Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
Systematic Modeling of Land Use Impacts
on Surface Climate
Xiangzheng Deng, Burak Güneralp and Hongbo Su
1.1 Introduction
LUCC, in which human activities play a dominant role, interacts with environment
and has significant effects on ecosystems at local, regional and global scales, and
consequently directly or indirectly exerts great influence on global climate changes
(Foley et al.
2005
; Pachauri and Reisinger
2007
; Feddema et al.
2005
). People
have come to realize that global change always consists of a series of regional
change with various processes and patterns according to more and more obser-
vations. On one hand, the initial regional change will gradually extend to inter-
regional and even larger scales, which consequently influences global
environment. Therefore, it is necessary to first take into account local and regional
climatic effects of LUCC in this research. On the other hand, the impacts of LUCC
on regional climate systems also vary greatly since there are the great differences
in the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of land surface in different
regions on the earth. For example, deforestation may lead to temperature increase
in the tropic zone, while it may lead to surface temperature decrease in frigid zone
(Bonan
2008
). Consequently, in order to completely reflect the relationship
between LUCC and climatic factors, it is necessary to: (1) make comparisons
among various case studies in different regions and at multiple spatiotemporal
scales; (2) analyze the spatiotemporal processes and land surface parameters of
