Project Funding: 2012 - 2015

NRA: 2011 NASA: Land Cover / Land Use Change   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
This project will focus on quantifying the relationship of land-cover/land-use (LCLU) change in the former Soviet Union, specifically Belarus, European Russia, and Lithuania, from agricultural abandonment and afforestation and the relationship of this LCLU change to anthropogenic fires. This region of Eastern Europe is a well-documented area of LCLU change and also of consistent prescribed burning and recent extreme fire events. By focusing on this study area, this project aims to answer the NASA LCLUC program's goal of completing an interdisciplinary study of LCLU change and its relation to fire activity as a potential driver. This project will quantify changes in agricultural land use change in a large area of Eastern Europe as well as analyze the drivers of anthropogenic fire in an area where climatic changes and human-environmental impacts are important contributors to extreme fire events that have caused significant loss of life, property, and ecosystem functioning. In this NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change Early Career Scientist Project, we will leverage ongoing NASA projects to: 1) map land-cover/land-use (LCLU) change from agricultural land abandonment, reestablishment of croplands, and afforestation in Belarus, European Russia, and Lithuania from 1990 to 2010 using moderate to high resolution satellite data; 2) analyze the relationship of observed LCLU change with socioeconomic conditions, land management practices, policy, proximity to infrastructure, and agricultural management across time and space; 3) using the results of the LCLU change analysis, analyze potential origins and spread of fire while also comparing extreme fire year of 2010 to fires mapped from 2011 to 2013. Additionally, this project includes the participation of three early career scientists: Drs. McCarty (Ph.D. awarded 2009, University of Maryland), Prishchepov (Ph.D. awarded 2010, UW- Madison), and Dubinin (Ph.D. awarded 2010, UW-Madison). The expected results from a 3-year project will be a Landsat-based LCLU change map for two decades, 1990 - 2000 and 2000 - 2010, of the study area where LCLU change will be mapped across vegetation and/or land use type, including dominant tree group and peatland classes. A statistical model of LULC changes will also be developed, providing further insight into the drivers of LULC change across these three former Soviet countries. Finally, the results of these first two analyses will allow for further investigation into the drivers of anthropogenic fire observed in Eastern Europe, an important consideration for the impacts of extreme fires on the local human populations and ecosystems as well as a documented source of short-lived climate forcers in the Arctic system.