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Titel |
A high-resolution and harmonized model approach for reconstructing and analysing historic land changes in Europe |
VerfasserIn |
Richard R. Fuchs, M. Herold, P. H. Verburg, J. G. P. W. Clevers |
Medientyp |
Artikel
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Sprache |
Englisch
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ISSN |
1726-4170
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Digitales Dokument |
URL |
Erschienen |
In: Biogeosciences ; 10, no. 3 ; Nr. 10, no. 3 (2013-03-07), S.1543-1559 |
Datensatznummer |
250018141
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Publikation (Nr.) |
copernicus.org/bg-10-1543-2013.pdf |
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Zusammenfassung |
Human-induced land use changes are nowadays the second largest contributor to
atmospheric carbon dioxide after fossil fuel combustion. Existing historic
land change reconstructions on the European scale do not sufficiently meet
the requirements of greenhouse gas (GHG) and climate assessments, due to
insufficient spatial and thematic detail and the consideration of various
land change types. This paper investigates if the combination of different
data sources, more detailed modelling techniques, and the integration of land
conversion types allow us to create accurate, high-resolution historic land
change data for Europe suited for the needs of GHG and climate assessments.
We validated our reconstruction with historic aerial photographs from 1950
and 1990 for 73 sample sites across Europe and compared it with other land
reconstructions like Klein Goldewijk et al. (2010, 2011), Ramankutty and
Foley (1999), Pongratz et al. (2008) and Hurtt et al. (2006). The results
indicate that almost 700 000 km2 (15.5%) of land cover in Europe
has changed over the period 1950–2010, an area similar to France. In
Southern Europe the relative amount was almost 3.5% higher than average
(19%). Based on the results the specific types of conversion, hot-spots
of change and their relation to political decisions and socio-economic
transitions were studied. The analysis indicates that the main drivers of
land change over the studied period were urbanization, the reforestation
program resulting from the timber shortage after the Second World War, the fall of the
Iron Curtain, the Common Agricultural Policy and accompanying afforestation
actions of the EU. Compared to existing land cover reconstructions, the new
method considers the harmonization of different datasets by achieving a high
spatial resolution and regional detail with a full coverage of different land
categories. These characteristics allow the data to be used to support and
improve ongoing GHG inventories and climate research. |
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