3-10: Land Use Issues

Pre-Class Preparation

Objectives

• To examine patterns of land use and understand the role of land use in global change.
• To explore how land use changes relate to changes of local, regional, and global climate.

Procedure

1. Read Land degradation and desertification. (From the CIESIN thematic guide.)

   Class images

2. Take the learning unit quiz. Quizzes are available from your portfolio. You may access your portfolio via the list of students participating in this year's course, as represented by the icon below.
   
   
3. Additional Required Reading. Although you are not ultimately responsible for content listed in this section, we encourage you to fully explore the links in order to provide a better scope on the upcoming class discussion.

   	New DMSP Biomass Page
   	MPEG movie showing the greening up of North America (NDVI data from 1986). (From the NOAA/NASA AVHRR Land Pathfinder Home Page.)

Class Discussion

• Problem to ponder...

• Class Discussion Summary:

Post-Class Activities

• Participate in the electronic dialog. Use this forum for:
  • continuing class discussion;
  • posing new questions to students or the instructor;
  • responding to issues/questions raised by students in class/electronic dialog.

  Visitor Access (Visitors are welcome to participate in the dialog. Just click on the icon below)	Student Access (Students must post all dialog from their portfolio. Click on the icon below to access the student list.)

• Recommended Reading Materials

  	Land degradation and desertification. (From the CIESIN thematic guide.)
  	Urban and Land Use Applications- From Tucson to Paris (From Applied Information Sciences Branch, NASA)
  	Vegetation Applications- Agriculture, Forestry and Ecology (From Applied Information Science Branch, NASA)
  	Lugo, A. E., M. J. Sanchez, and S. Brown, 1986: Land Use and Organic Carbon Content of Some Subtropical Soils. Plant and Soil, 96, 185-196.
  	Patrick, William H., Jr. 1994: From Wastelands to Wetlands. Environmental Quality, Sept-Oct., 892-896.
  	Pimm, S. L., G. J. Russell, J. L. Gittleman, and T. M. Brooks, 1995: The Future of Biodiversity. Science, 269, 347-350.

• References

  	Biodiversity Glossary
  	Human-induced soil degradation, technical atlas, WFS. (To download Adobe Acrobat Reader, go to http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html).
  	The National Drought Mitigation Center
  	New Species Created at Rainforest Margins
  	Welcome to the EDC DAAC
  	Bormann, F.H. and G.E. Likens, 1979: Pattern and Process in a Forested Ecosystem. Springer-Verlag.
  	Dorman, J. L. and P. J. Sellers, 1989: A global climatology of albedo, roughness length and stomatal resistance for atmospheric general circulation models as represented by the Simple Biosphere Model (SiB). Journal of Applied Meteorology 28, 833-855.
  	Glenn-Lewin, D.C. and R.K. Peet, 1992: Plant Sucession. Chapman and Hall.
  	Houghton, J.T., G.J. Jenkins, J.J. Ephraums, eds, 1990: 1990 Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press.
  	Likens, G.E., et al, 1977: Biogeochemistry of a Forested Ecosystem. Springer-Verlag.
  	Lovelock, J., 1988: The Ages of Gaia. W.W. Norton and Co., NY.
  	Teichle, D.E. (ed), 1981: Dynamic Properties of Forest Ecosystems. Cambridge.
  	Schlesinger, W.H. 1991: Biogeochemistry: An Anlysis of Global Change. Academic Press.
  	Walter, H., 1979: Vegetation of the Earth and Ecological Systems of the Geo-Biosphere. Springer-Verlag.
  	Vitousek, P. M. et al., 1986: Human appropriation of the products of photosynthesis. BioScience 36, 368-373.
  	Vitousek, P. M., 1994: Beyond global warming: Ecology and global change. Ecology 75, 1861-1876.