The Role of Remotely Sensed Data in Future Scenario Analyses at a Regional Scale - Fluvial Remote Sensing for Science and Management - page 263

12

The Role of Remotely Sensed
Data in Future Scenario
Analyses at a Regional Scale

Stan Gregory 1 , Dave Hulse 2 ,Melanie Bertrand 3 and Doug Oetter 4
1 Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA
2 Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA
3 Irstea, Unite de Recherche ETNA, Saint-Martin-d'Heres, and University of Lyon,
CNRS, France
4 Department of History, Geography, and Philosophy, Georgia College and State
University, Milledgeville, GA, USA

cover and landscape processes. Cities, towns, farms and
ranches throughout the world develop along floodplains,
benefiting from their productivity and resources, and
then attempt to harden riverbanks and prevent the
very channel dynamics responsible for the floodplain's
productivity that led them to locate there in the first place.
Assessment of river networks and their basins requires
detailed information about land cover and land use that
often is prohibitively costly to obtain by direct observa-
tion at large spatial extents. Remotely sensed information,
such as aerial photography or data obtained from satel-
lites, provides ecologically relevant data at basin extents
while

12.1 Introduction

Anticipating future effects of land use and climate
change on dynamic, coupled natural-human systems has
become an increasingly important challenge in science,
planning and policy. Large rivers, their floodplains,
and surrounding landscapes provide the foundation for
the development of civilisation - integrating landscape
patterns and processes, connecting terrestrial ecosystems
to coastal margins, and meeting human needs throughout
the world. Large river floodplains support some of the
highest levels of biodiversity and habitat complexity of
any ecosystem (Gregory et al., 1991, White et al., 1999)
and are valued for their ecosystem services, such as water,
food and fibre production, transportation, and recre-
ation. Stream networks extend from the mountains to the
lowlands, dissecting the landscape, creating corridors of
riparian vegetation, providing migratory pathways, and
transporting nutrients and sediments to lowlands and
coastal margins. Mosaics of landscapes and riverscapes
shape patterns of human land use, which in turn alter land

being more cost-effective than ground-based

measurements.
One of the major challenges in regional decision mak-
ing is creating spatially explicit and technically sound
analyses of future patterns of landscapes, river networks,
land uses, and resource availability. Future resources
and landscape patterns of a river basin are shaped
by thousands of decisions made each day by indi-
viduals, organisations and communities. One tool for