Forest and Farmland Conservation Effects of Oregon’s (USA) Land-Use Planning Program

Oregons land-use planning program is often cited as an exemplary approach to forest and farmland conservation, but analyses of its effectiveness are limited. This article examines Oregons land-use planning program using detailed spatial data describing building densities in western Oregon. An empirical model describes changes in building densities on forest and agricultural lands from 1974 to 1994, as a function of a gravity index of lands commuting distance to cities of various sizes, topographic characteristics, and zoning adopted under Oregons land-use planning program. The effectiveness of Oregons land-use planning program is evaluated based on the statistical significance of zoning variables and by computing estimated areas of forest and agricultural lands falling into undeveloped, low-density developed, and developed building density categories, with and without land-use zoning in effect. Results suggest that Oregons land-use planning program has provided a measurable degree of protection to forest and agricultural lands since its implementation.     

Economic and equity implications of land-use zoning in suburban agriculture

A cash-flow viability model is used to evaluate the impacts of land-use zoning on farm households in New Jersey. Findings suggest that zoning results in increased production expenses, lower efficiency and profitability, and the devaluation of land assets. Cash flow and economic viability are, thus, reduced. Impacts of zoning on farm incomes, off-farm incomes, revenues from land sales, indebtedness, and farm sizes were not statistically significant. The results suggest that the use of land-use zoning statutes to guarantee the existence of agriculture may not be equitable unless transferable development rights or other methods of compensating farmers for their losses are simultaneously implemented.     

Restoring Forests and Associated Ecosystem Services on Appalachian Coal Surface Mines

Surface coal mining in Appalachia has caused extensive replacement of forest with non-forested land cover, much of which is unmanaged and unproductive. Although forested ecosystems are valued by society for both marketable products and ecosystem services, forests have not been restored on most Appalachian mined lands because traditional reclamation practices, encouraged by regulatory policies, created conditions poorly suited for reforestation. Reclamation scientists have studied productive forests growing on older mine sites, established forest vegetation experimentally on recent mines, and identified mine reclamation practices that encourage forest vegetation re-establishment. Based on these findings, they developed a Forestry Reclamation Approach (FRA) that can be employed by coal mining firms to restore forest vegetation. Scientists and mine regulators, working collaboratively, have communicated the FRA to the coal industry and to regulatory enforcement personnel. Today, the FRA is used routinely by many coal mining firms, and thousands of mined hectares have been reclaimed to restore productive mine soils and planted with native forest trees. Reclamation of coal mines using the FRA is expected to restore these lands’ capabilities to provide forest-based ecosystem services, such as wood production, atmospheric carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, watershed protection, and water quality protection to a greater extent than conventional reclamation practices.     

Seasonal change detection of riparian zones with remote sensing images and genetic programming in a semi-arid watershed

Riparian zones are deemed significant due to their interception capability of non-point source impacts and the maintenance of ecosystem integrity region wide. To improve classification and change detection of riparian buffers, this paper developed an evolutionary computational, supervised classification method--the RIparian Classification Algorithm (RICAL)--to conduct the seasonal change detection of riparian zones in a vast semi-arid watershed, South Texas. RICAL uniquely demonstrates an integrative effort to incorporate both vegetation indices and soil moisture images derived from LANDSAT 5 TM and RADARSAT-1 satellite images, respectively. First, an estimation of soil moisture based on RADARSAT-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images was conducted via the first-stage genetic programming (GP) practice. Second, for the statistical analyses and image classification, eight vegetation indices were prepared based on reflectance factors that were calculated as the response of the instrument on LANDSAT. These spectral vegetation indices were then independently used for discriminate analysis along with soil moisture images to classify the riparian zones via the second-stage GP practice. The practical implementation was assessed by a case study in the Choke Canyon Reservoir Watershed (CCRW), South Texas, which is mostly agricultural and range land in a semi-arid coastal environment. To enhance the application potential, a combination of Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Techniques (ISODATA) and maximum likelihood supervised classification was also performed for spectral discrimination and classification of riparian varieties comparatively. Research findings show that the RICAL algorithm may yield around 90% accuracy based on the unseen ground data. But using different vegetation indices would not significantly improve the final quality of the spectral discrimination and classification. Such practices may lead to the formulation of more effective management strategies for the handling of non-point source pollution, bird habitat monitoring, and grazing and live stock management in the future.     

Drivers of Coastal Shoreline Change: Case Study of Hon Dat Coast,Kien Giang,Vietnam

Coastal shorelines are naturally dynamic, shifting in response to coastal geomorphological processes. Globally, land use change associated with coastal urban development and growing human population pressures is accelerating coastal shoreline change. In southern Vietnam, coastal erosion currently is posing considerable risks to shoreline land use and coastal inhabitants. The aim of this paper is to quantify historical shoreline changes along the Hon Dat coast between 1995 and 2009, and to document the relationships between coastal mangrove composition, width and density, and rates of shoreline change. The generalized linear mixed-effects models were used to quantify the major biophysical and land-use factors influencing shoreline change rates. Most significant drivers of the rates of change are cutting of mangroves, the dominant mangrove genus, changes in adjacent shoreline land use, changes of shoreline land cover, and width of fringing mangroves. We suggest that a possible and inexpensive strategy for robust mangrove shoreline defense is direct mangrove planting to promote mangrove density with the presence of breakwater structures. In the shorter term, construction of coastal barriers such as fence-structured melaleuca poles in combination with mangrove restoration schemes could help retain coastal sediments and increase the elevation of the accretion zone, thereby helping to stabilize eroding fringe shorelines. It also is recommended that implementation of a system of payments for mangrove ecosystem services and the stronger regulation of mangrove cutting and unsustainable land-use change to strengthen the effectiveness of mangrove conservation programs and coastal land-use management.     

Assessment of Soil Erodibility Indices for Conservation Reserve Program Lands in Southwestern Kansas Using Satellite Imagery and GIS Techniques

The soil erodibility index (EI) of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands, which was the major criterion for CRP enrollment, was assessed for six counties in southwestern Kansas using USGS seamless digital elevation model data and Geographical Informational System techniques. The proportion of land areas with EI values of 8 or lower was less than 1% of the entire study area and most of the land areas (72.5%) were concentrated on EI values between 8 and 24. Although land acreage with EI values of 24 or higher decreased dramatically, the proportion of CRP lands to the other land-use types did not change much from low to high EI levels. The soil EI and physical soil characteristics of the CRP lands were compared to those of other land-use types. In general, the mean EI values of the land-use types were strongly correlated with physical soil properties, including organic matter content, clay content, available water capacity, permeability, and texture. CRP lands were compared in detail with cropland in terms of their soil characteristics to infer the pivotal cause of the land transformation. Although there was no significant statistical difference in EI between cropland and CRP soils, soil texture, soil family, and permeability were statistically different between the two. Statistical analyses of these three variables showed that CRP soils had coarser texture and higher permeability on average than cropland soils, indicating that CRP lands in the study area are drier than cropland soils. Therefore, soil moisture characteristics, not necessarily soil erosion potential, might have been the key factor for CRP enrollment in the study area.     

FECAL COLIFORM CONCENTRATIONS IN RUNOFF FROM A GRAZED,RECLAIMED SURFACE MINE1

The relatively scarcity of flat or moderately sloping land in Central Appalachia make reclaimed surface mined lands attractive for agricultural uses. A reclaimed surface coal mine in southern West Virginia was placed under grazing management during the 1984 and 1985 growing seasons. Discharge was collected from summer-grazed watersheds of about 2.8 ha and 8.9 ha and analyzed, by the membrane-filtration method, for fecal coliforms (FC). Prior to grazing, in 1984, FC counts were < 20/100 ml. During the grazing season, FC ranged from <0/100 ml to> 1000/100 ml in 1984 and from 0/100 ml to > 2500/100 ml in 1985. FC counts remained high during warm periods for several months after grazing ceased. It was concluded that the bacteriological quality of receiving streams was impacted by grazing the reclaimed area and recommended standards for point sources were often exceeded; however, the FC counts did not appear to be any greater than what would have been expected from grazed, undisturbed areas. Reclaimed surface mine areas in Appalachia have the potential to be a valuable “flat land” resource and grazing appears to be an alternative post mine land use that affects bacteriological water quality in a similar manner as “natural” pastures. However, good management practices may be necessary to avoid bacterial contamination of adjacent bodies of water.     

Reclaimed Mineland Curve Number Response to Temporal Distribution of Rainfall1

Warner, Richard C., Carmen T. Agouridis, Page T. Vingralek, and Alex W. Fogle, 2010. Reclaimed Mineland Curve Number Response to Temporal Distribution of Rainfall. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 46(4): 724-732. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2010.00444.x Abstract: The curve number (CN) method is a common technique to estimate runoff volume, and it is widely used in coal mining operations such as those in the Appalachian region of Kentucky. However, very little CN data are available for watersheds disturbed by surface mining and then reclaimed using traditional techniques. Furthermore, as the CN method does not readily account for variations in infiltration rates due to varying rainfall distributions, the selection of a single CN value to encompass all temporal rainfall distributions could lead engineers to substantially under- or over-size water detention structures used in mining operations or other land uses such as development. Using rainfall and runoff data from a surface coal mine located in the Cumberland Plateau of eastern Kentucky, CNs were computed for conventionally reclaimed lands. The effects of temporal rainfall distributions on CNs was also examined by classifying storms as intense, steady, multi-interval intense, or multi-interval steady. Results indicate that CNs for such reclaimed lands ranged from 62 to 94 with a mean value of 85. Temporal rainfall distributions were also shown to significantly affect CN values with intense storms having significantly higher CNs than multi-interval storms. These results indicate that a period of recovery is present between rainfall bursts of a multi-interval storm that allows depressional storage and infiltration rates to rebound.     

Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia

This paper summarizes land-cover and land-use change at eight sites in Thailand, Yunnan (China), Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos over the last 50 years. Project methodology included incorporating information collected from a combination of semiformal, key informant, and formal household interviews with the development of spatial databases based on aerial photographs, satellite images, topographic maps, and GPS data. Results suggest that land use (e.g. swidden cultivation) and land cover (e.g. secondary vegetation) have remained stable and the minor amount of land-use change that has occurred has been a change from swidden to monocultural cash crops. Results suggest that two forces will increasingly determine land-use systems in this region. First, national land tenure policies—the nationalization of forest lands and efforts to increase control over upland resources by central governments—will provide a push factor making it increasingly difficult for farmers to maintain their traditional swidden land-use practices. Second, market pressures—the commercialization of subsistence resources and the substitution of commercial crops for subsistence crops—will provide a pull factor encouraging farmers to engage in new and different forms of commercial agriculture. These results appear to be robust as they come from eight studies conducted over the last decade. But important questions remain in terms of what research protocols are needed, if any, when linking social science data with remotely sensed data for understanding human-environment interactions.     

Hydrologic Effects of Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia (U.S.)

Surface coal mining operations alter landscapes of the Appalachian Mountains, United States, by replacing bedrock with mine spoil, altering topography, removing native vegetation, and constructing mine soils with hydrologic properties that differ from those of native soils. Research has demonstrated hydrologic effects of mining and reclamation on Appalachian landscapes include increased peakflows at newly mined and reclaimed watersheds in response to strong storm events, increased subsurface void space, and increased base flows. We review these investigations with a focus on identifying changes to hydrologic flow paths caused by surface mining for coal in the Appalachian Mountains. We introduce two conceptual control points that govern hydrologic flow paths on mined lands, including the soil surface that partitions infiltration vs. surface runoff and a potential subsurface zone that partitions subsurface storm flow vs. deeper percolation. Investigations to improve knowledge of hydrologic pathways on reclaimed Appalachian mine sites are needed to identify effects of mining on hydrologic processes, aid development of reclamation methods to reduce hydrologic impacts, and direct environmental mitigation and public policy.     

Anticipating Forest and Range Land Development in Central Oregon (USA) for Landscape Analysis, with an Example Application Involving Mule Deer

Forest policymakers, public lands managers, and scientists in the Pacific Northwest (USA) seek ways to evaluate the landscape-level effects of policies and management through the multidisciplinary development and application of spatially explicit methods and models. The Interagency Mapping and Analysis Project (IMAP) is an ongoing effort to generate landscape-wide vegetation data and models to evaluate the integrated effects of disturbances and management activities on natural resource conditions in Oregon and Washington (USA). In this initial analysis, we characterized the spatial distribution of forest and range land development in a four-county pilot study region in central Oregon. The empirical model describes the spatial distribution of buildings and new building construction as a function of population growth, existing development, topography, land-use zoning, and other factors. We used the model to create geographic information system maps of likely future development based on human population projections to inform complementary landscape analyses underway involving vegetation, habitat, and wildfire interactions. In an example application, we use the model and resulting maps to show the potential impacts of future forest and range land development on mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) winter range. Results indicate significant development encroachment and habitat loss already in 2000 with development located along key migration routes and increasing through the projection period to 2040. The example application illustrates a simple way for policymakers and public lands managers to combine existing data and preliminary model outputs to begin to consider the potential effects of development on future landscape conditions.     

Urban Sprawl and Rural Landscapes: perceptions of landscape as amenity in Portland, Oregon

In the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan region, an urban growth boundary (UGB) was established in 1979 to protect farm and forest lands from urban encroachment. Most of the literature on the impact of Oregon's land-use legislation has been on the urban side of the issue--primarily the relative success Portland has had in containing urban sprawl. The landscape component of this rural transformation is typically considered only as a passive backdrop to urban expansion. Portland provides an excellent site to examine the relationship city-dwellers have to nearby agricultural areas. Rapid urban growth in the 1990s pushed suburban development to the edge of the UGB creating stark contrasts between urban and rural land uses in parts of the metropolitan area. This study examines the impact of the UGB on rural landscape change in Portland. We combine findings from land-use analysis and surveys of urban and rural residents to suggest ways to merge the amenity values of landscape with planning policy regarding the UGB.     

Financial viability of reforesting reclaimed surface mined lands, the burden of site conversion costs, and carbon payments as reforestation incentives

US Federal law mandates that mined land be returned by mine operators to a condition capable of supporting its pre-mining use or a higher use. Previously forested lands have commonly been reclaimed to hayland/pasture or wildlife habitat, and most of these lands have been abandoned from management and rendered non-productive. This situation has left landowners in the position of converting these reclaimed mined lands to forests at a later date, if they choose to make them economically productive. Such land-use conversion, however, comes with a substantial up-front cost to the landowner, which makes the financial viability of such a conversion questionable. We examine the financial viability of reforestation of these previously reclaimed mine lands by calculating land expectation value (LEV) under a range of conditions that include forest type, site quality, and reforestation intensity. We find that conversion to white pine is viable on higher quality sites under low to moderate interest rates with low or high timber prices, but conversion to mixed hardwoods is only profitable under the high price scenario with low interest rates, and only on higher quality sites. We also consider the implications of a shift in reforestation burden from the landowner to the mine operator, and results suggest that including costs of reforestation as part of the mining operation creates a financially viable forest enterprise for landowners under all scenarios for both white pine and mixed hardwoods. Two forms of carbon payments that could encourage reforestation of previously reclaimed mined lands also are examined: an annual payment based upon the total accumulated carbon found on-site in a given year, and an annual payment based on only the increment of carbon storage each year. Our carbon payment results indicate that annual values of up to $5.17 per ton of carbon stored in hardwoods and $9.39 per ton of carbon stored in pines would be required to make reforestation profitable under the poorest conditions (high interest rates, low prices, and poor quality site) when the payment is based on accumulated on-site carbon, although lower values are required under more favorable scenarios. Payments that are based upon the annual increment of carbon must fall in the range of $8.66–$71.88 per ton of carbon stored in hardwoods and $0–$83.29 per ton of carbon stored in pines to make reforestation financially viable.     

Urban Sprawl and Rural Landscapes: Perceptions of landscape as amenity in Portland,Oregon

In the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan region, an urban growth boundary (UGB) was established in 1979 to protect farm and forest lands from urban encroachment. Most of the literature on the impact of Oregon's land-use legislation has been on the urban side of the issue—primarily the relative success Portland has had in containing urban sprawl. The landscape component of this rural transformation is typically considered only as a passive backdrop to urban expansion. Portland provides an excellent site to examine the relationship city-dwellers have to nearby agricultural areas. Rapid urban growth in the 1990s pushed suburban development to the edge of the UGB creating stark contrasts between urban and rural land uses in parts of the metropolitan area. This study examines the impact of the UGB on rural landscape change in Portland. We combine findings from land-use analysis and surveys of urban and rural residents to suggest ways to merge the amenity values of landscape with planning policy regarding the UGB.     

Wetland boundary and land-use planning in southern Ontario,Canada

There is a general lack of understanding of wetland processes and a general paucity of scientific research to predict the effects of development on wetland boundary. This paper presents the results of a survey of wetland managers as to how they delineate wetland boundaries, define compatible land uses, and restrict land uses adjacent to wetland boundaries. A major finding from the survey is that 75% of land-use planners and wetland managers failed to identify any compatible land use or restricted land use for development proposals that may affect provincially significant wetlands. The government agencies overwhelmingly lack adequate methodologies and/or criteria to delineate and protect wetland boundaries. The paper closes with a plea to consider dynamic hydrological factors in land-use planning.     

Remote sensing for land management and planning

The primary role of remote sensing in land management and planning has been to provide information concerning the physical characteristics of the land which influence the management of individual land parcels or the allocation of lands to various uses These physical characteristics have typically been assessed through aerial photography, which is used to develop resource maps and to monitor changing environmental conditions These uses are well developed and currently well integrated into the planning infrastructure at local, state, and federal levels in the United States.Many newly emerging uses of remote sensing involve digital images which are collected, stored, and processed automatically by electromechanical scanning devices and electronic computers Some scanning devices operate from aircraft or spacecraft to scan ground scenes directly; others scan conventional aerial transparencies to yield digital images. Digital imagery offers the potential for computer-based automated map production, a process that can significantly increase the amount and timeliness of information available to land managers and planners.Future uses of remote sensing in land planning and management will involve geographic information systems, which store resource information in a geocoded format. Geographic information systems allow the automated integration of disparate types of resource data through various types of spatial models so that with accompanying sample ground data, information in the form of thematic maps and/ or aerially aggregated statistics can be produced Key issues confronting the development and integration of geographic information systems into planning pathways are restoration and rectification of digital images, automated techniques for combining both quantitative and qualitative types of data in information-extracting procedures, and the compatibility of alternative data storage modes     

沿海滩涂生态型围垦指标体系研究

随着近几年滩涂围垦工程的进行,为了协调围垦开发与生态环境保护之间的矛盾,生态型围垦的理念应运而生。本文对"生态型围垦"的内涵进行了深入辨析,提出了沿海滩涂生态型围垦概念模型,针对围垦工程规划前期、工程实施和运行管理3个阶段的特点,从管理、环境和生态3个方面提出相应指标,初步构架了生态型围垦指标体系,为沿海滩涂围垦的可持续及匡围区域生态环境管理提供技术支撑。     

Risk perception, future land use and stewardship: comparison of attitudes about Hanford Site and Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory

With the ending of the Cold War, the Department of Energy (DOE) is evaluating mission, future land use and stewardship of departmental facilities. This paper compares the environmental concerns and future use preferences of 351 people interviewed at Lewiston, Idaho, about the Hanford Site and Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), two of DOE's largest sites. Although most subjects lived closer to Hanford than INEEL, most resided in the same state as INEEL. Therefore their economic interests might be more closely allied with INEEL, while their health concerns might be more related to Hanford. Few lived close enough to either site to be directly affected economically. We test the null hypotheses that there are no differences in environmental concerns and future land-use preferences as a function of DOE site, sex, age and education. When asked to list their major concerns about the sites, more people listed human health and safety, and environmental concerns about Hanford compared to INEEL. When asked to list their preferred future land uses, 49% of subjects did not have any for INEEL, whereas only 35% did not know for Hanford. The highest preferred land uses for both sites were as a National Environmental Research Park (NERP), and for camping, hunting, hiking, and fishing. Except for returning the land to the tribes and increased nuclear storage, subjects rated all future uses as more preferred at INEEL than Hanford. Taken together, these data suggest that the people interviewed know more about Hanford, are more concerned about Hanford, rate recreational uses and NERP as their highest preferred land use, and feel that INEEL is more suited for most land uses than Handford. Overall rankings for future land uses were remarkably similar between the sites, indicating that for these stakeholders, DOE lands should be preserved for research and recreation. These preferences should be taken into account when planning for long-term stewardship at these two DOE sites.     

Carbon sequestration potential in reclaimed mine sites in seven east-central states

Terrestrial systems represent a significant potential carbon (C) sink to help mitigate or offset greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly 3.2 Mha are permitted for mining activities in the United States, which are required to be reclaimed with vegetative cover. While site-specific studies have assessed C accumulation on reclaimed mine sites, regional analyses to estimate potential C increases have not been conducted. For this analysis, potential C sequestration is analyzed on 567,000 ha of mine land in a seven-state region reclaimed to cropland, pasture, or forest. Carbon accumulation is estimated for cropland, pasture, and forest soils, forest litter layer, and aboveground biomass by estimating average annual rates of C accumulation from site-specific and general C sequestration studies. The average annual rate of C storage is highest when mine land is reclaimed to forest, where the potential sequestration is 0.7 to 2.2 Tg yr(-1). The C from soils, litter layer, and biomass from mine lands reclaimed to forest represents 0.3 to 1.0% of the 1990 CO2 emissions from the study region (919 Tg CO2). To achieve the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction goal of 7% below the 1990 level as proposed by the Kyoto Treaty requires CO2 emissions in the study area to be reduced by just over 64 Tg CO2. The potential carbon storage in mine sites reclaimed to forest could account for 4 to 12.5% of these required reductions.