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

地球地面覆盖物变化的性质往往与人类土地使用如何改变它有关，现在有办法将土地覆盖类型的联合收割机遥感与人类在改变中的作用的知识结合起来。这项土地利用/土地覆盖变化研究将使用这些方法来更好地了解和预测世界上一个鲜为人知的地区的这些变化。科雷多尔生物海洋工程是一个重要的交通项目，将南美洲的农业中心地带与大西洋和太平洋连接起来。最后一个环节是在玻利维亚东南部的一个未开发地区，那里是土著群体和全球重要生态系统的家园。目前正在改善基础设施，包括铺设高速公路、振兴铁路服务和增加通往巴西的沿着天然气管道流量，这对生计和该地区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，无证土地使用正在取代森林和湿地。人们承认，人们对亚热带半干旱森林生态系统在土地利用、土地利用的变化和气候变化方面的认识尤其不足。在玻利维亚的沿着科雷多尔Bioceánico，特别存在三个关键的知识差距：1）该区域土地利用、土地利用变化和土地利用变化在很长一段时间内都没有得到测绘和量化; 2）在南美洲的干燥森林和稀树草原，土地利用变化的驱动因素和近因只得到模糊的说明; 3）作为科雷多尔Bioceánico的环境影响，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、大地卫星MSS/TM/ETM+和中巴地球资源卫星图像的时间序列，绘制和量化1964年至2007年玻利维亚东部生物海洋走廊沿线土地利用、土地利用变化和土地利用变化的空间格局; 2）通过开发社会科学的概念模型，将社会科学方法与图像处理技术联系起来，基于访谈和文件分析的该地区土地利用、土地利用变化和气候变化的经济和政治驱动因素; 3）在不同政治和经济情景下，对未来5 - 50年土地利用、土地利用变化和气候变化进行空间建模。 该项目将通过整合遥感、社会科学和模拟建模来推进土地变化科学议程。更广泛的意义部分在于，这项研究将解决玻利维亚南部的国家和国际相关土地变化科学问题，如1）人类使用如何改变土地覆盖？2)在不同的地理和历史背景下，土地覆被变化的主要人为原因是什么？（3）未来土地利用变化将如何影响土地覆盖？它还将处理土地利用变化科学界承认的关于南半球亚热带林地的旱地和土地利用变化文献中具有全球重要性的空白。 作为世界上最大的完整干燥森林，以及受到科雷多尔生物海洋开发威胁的最大的新热带湿地，该项目的结果将对区域保护管理人员和土地规划人员至关重要，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，可能会导致查科和奇基塔诺林地以及潘塔纳尔湿地等关键的区域生态系统遭到破坏;因此，可能会损害Ayoreo和Chiquitano土著人民的生计;并将阻碍Kaa的保护工作Iya del Gran查科国家公园正在进行创新的保护工作，将自然保护和当地人民的需求结合起来。 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的研究生涯。 该项目由国际科学与工程办公室的地理和区域科学计划以及美洲计划共同支持。

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.