Doctoral Dissertation Research: Understanding and Mapping Past and Future Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Bolivia's Corredor Bioceanico

博士论文研究：了解和绘制玻利维亚 Corredor Bioceanico 过去和未来的土地利用和土地覆盖变化

• 批准号: 0802672
• 负责人: Andrew Millington
• 金额: $ 1.09万
• 依托单位: Texas A&M University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-04-15 至 2010-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0802672&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Understanding; Mapping

The nature of change in the Earth's ground cover is often tied to how human land use modifies it. There are now means to combine remote sensing of the land cover types with knowledge of human agency in making changes. This land use/land cover change (LULLC) study will use those methods to better understand and predict these shifts in a poorly known part of the world. The Corredor Bioceánico is a major transportation project connecting the agricultural heartlands of South America to the Atlantic and the Pacific. The final link is in southeastern Bolivia in an undeveloped area that is home to indigenous groups and globally-significant ecosystems. Infrastructure improvements that include highway paving, revitalized railway services and increased flows along gas pipelines to Brazil are currently underway and pose major threats to livelihoods and the region's ecological integrity. Economic opportunities have emerged, land speculators have arrived, and undocumented land uses are replacing forests and wetlands. It is acknowledged that sub-tropical semi-arid wooded ecosystems are especially poorly understood in terms of LULCC. Three critical knowledge gaps exist specifically along the Corredor Bioceánico in Bolivia: 1) LULCC has not been mapped and quantified in the region over an extended time period; 2) drivers and proximate causes of land-use change have only been vaguely specified in South American dry forests and savannas; and 3) predictions of future land-use change, as an environmental impact of the Corredor Bioceánico, are outdated. This project will fill these gaps by 1) mapping and quantifying the spatial patterns of LULCC from 1964 to 2007 along eastern Bolivia's Corredor Bioceánico using a time-series of Corona, Landsat MSS/TM/ETM+, and CBERS imagery; 2) linking social science methodologies to image processing techniques by developing a conceptual model of socio-economic and political drivers of LULCC for the region based on interviews and document analysis; and 3) spatially modeling future LULCC over a 5-50 year period under various political and economic scenarios. This project will advance land change science agendas by integrating remote sensing, social science, and simulation modeling. The broader significance partly lies in the fact that the research will addresses nationally and internationally relevant land change science questions in the context of southern Bolivia such as 1) How has land-cover been changed by human use? 2) What are the major human causes of land-cover change in different geographical and historical contexts? and 3) How will land use changes affect land-cover in the future? It will also address globally important gaps in the drylands and land use change literatures concerning southern hemisphere sub-tropical woodlands that have been recognized by the land use change science community. As some of the largest stretches of intact dry forest left in the world, and the largest Neotropical wetland that are threatened by the development of the Corredor Bioceánico, the project's the results will be of critical importance to regional conservation managers and land planners who are currently making conservation decisions based on out-dated models. Failure to foresee the future of infrastructure development in this region could lead to the destruction of key regional ecosystems such as the Chaco and Chiquitano woodlands, and the Pantanal wetlands; may therefore compromise the livelihoods of indigenous Ayoreo and Chiquitano peoples; and would thwart conservation efforts in Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco National Park where innovative conservation efforts integrating the needs of nature conservation and local peoples are underway. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career. This project is jointly supported by the Geography and Regional Science Program and the Americas Program of the Office of International Science and Engineering.

地球地表覆盖物变化的性质往往与人类土地利用如何改变它有关。现在有办法将土地复盖类型的遥感与人类作出变化的机构的知识结合起来。这项土地利用/土地覆盖变化(LULLC)研究将使用这些方法来更好地理解和预测世界上一个鲜为人知的地区的这些变化。Corredor BioceáNico是一个连接南美洲农业腹地与大西洋和太平洋的主要交通项目。最后一个环节是玻利维亚东南部的一个欠发达地区，那里是土著群体和具有全球意义的生态系统的家园。目前正在改善基础设施，包括铺设高速公路、重振铁路服务和增加通往巴西的天然气管道的流量，这对生计和该区域的生态完整性构成了重大威胁。经济机会已经出现，土地投机者已经到来，未登记的土地用途正在取代森林和湿地。人们认识到，亚热带半干旱森林生态系统在土地利用、土地利用和土地利用的变化方面尤其缺乏了解。玻利维亚的Corredor BioceáNico具体存在三个关键的知识差距：1)该区域在很长一段时间内没有对土地利用/土地利用的变化进行测绘和量化；2)仅在南美洲干旱森林和热带大草原模糊地说明了土地利用变化的驱动因素和直接原因；3)由于Corredor BioceáNico对环境的影响，对未来土地利用变化的预测已经过时。该项目将通过以下方式填补这些空白：1)利用日冕、陆地卫星MSS/TM/ETM+和CBERS图像的时间序列，绘制和量化玻利维亚东部Corredor BioceáNico地区1964至2007年土地利用、土地利用、土地利用的变化和变化的空间格局；2)根据访谈和文件分析，将社会科学方法与图像处理技术联系起来；3)在各种政治和经济情景下，对未来5-50年的土地利用、土地和土地利用变化的变化进行空间模拟。该项目将把遥感、社会科学和模拟模型结合起来，推进土地变化科学议程。更广泛的意义部分在于，这项研究将在玻利维亚南部解决国家和国际上相关的土地变化科学问题，例如1)土地覆盖如何被人类利用改变？2)在不同的地理和历史背景下，土地覆盖变化的主要人为原因是什么？3)土地利用变化对未来土地覆盖有何影响？它还将解决已得到土地利用变化科学界承认的有关南半球亚热带林地的旱地和土地利用变化文献中的全球重要空白。作为世界上现存的一些最大的完整干燥森林，以及受到Corredor BioceáNico开发威胁的最大的新热带湿地，该项目的结果将对地区保护经理和土地规划者至关重要，他们目前正在根据过时的模型做出保护决策。如果不能预见该区域基础设施发展的未来，可能会导致重要的区域生态系统遭到破坏，如查科和奇基塔诺林地以及潘塔纳尔湿地；因此可能危及土著阿约雷奥人和奇基塔诺人的生计；并将阻碍Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco国家公园的保护工作，该公园正在进行融合自然保护需求和当地人民需求的创新保护工作。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究事业。该项目由地理与区域科学计划和国际科学与工程办公室的美洲计划共同支持。