Wildland fires provide a good example of how ecosystem disturbance, climate change, and land management can interact. 8: Coastal; Ch. (2011)170 used one of the AgMIP crop models (PEGASUS) to show poleward and westward shifts in areas devoted to corn, soybean, and wheat production. Salazar, A., G. Baldi, M. Hirota, J. Syktus, and C. McAlpine, 2015: Land use and land cover change impacts on the regional climate of non-Amazonian South America: A review. More alien circles? A. Hicke, R. G. Kelsey, J. F. Negrón, and S. J. Seybold, 2010: Climate change and bark beetles of the Western United States and Canada: Direct and indirect effects. Land cover change detection using remote sensing and geospatial data provides baseline information for assessing the climate change impacts on habitats and biodiversity, as well as natural resources, in the target areas. Resource managers involved in parks, oil, timber, and mining companies, are concerned with both land use and land cover, as are local resource inventory or natural resource agencies.

Williams, A. P., C. D. Allen, C. I. Millar, T. W. Swetnam, J. Michaelsen, C. J. Some figures and images are copyright protected. Maps can help managers assess urban growth, model water quality issues, predict and assess impacts from floods and storm surges, track wetland losses and potential impacts from sea level rise, prioritize areas for conservation efforts, and compare land cover changes with effects in the environment or to connections in socioeconomic changes such as increasing population. 99-198, 99 Stat 1504, December 23 1985. Sustainably managing land cover and land use is critical to meeting climate, sustainable development and food security goals around the world. Hammer, and M. K. Clayton, 2005: Road density and landscape pattern in relation to housing density, and ownership, land cover, and soils.

Sommers, W. T., R. A. Loehman, and C. C. Hardy, 2014: Wildland fire emissions, carbon, and climate: Science overview and knowledge needs. CHAPTER 5: LAND COVER AND LAND-USE CHANGE, Chapter 5: Land Cover and Land-Use Change.

Land-use decisions are often based on economic factors.21,22,23 Land-use changes are increasingly being influenced by distant forces due to the globalization of many markets.21,24,25,26 Land use can also change due to local, state, and national policies, such as programs designed to remove cultivation from highly erodible land to mitigate degradation,1 legislation to address sea level rise in local comprehensive plans,27 and policies that reduce the rate of timber harvest on federal lands28,29 or promote the expansion of cultivated lands for energy production.30 Technological innovation has also influenced land-use change, with the expansion of cultivated lands from the development of irrigation technologies31,32 and, more recently, decreases in demand for agricultural land due to increases in crop productivity.33 The recent expansion of oil and gas extraction activities throughout large areas of the United States demonstrates how policy, economics, and technology can collectively influence and change land use and land cover.34.

Climate can affect and be affected by changes in land cover (the physical features that cover the land, such as trees or pavement) and land use (human management and activities on land, such as mining or recreation). Collectively, non-vegetated areas, including water, barren areas, and snow and ice, account for approximately 6% of the total land area. Climate change is expected to directly and indirectly impact land use and cover by altering disturbance patterns, species distributions, and the suitability of land for specific uses. For example, by mid-century, water use in California is projected to increase by 1.5 million acre-feet, driven almost entirely by a near 60% increase in developed water-use demand.85 Research in Hawai‘i projects a steady reduction in the strength of the state’s annual ecosystem carbon sink, resulting primarily from a combination of urbanization and a shift toward drier, less productive ecosystems by mid-century.86, The influence of land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) on climate and weather is complex, and specific effects depend on the type of change, the scale of the assessment (local, regional, or global), the size of the area under consideration, the aspect of climate and weather being evaluated (such as temperature, precipitation, or seasonal trends), and the region where the change occurs.87,88, Recent studies suggest that forests tend to be cooler than herbaceous croplands throughout much of the temperate region.89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96 These studies suggest that reforestation in the temperate forest region would promote cooling, with the magnitude of cooling decreasing with increasing latitude.90,94,95,96,97 The scale of the cooling from reforestation would depend on its extent and location.

Hammer, S. I. Stewart, J. S. Fried, S. S. Holcomb, and J. F. McKeefry, 2005: The wildland-urban interface in the United States. Ongoing negotiations of aboriginal land claims have generated a need for more stringent knowledge of land information in those areas, ranging from cartographic to thematic information. U.S. The authors considered feedback from the general public, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and federal agencies.

Land-use decisions are traditionally based on short-term economic factors. Much of the research assessing the impact of climate change on agriculture has been undertaken as part of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP),128 which has been understandably focused on productivity and food security.128,129,167,168,169 Less effort has been devoted to understanding the impact of climate change on the spatial distribution of agriculture. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, pp. McGrath, J. M., and D. B. Lobell, 2013: Regional disparities in the CO2 fertilization effect and implications for crop yields. Halofsky, J. E., M. A. Hemstrom, D. R. Conklin, J. S. Halofsky, B. K. Kerns, and D. Bachelet, 2013: Assessing potential climate change effects on vegetation using a linked model approach. Gonzalez, P., R. P. Neilson, J. M. Lenihan, and R. J. Drapek, 2010: Global patterns in the vulnerability of ecosystems to vegetation shifts due to climate change. Aggregated over large areas, these changes have the potential to influence Earth’s climate by altering regional and global circulation patterns, changing the albedo (reflectivity) of Earth’s surface, and changing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Bond, J. M. Carlson, M. A. Cochrane, C. M. D'Antonio, R. S. DeFries, J. C. Doyle, S. P. Harrison, F. H. Johnston, J. E. Keeley, M. A. Krawchuk, C. A. Kull, J. Issues driving land use studies include the removal or disturbance of productive land, urban encroachment, and depletion of forests. Higuera, P. E., J. T. Abatzoglou, J. S. Littell, and P. Morgan, 2015: The changing strength and nature of fire-climate relationships in the northern Rocky Mountains, U.S.A., 1902-2008. Riahi, K., S. Rao, V. Krey, C. Cho, V. Chirkov, G. Fischer, G. Kindermann, N. Nakicenovic, and P. Rafaj, 2011: RCP 8.5—A scenario of comparatively high greenhouse gas emissions.

Calgary appears quite blue; the agricultural fields to the east are red, while grazing land to the west is green. For instance, there are many definitions of "forest"—sometimes within the same organisation—that may or may not incorporate a number of different forest features (e.g., stand height, canopy cover, strip width, inclusion of grasses, and rates of growth for timber production). Bentz, B. J., J. Régnière, C. J. Fettig, E. M. Hansen, J. L. Hayes, J. Hauer, M. E., J. M. Evans, and D. R. Mishra, 2016: Millions projected to be at risk from sea-level rise in the continental United States. Montenegro, A., M. Eby, Q. Mu, M. Mulligan, A. J. Weaver, E. C. Wiebe, and M. Zhao, 2009: The net carbon drawdown of small scale afforestation from satellite observations. Conversely, climate change can also influence land cover, resulting in a loss of forest cover from climate-related increases in disturbances, the expansion of woody vegetation into grasslands, and the loss of beaches due to coastal erosion amplified by rises in sea level. These are even stranger circles than the ones we first encountered. Zabel, F., B. Putzenlechner, and W. Mauser, 2014: Global agricultural land resources—A high resolution suitability evaluation and its perspectives until 2100 under climate change conditions. The circles identify radial distances from 'ground zero', where various real and simulated explosions were conducted by the military. NOAA National Ocean Service, Silver Spring, MD. These terms are often erroneously used interchangeably; however, each term has a very specific meaning.

which occur on the earth surface.

Kulmatiski, A., and K. H. Beard, 2013: Woody plant encroachment facilitated by increased precipitation intensity. Combined the projections cover over 1.7 million square kilometers and over 8 million individually modeled cropland parcels. 19: Southeast, KM 2).