Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
LUCC at various scales has been the most important approaches through which the
human activities influence the climate (Feddema et al. 2005 ), and it is of great
importance to study the influence of LUCC on the regional climate.
Improved understanding of how human activities influence climate is needed to
guide policies aimed at mitigating or adapting to climate change (Lobell et al. 2006 ).
However, most of current climate mitigation policies do not generally incorporate
the effects of changes in the land surface on the surface albedo, the fluxes of sensible
and latent heat to the atmosphere, and the distribution of energy within the climate
system, all of which can affect the local, regional, and global climate, and therefore
these policies might lead to land-management decisions that do not produce the
intended climatic results (Marland et al. 2003 ). Besides, a number of models have
been used to study the impacts of LUCC on the climate, but most of them do not
account for geographically explicit changes in land surface characteristics associated
with land cover changes (Sitch et al. 2005 ). In addition, there are many land use
changes not reflected in land cover that can potentially influence climate, including
both conversion and other modifications (Feddema et al. 2005 ), e.g., changes
occurring within existing cultivated lands that have the potential to affect local and
global climate (Lobell et al. 2006 ). Moreover, scientific understanding and tools are
increasingly becoming available to address the broader implications of land surface
interactions within the climate system for national and international policy. It is
plausible to implement more in-depth researches on the effects of LUCC on the
climate change with the geographically explicit tools.
China is one of the largest developing and populous countries. The large
demand of grain for feeding increasing population generates a large demand of
cultivated land for increasing agricultural production as well as other types of land
use demands for rapid economic development. Northern China, as a grain pro-
duction base with adequate cultivated land resource, is protecting the food security
and economic development of whole China (Fig. 4.5 ). In Northern China, popu-
lation density with economy growth is relatively high, and continuous population
growth and accelerating economic development would further lead to dramatic
LUCCs and consequently exert more significant impacts on the climate change. In
fact, the land use has changed a lot in this region after the Chinese economy
structural reformation was initiated in the early 1980s. The area of high quality
cultivated land has shrunk due to the growing land demand of the urban expansion
and infrastructure construction in this region (Jiang et al. 2012 ). Meanwhile the
regional climate in Northern China has changed greatly due to the disturbance of
human activities, especially the land use change in the past decades. For example,
the temperature has risen more and more obviously in the past decades, which
further led to the increased drought time, more dramatic precipitation fluctuation,
decreased climate productivity, and more frequent climate disasters (Liu et al.
2008 ). Previous researches have indicated that there is surely some correlation
between the significant climate change and the large-scale LUCC in Northeast
China in recent decades (Liu 2007 ). Therefore, it is of great importance to analyze
the interaction between the LUCC and climate change to understand the impacts of
LUCC on the grain production in Northeast China since the land resource is
Search WWH ::




Custom Search