SCHOLARS AWARDS: Climate, Population Density, and Remote Sensing: Identifying Social-Ecological Hotspots

北卡罗来纳大学(UNC)生态人类学家科林·托尔·韦斯特将对生态热点地区的土地利用和土地覆盖变化(LULCC)进行研究。这项研究将集中在布基纳法索北部的中原高原，这个地方长期以来被专家记录为人为荒漠化的教科书范例。该地区是更大的萨赫勒地区的一部分，那里的人口压力和干旱正在造成广泛的环境损害。然而，最近的分析证明，这一过程发生了逆转。卫星图像探测到了萨赫勒地区的“绿化”过程，这一过程在中央高原北部尤为明显。因此，对人类-环境动态有相互矛盾的解释，通常要么描述广泛和统一的环境退化(荒漠化)轨迹，要么描述类似的环境恢复(绿化)轨迹。PI之前的人种学田野调查表明，这两个过程同时发生，但在不同的地点，在不同的时间点。利用遥感技术，这项拟议的研究将确定正在发生负(退化)和正(恢复)人类-环境相互作用的社会-生态热点。因此，它将表明，土地退化/恢复最终是在同一地貌中共同发生的零星和不连续的过程。韦斯特博士将通过在北卡罗来纳大学S景观生态和生物地理实验室的培训来发展遥感分析的基本技能。北卡罗来纳大学地理系副教授亚伦·穆迪博士将在数据采集、处理和分析方面指导他。这项研究将产生空间和时间上明确的植被、降雨量和人口数据集，以确定社会生态热点，这将使发展组织和政府机构能够更好地定向援助。

University of North Carolina (UNC) ecological anthropologist Colin Thor West will conduct research on land use and land cover change (LULCC) on ecological hotspots. The research will be focused on the northern Central Plateau of Burkina Faso, a place long recorded by experts as a textbook example of anthropogenic desertification. This region is part of the larger Sahel where population pressure and droughts are causing widespread environmental harm. More recent analyses, however, have documented a reversal in this process. Satellite imagery has detected a process of "greening" in the Sahel and it is particularly pronounced on the northern Central Plateau. Thus, there are conflicting interpretations of human-environment dynamics that generally describe either a widespread and uniform trajectory of environmental degradation (desertification) or a similarly homogeneous trajectory of environmental rehabilitation (greening). Previous ethnographic fieldwork by the PI suggests that both processes are occurring simultaneously but in different places at different points in time. Using remote sensing techniques, this proposed research will identify social-ecological hotspots where negative (degrading) and positive (rehabilitating) human-environment interactions are occurring. Thus, it will show that land degradation/rehabilitation are ultimately patchy and discontinuous processes that co-occur within the same landscape. Dr. West will develop basic skills in remote sensing analysis through training at UNC?s Landscape Ecology and Biogeography Lab. Dr. Aaron Moody, an associate professor in UNC's Department of Geography, will mentor him in data acquisition, processing and analysis. The research will produce a spatially and temporally explicit dataset of vegetation, rainfall, and population that identifies social-ecological hotspots, which will enable development organizations and government agencies to better target assistance.