Citation:

Nash, M S., T G. Wade, D T. Heggem, AND J D. Wickham. DOES ANTHROPOGENIC ACTIVITIES OR NATURE DOMINATE THE SHAPING OF THE LANDSCAPE IN THE OREGON PILOT STUDY AREA FOR 1990-1999? William G. Kepner, Jose L. Rubio, David A. Mouat, Fausto Pedrazzini (ed.), KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS. Springer Science and Business Media B.V;Formerly Kluwer Academic Publishers B.V., , Germany, , 305-323, (2005).

Impact/Purpose:

There are four basic objectives of the project:

Demonstrate the application of a comparative landscape assessment in analyzing the vulnerability of surface and coastal water conditions to declines based on landscape conditions (as estimated by landscape indicators as demonstrated in the mid-Atlantic landscape atlas) in western environments;

Develop and apply landscape assessment approaches relative to specific issues, including an ability to prioritize the vulnerability of areas relative to the Clean Water Act 303(d) designations; Quantify relationships between landscape conditions (as measured by landscape indicators) and surface and coastal waters in the west to reduce the uncertainty in comparative landscape assessments, and issue-specific, landscape assessments (e.g., Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDLs);

Complete a west-wide, comparative landscape assessment relative to surface and coastal water vulnerability;

Transfer landscape assessment technologies to Regional Offices so that they can conduct landscape assessments at many scales.

Description:

Climatic variation and human activities are major factors resulting in land degradation in arid and semiarid lands. In the Mediterranean region and over history, climatic drying was coincidental with developing agricultural technology and the rapid increase of the population and their dependence on the grain field, timber, and animal products. As a result of human population demand, it is evident that depletion of natural resources, such as water (surface or ground) and soil (e.g., soil erosion) and reduction of farm productivity, leads many farmers to move to alternative lands or to urban areas. This has a major impact on socioeconomics resulting in a decrease of per-capita food production affecting the political stability of the region and enhancing poverty.

Desertification can be evaluated using environmental degradation. However, it is important to separate degradation that occurred naturally (fire, flood, drought, etc.) or as a result of anthropogenic human activities (urbanization, livestock grazing, etc. ). Here we report the use of advanced technology to map changes in vegetation cover that enables managers to geographically locate major changes in loss or gain of vegetation cover. Vegetation cover was assessed over a 10-year period (1990-1999) using 1 km Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data derived from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (A VHRR) biweekly composites.

Record Details: