Mapping the timing of cropland abandonment and recultivation in northern Kazakhstan using annual Landsat time series

Dara, Andrey; Baumann, Matthias; Kuemmerle, Tobias; Pflugmacher, Dirk; Rabe, Andreas; Griffiths, Patrick; Hölzel, Norbert; Kamp, Johannes; Freitag, Martin; Hostert, Patrick

doi:10.1016/j.rse.2018.05.005

Cited by 128 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…; Dara et al. ). This range stability is remarkable given the several drastic episodes of land‐use change, most notably the expansion of highly mechanized agriculture, during Soviet times.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Given that abandoned croplands support a significant part of Bobak population, the ongoing reclamation and recultivation of abandoned cropland (Dara et al. ) will result in increasing pressure on Bobak, and might affect colonies in neighbouring croplands. Moreover, wildfires and grazing can significantly alter the habitat of burrowing mammals (Detling ; Davidson et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These trends were partly reversed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, when at least 42 million ha of cropland was abandoned across the western Eurasian steppes as a result of the withdrawal of state support for agriculture and massive rural outmigration (Dara et al. ; Lesiv et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Marmots from space: assessing population size and habitat use of a burrowing mammal using publicly available satellite images

Koshkina

Grigoryeva

Tokarsky

et al. 2019

Remote Sens Ecol Conserv

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Social, burrowing mammals such as prairie dogs, ground squirrels or marmots are keystone species in grassland ecosystems. Grasslands have been converted into cropland or pastures globally, yet it remains virtually unknown how this has affected the biogeography of burrowing mammals, as efficient, broad‐scale survey methods are lacking. We aimed to test whether structures created by burrowing rodents can be reliably detected on publicly available, very‐high‐resolution satellite images, in order to assess rodent distribution and abundance. We identified burrows of Bobak marmot (Marmota bobak), a keystone burrowing steppe rodent, on 1300 randomly selected plots of 1 km diameter (78.53 ha) across the species’ range (~950 000 km²) in Kazakhstan and southern Russia using Google Earth and Bing images. We then used burrow occurrences and species distribution models to map marmot distribution. We assessed how marmot occurrence and density vary across land‐use types. We also combined satellite‐based burrow densities and ground‐survey data to derive a new population estimate for the species across Kazakhstan. We mapped a total of 7425 burrows from the satellite imagery. Field visits at a subsample of burrows suggested that burrow occurrence was detected reliably. Broad‐scale marmot distribution was mainly determined by summer rainfall, land use and elevation. Occurrence probability was highest on arable croplands, followed by abandoned croplands and grazed steppe. The current Bobak marmot population size for Kazakhstan was estimated at 6.1 (±2.4) million individuals. Our results demonstrate that publicly available, very‐high‐resolution images can be used to reliably map the distribution of burrowing mammals across large geographic scales. The observed and predicted distributions indicate that the Bobak's range has remained almost unchanged in Kazakhstan since the 1950s, despite several drastic episode of land‐use change. This suggests that burrowing mammals can be remarkably resilient to land‐use pressure, questioning prevailing narratives of population collapse in these species following agricultural expansion.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Marmots from space: assessing population size and habitat use of a burrowing mammal using publicly available satellite images

Koshkina

Grigoryeva

Tokarsky

et al. 2019

Remote Sens Ecol Conserv

Self Cite

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“…Therefore, direct land use classification has been performed to capture land use conversions and identify abandoned cropland. The Random Forest model [24][25][26] and Support Vector Machine [27,28] are the two most popular methods adopted to classify land use. In addition, other global or regional land use and land cover databases, such as the History Database of the Global Environment [29] and National Land Cover Database of the United States [30], have been used to assist in mapping abandoned cropland.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although some research has been conducted in identifying abandoned cropland using remote sensing technology, huge challenges remain, e.g., differentiating abandoned cropland from fallowed cropland and recultivated abandoned cropland [2,8,24,26,34,[37][38][39][40]. In prior work, abandoned cropland was usually identified by dividing the changes in vegetation or land use conversions using snapshots of land use data at the start and end years of a given research period.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping Cropland Abandonment in Mountainous Areas Using an Annual Land-Use Trajectory Approach

Song

2019

Sustainability

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In recent years, with the unceasing acceleration of China's urbanization and rapid development of the country's economy, cropland abandonment has become an ongoing issue, especially in mountainous areas. Mapping abandoned cropland using remote sensing technology is still challenging due to the difficulties in distinguishing abandoned cropland from fallowed land. In addition, there are few credible approaches to map timing and recultivation of abandoned cropland. In this context, this research developed an annual land-use trajectory approach to map different types of abandoned cropland based on freely available Landsat and HJ-1 satellite images with a spatial resolution of 30 m. Based on this method, five types of cropland change, including one type of fallowed land and two types of abandoned land, were identified in a mountainous town of China (Zhongduo). In addition, the timing and recultivation of abandoned cropland were assessed. The accuracy of the abandonment map was assessed as high as 86.67%. It was found that the percentages of spontaneous abandoned, induced abandoned, fallowed, stable, and lost cropland in Zhongduo were 23.16%, 8.40%, 13.69%, 27.84%, and 26.91% from 2012 to 2017, respectively. The average time for spontaneously abandoned cropland was 3.45 years. Furthermore, 50.54% of the spontaneously abandoned cropland and 12.91% of induced abandoned cropland were recultivated due to fluctuating prices of agricultural products and materials, and the implemented land transfer policy.

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Multiple trajectories of grassland fragmentation, degradation, and recovery in Russia's steppes

et al. 2021

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Over the 20th century, the Eurasian steppes underwent drastic land-cover changes.Much progress was made studying cropland expansion and the post-1990 (i.e., post-Soviet) agricultural land abandonment in Eurasia. However, the alteration of steppe landscapes may include other disturbances, such as oil and gas development, formal and informal roads and garbage dumps, which were not systematically documented.Considering the example of the steppe Orenburg Province in Russia, we reconstructed agricultural land-cover change dynamics using Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery from 1990 to 2018. Furthermore, we used very high-resolution imagery and assessed the patterns and determinants of other steppe landscape anthropogenic disturbances. Our study showed that, despite steppe recovery due to widespread cropland abandonment from 1990 to 2018, the steppes, including the recovered steppe patches, underwent fragmentation due to informal roads, oil and gas development, shrub encroachment, garbage dumps and quarries, as well as abandonment of settlements and buildings. Only 6.4% of the sampled 7859 1Â1 km blocks in 2018 showing grassland extent had no documented disturbances. The mapped disturbances occurred primarily near settlements and roads, while some disturbances occurred in remote areas. Given the accessibility of steppes, our study calls for a urgent need to systematically document alternatives to agricultural land uses in the steppes of Eurasia and other parts of the global grassland biome.

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Mapping the timing of cropland abandonment and recultivation in northern Kazakhstan using annual Landsat time series

Cited by 128 publications

References 54 publications

Marmots from space: assessing population size and habitat use of a burrowing mammal using publicly available satellite images

Marmots from space: assessing population size and habitat use of a burrowing mammal using publicly available satellite images

Mapping Cropland Abandonment in Mountainous Areas Using an Annual Land-Use Trajectory Approach

Multiple trajectories of grassland fragmentation, degradation, and recovery in Russia's steppes

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