18,000 km2 of land area within essential habitat connectivity areas. Agricultural water use declined across all scenarios perpetuating historical drought-related land use from 2008-2010 and trends of annual cropland conversion into perennial woody crops. STSM is useful in analyzing land-use related impacts on water resource use as well as potential threats to existing protected land. Exploring a range of alternative, yet plausible, LULC change impacts will help to better inform resource management and mitigation strategies.

    Citation: Tamara S. Wilson, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Jason Sherba, Dick Cameron. Land-use impacts on water resources and protected areas: applications of state-and-transition simulation modeling of future scenarios[J]. AIMS Environmental Science, 2015, 2(2): 282-301. doi: 10.3934/environsci.2015.2.282

    Related Papers:

  • Human land use will increasingly contribute to habitat loss and water shortages in California, given future population projections and associated land-use demand. Understanding how land-use change may impact future water use and where existing protected areas may be threatened by land-use conversion will be important if effective, sustainable management approaches are to be implemented. We used a state-and-transition simulation modeling (STSM) framework to simulate spatially-explicit (1 km2) historical (1992-2010) and future (2011-2060) land-use change for 52 California counties within Mediterranean California ecoregions. Historical land use and land cover (LULC) change estimates were derived from the Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program dataset and attributed with county-level agricultural water-use data from the California Department of Water Resources. Five future alternative land-use scenarios were developed and modeled using the historical land-use change estimates and land-use projections based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Emission Scenarios A2 and B1 scenarios. Spatial land-use transition outputs across scenarios were combined to reveal scenario agreement and a land conversion threat index was developed to evaluate vulnerability of existing protected areas to proximal land conversion. By 2060, highest LULC conversion threats were projected to impact nearly 10,500 km2 of land area within 10 km of a protected area boundary and over 18,000 km2 of land area within essential habitat connectivity areas. Agricultural water use declined across all scenarios perpetuating historical drought-related land use from 2008-2010 and trends of annual cropland conversion into perennial woody crops. STSM is useful in analyzing land-use related impacts on water resource use as well as potential threats to existing protected land. Exploring a range of alternative, yet plausible, LULC change impacts will help to better inform resource management and mitigation strategies.


    加载中
    [1] Turner BL, Clark WC, Kates RM, et al. (1993) The Earth as Transformed by Human Action: Global and Regional Changes in the Biosphere over the Past 300 Years. Cambridge University Press.
    [2] Theobald DM (2010) Estimating natural landscape changes from 1992 to 2030 in the conterminous US. Landsc Ecol 25: 999-1011. doi: 10.1007/s10980-010-9484-z
    [3] Lewis DJ, Radeloff VC, Nelson E, et al. (2012) Economic-Based Projections of Future Land-Use Under Alternative Economic Policy Scenarios in the Conterminous US. Ecol Appl 22: 1036-1049. doi: 10.1890/11-0306.1
    [4] U.S. Census Bureau (2013) State and County QuickFacts. U.S. Census Bureau. Available from: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html.
    [5] State of California (2013) State and County Total Population Projections, 2010-2060. State of California, Department of Finance.
    [6] Tanaka SK, Zhu T, Lund JR, et al. (2006) Climate Warming and Water Management Adaptation for California. Clim Change 76: 361-387. doi: 10.1007/s10584-006-9079-5
    [7] Ault TR, Cole JE, Overpeck JT, et al. (2014) Assessing the Risk of Persistent Drought Using Climate Model Simulations and Paleoclimate Data. J Clim 27: 7529-7549. doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00282.1
    [8] Seabloom EW, Dobson AP, Stoms DM (2002) Extinction rates under nonrandom patterns of habitat loss. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 99: 11229-11234. doi: 10.1073/pnas.162064899
    [9] Davies RG, Orme CDL, Olson V, et al. (2006) Human impacts and the global distribution of extinction risk. Proc R Soc B 273: 2127-2133. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2006.3551
    [10] Rittenhouse CD, Pidgeon AM, Albright TP, et al. (2012) Land-Cover Change and Avian Diversity in the Conterminous United States: Land-Cover Change and Avian Diversity. Conserv Biol 26: 821-829. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2012.01867.x
    [11] Ross Z, English PB, Scalf R, et al. (2006) Nitrogen dioxide prediction in Southern California using land use regression modeling: potential for environmental health analyses. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 16: 106-114. doi: 10.1038/sj.jea.7500442
    [12] Foley JA (2005) Global Consequences of Land Use. Science 309: 570-574. doi: 10.1126/science.1111772
    [13] Houghton RA, Hackler JL (2008) Carbon Flux to the Atmosphere from Land-Use Changes 1850-2005. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL/CDIAC-131 NDP-050/R1, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
    [14] Lawrence PJ, Chase TN (2010) Investigating the climate impacts of global land cover change in the community climate system model. Int J Climatol 30: 2066-2087. doi: 10.1002/joc.2061
    [15] Pitman AJ, Avila FB, Abramowitz G, et al. (2011) Importance of background climate in determining impact of land-cover change on regional climate. Nat Clim Change 1: 472-475. doi: 10.1038/nclimate1294
    [16] Dale VH (1997) The relationship between land-use change and climate change. Ecol Appl 7: 753-769. doi: 10.1890/1051-0761(1997)007[0753:TRBLUC]2.0.CO;2
    [17] Sala OE (2000) Global Biodiversity Scenarios for the Year 2100. Science 287: 1770-1774. doi: 10.1126/science.287.5459.1770
    [18] Orang MN, Matyac S, Snyder RL (2008) Survey of Irrigation Methods in California in 2001. J Irrig Drain Eng 134: 96-100. doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9437(2008)134:1(96)
    [19] U.S. Department of Agriculture (1994) 1992 Census of Agiculture: California, state and county data. U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Census.
    [20] U.S. Department of Agriculture (1999) 1997 Census of Agiculture: California, state and county data. U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service.
    [21] U.S. Department of Agriculture (2004) 2002 Census of Agiculture: California, state and county data. U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service.
    [22] U.S. Department of Agriculture (2009) 2007 Census of Agiculture: California, state and county data. U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service.
    [23] U.S. Department of Agriculture (2014) 2012 Census of Agiculture: California, state and county data. U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service.
    [24] Tanaka SK, Zhu T, Lund JR, et al. (2006) Climate Warming and Water Management Adaptation for California. Clim Chang 76: 361-387. doi: 10.1007/s10584-006-9079-5
    [25] Margules CR, Pressey RL (2000) Systematic conservation planning. Nature 405: 243-253. doi: 10.1038/35012251
    [26] Wilson TS, Sleeter BM, Sleeter RR, et al. (2014) Land-Use Threats and Protected Areas: A Scenario-Based, Landscape Level Approach. Land 3: 362-389. doi: 10.3390/land3020362
    [27] Wilson TS, Sleeter BM, Davis AW (2014) Potential future land use threats to California's protected areas. Reg Environ Change 1-14.
    [28] Piekielek NB, Hansen AJ (2012) Extent of fragmentation of coarse-scale habitats in and around U.S. Neational Parks. Biol Conserv 155: 13-22.
    [29] Radeloff VC, Stewart SI, Hawbaker TJ, et al. (2009) Housing growth in and near United States protected areas limits their conservation value. Proc Natl Acad Sci 107:940-945.
    [30] Fleishman E, Blockstein DE, Hall JA, et al. (2011) Top 40 Priorities for Science to Inform US Conservation and Management Policy. BioScience 61: 290-300. doi: 10.1525/bio.2011.61.4.9
    [31] Ricketts T, Imhoff M (2003) Biodiversity, urban areas, and agriculture: locating priority ecoregions for conservation. Conserv Ecol 8: 1-15.
    [32] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2013) Level III ecoregions of the continental United States, Digital map. http://www.epa.gov/wed/pages/ecoregions/level_iii_iv.htm.
    [33] Omernik JM (1987) Ecoregions of the conterminous United States. Ann Assoc Am Geograghers 77: 118-125. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1987.tb00149.x
    [34] Gallant AL, Loveland TR, Sohl TL (2004) Using a geographic framework for analyzing land cover issues. Environ Manage 34: 89-110. doi: 10.1007/s00267-003-0145-3
    [35] Vogelmann JE, Howard SM, Yang L, et al. (2001) Completion of the 1990's national land cover data set for the conterminous United States. Photogramm Eng Remote Sens 61: 650-662.
    [36] Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) (2012) version 1.3 Combined Feature Class. Available from: http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/.
    [37] U.S. Department of Agriculture (2010) National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2010 California Cropland Data Layer. Available from: http://www.nass.usda.gov/research/Cropland/metadata/metadata_ca10.htm.
    [38] California Department of Conservation (2014) Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program. Available from: ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/dlrp/FMMP/.
    [39] Nakicenovic N, Swart R (2000) IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
    [40] Heistermann M, Müller C, Ronneberger K (2006) Land in sight? Achievements, deficits and potentials of continental to global scale land-use modeling. Agric Ecosyst Environ 114: 141-158.
    [41] Rounsevell MDA, Reginster I, Araújo MB, et al. (2006) A coherent set of future land use change scenarios for Europe. Agric Ecosyst Environ 114: 57-68. doi: 10.1016/j.agee.2005.11.027
    [42] Sleeter BM, Sohl TL, Bouchard MA, et al. (2012) Scenarios of land use and land cover change in the conterminous United States: Utilizing the special report on emission scenarios at ecoregional scales. Glob Environ Change 22: 896-914. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.03.008
    [43] Sleeter BM, Wilson TS, Soulard CE, et al. (2010) Estimation of late twentieth century land-cover change in California. Environ Monit Assess 173: 251-266.
    [44] Sleeter BM, Sohl TL, Loveland TR, et al. (2013) Land-cover change in the conterminous United States from 1973 to 2000. Glob Environ Change 23: 733-748. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.03.006
    [45] Daniel CJ, Frid L. ST-Sim - State-and-Transition Simulation Model. Apex Resource Management Solutions. Available from: http://www.apexrms.com/stsm
    [46] Kerns BK, Shlisky AJ, Daniel CJ (2012) Proceedings of the First Landscape State-and-Transition Simulation Modeling Conference, June 14-16, 2011, Portland, Oregon.
    [47] Soil Survey Staff, Natural Resources Conservation Service Web Soil Survey (SSURGO). Available from: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/survey/geo/?cid=nrcs142p2_053627.
    [48] Sleeter RR, Gould M (2007) Geographic Information System Software to Remodel Population Data Using Dasymetric Mapping Methods. U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods 11-C2. Reston, Virginia. Available from: http://pubs.usgs.gov/tm/tm11c2/.
    [49] Sleeter RR, Acevedo C, Soulard CE, et al. (2015) Methods used to parameterize the spatially-explicit components of a state-and-transition simulation model. AIMS Environ Sci [submitted].
    [50] Spencer WD, Beier P, Penrod K, et al. (2010) California Essential Habitat Connectivity Project: A Strategy for Conserving a Connected California. Prepared for California Department of Transportation, California Department of Fish and Game, and Federal Highways Administration. Available from: https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Planning/Connectivity/CEHC.
    [51] Norum K (2011) Agricultural Water Use in California: A 2011 Update. The Center for Irrigation Technology, California State University, Fresno.
    [52] Theobald DM (2003) Targeting Conservation Action through Assessment of Protection and Exurban Threats. Conserv Biol 17: 1624-1637. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2003.00250.x
    [53] Wade AA, Theobald DM, Laituri MJ (2011) A multi-scale assessment of local and contextual threats to existing and potential U.S. protected areas. Landsc Urban Plan 101: 215-227. doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2011.02.027
  • Reader Comments
  • © 2015 the Author(s), licensee AIMS Press. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
通讯作者: 陈斌, bchen63@163.com
  • 1. 

    沈阳化工大学材料科学与工程学院 沈阳 110142

  1. 本站搜索
  2. 百度学术搜索
  3. 万方数据库搜索
  4. CNKI搜索

Metrics

Article views(5033) PDF downloads(1554) Cited by(9)

Article outline

Figures and Tables

Figures(9)  /  Tables(3)

/

DownLoad:  Full-Size Img  PowerPoint
Return
Return

Catalog