Ecosystem response to changing hydroclimatic regimes within Montane, Boreal and Taiga Ecozone transition areas; a multi-scale approach

气候对不断变化的土地覆盖、水分供应和生物量生产的影响是动态地球系统的组成部分，可以用卫星地球观测数据进行监测。EO土地和水监测和区域气候模型正在成为支持政府资源、危害和环境评估以及土地/水利用和碳排放政策的常用工具。越来越多地依赖于地球观测数据来理解、管理和规划社会与环境的相互作用，这导致了许多最近或即将发射的卫星，其目标是监测全球生物量与水的范围和水平。卫星EO数据的一个挑战是将图像转换为地面特征属性的有意义表示，然后将基于图像的变化与生态系统过程联系起来。我的动态生态系统土地覆盖过渡评估（DELTA）项目使用多尺度EO数据来检查森林和湿地生态系统对沿海拔和纬度梯度的气候系统扰动的响应。高纬度地区和山区在其自然范围内包含对水文气候变化敏感的森林生态系统。一些地区最近的年气温上升了20摄氏度，对森林生产力产生了明显的影响。很少有研究考察气候强迫对过渡性森林（如林线）过渡带形态-生物物理生态系统特征的时空影响。人们通常认为，随着高海拔和纬度环境变暖，条件有利于增加生物量生产。然而，地方尺度的反馈可以抵消区域强迫机制的影响，因此，当前和未来的总影响是不确定的，需要加以确定。通过结合6个研究地点的实地和多尺度航空和卫星EO数据，DELTA将描述山地、北方和针叶林生态区过渡区内土地覆盖、水分供应和生物量生产变化的速率和幅度。结果将在区域、景观、生态系统和局部特征尺度上进行总结。需要了解区域影响，以便为政策提供信息，而特征尺度数据可以帮助理解和建模过程。因此，重点将放在开发常规以提高特征尺度过程和降低区域EO变化观察的规模上。了解过程和观测的尺度行为将用于开发基于gis的景观演变建模框架。这项研究将确保现代EO数据被视为政策和管理过程的可靠输入。这对于负责对水文气候变化敏感地区的管理和可持续资源开采、管理和复垦的公共和私营部门利益攸关方具有重要意义。

Climatic influences on changing landcover, water availability and biomass production are components of a dynamic Earth System that can be monitored with satellite earth observation (EO) data. EO land and water monitoring and regional climate modeling are becoming commonplace tools to support government resource, hazard and environmental assessments, and for land/water use and Carbon emissions policy. The increasing reliance on EO data to understand, manage and plan societal interaction with the Environment has resulted in many recent or imminent satellite launches with goals of monitoring global biomass to water extent and levels. A challenge with satellite EO data is converting images into meaningful representations of ground level feature properties and then relating image-based changes to ecosystem processes. My Dynamic Ecosystem Landcover Transitions Assessment (DELTA) program uses multi-scale EO data to examine forest and wetland ecosystem response to perturbations in the climate system along elevation and latitude gradients.High latitude and mountain regions contain forest ecosystems at the extent of their natural range that are sensitive to hydroclimatic change. Some areas have experienced >2oC increase in recent annual temperatures, resulting in clear impacts on forest productivity. Few studies have examined spatio-temporal impacts of climate forcing on morpho-biophysical ecosystem characteristics across transitional (e.g. treeline) forest ecotones. It is often assumed that as high altitude and latitude environments warm, conditions favour increased biomass production. However, local-scale feedbacks can counter the influence of regional forcing mechanisms such that aggregate contemporary and future impacts are uncertain and need to be ascertained.By combining field and multi-scale airborne and satellite EO data over 6 study sites, DELTA will characterize the rates and magnitudes of change occurring to landcover, water availability and biomass production within Montane, Boreal and Taiga Ecozone transition zones. Results will be summarized at the region, landscape, ecosystem and local feature scales. Regional impacts need to be understood to inform policy, while feature-scale data enable processes understanding and modeling. Consequently, focus will be placed on developing routines to upscale feature-scale processes and on downscaling regional EO change observations. Understanding the scaling behavior of processes and observations will be used to develop a GIS-based landscape evolution modelling framework. This research will ensure modern EO data are seen as reliable inputs to policy and management processes. This has great importance for public and private sector stakeholders that are responsible for stewardship and sustainable resource extraction, management and reclamation in regions sensitive to hydroclimatic change.