Paradigm and pragmatism: GIS‐based spatial analyses of Roman infrastructure networks and land‐use concepts in the Upper Rhine Valley

2021

Preprint

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Abstract. Fighting land degradation of semi-arid and climate-sensitive grasslands are among the most urgent tasks of current eco-political agenda. Northern China and Mongolia are particularly prone to surface transformations caused by heavily increased livestock numbers during the 20th century. Extensive overgrazing and resource exploitation amplify regional climate change effects and trigger intensified surface transformation, which forces policy-driven interventions to prevent desertification. In the past, the region has been subject to major shifts in environmental and socio-cultural parameters, what makes it difficult to measure the extent of the regional anthropogenic impact and global climate change. This article analyses historical written sources, palaeoenvironmental data, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) temporal series from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to compare landcover change during the Little Ice Age (LIA) and the reference period 2000–2018. Results show that decreasing precipitation and temperature records led to increased land degradation during the late 17th century. However, modern landcover data shows enhanced expansion of bare lands contrasting an increase in precipitation (Ptotal) and maximum temperature (Tmax). Vegetation response during the early growing season (March–May) and the late grazing season (September) does not relate to Ptotal and Tmax and generally low NDVI values indicate no major grassland recovery over the past 20 years.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring landcover change and desertification processes in northern China and Mongolia using historical written sources and vegetation indices

2021

Preprint

Self Cite

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Environmental analyses and diachronic system models in the Upper Rhine Area (URA) have experienced increased scientific attention within the past years, mostly because of the high climate and surface change vulnerability of the region [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] . Manifold research has been carried out, which focuses on hydrologic or groundwater discharge and flow connectivity [45] , plant species vulnerability [10], landcover change and land-use development [34,39,40,46,47], soil erosion [48], climate variability [33,49,50], and chain effects of different climatic stressors [8,[51][52][53]. In a coupled ecological system, however, a broad variety of spatio-temporal components form the functional ecosystem connectivity, which includes not only historical and current landscape development but also different environmental and human response cycles, decision-making, perception, and affordances [13,14,[54][55][56][57].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Agricultural exploitation and livestock breeding in the URA can be traced back to the Early Neolithic period of the area; however, there has been considerable landscape development and human-environmental interaction since prehistoric periods [39,[73][74][75][76][77]. Prehistoric and historical land-use is an important component towards understanding the sediment flux in the URA.…”

Section: Environmental Settings and Landscape Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tracing Real-Time Transnational Hydrologic Sensitivity and Crop Irrigation in the Upper Rhine Area over the Exceptional Drought Episode 2018–2020 Using Open Source Sentinel-2 Data

Glaser

2020

Water

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Climate and regional land-use and landcover change (LUCC) impact the ecosystem of the Upper Rhine Area (URA) and transform large parts of the landscape into strongly irrigated agricultural cropland. The increase of long-term drought periods and the trend towards low summer precipitation totals trigger an increase in groundwater scarcity and amplify the negative effects of extensive irrigation purposes and freshwater consumption in a hydrologically sensitive region in Central Europe. This article presents qualitative transnational open source remote sensing temporal series of vegetation indices (NDVI) and groundwater level development to tracing near real-time vegetation change and socio-ecological feedbacks during periods of climate extremes in the Upper Rhine Area (2018–2020). Increased freshwater consumption caused a dramatic drop in groundwater availability, which eventually led to a strong degradation of the vegetation canopy and caused governmental regulations in July 2020. Assessing vegetation growth behavior and linking groundwater reactions in the URA through open source satellite data contributes to a rapidly accessible understanding of the ecosystem’s feedbacks on the local to the transnational scale and further enables risk management and eco-political regulations in current and future decision-making processes.

“…From the documentary sources, a route model was reconstructed using terrain-dependent least-cost-path (LCP) analysis. The model is based on surface roughness and slope gradients because directional movement patterns were emphasized only in cardinal directions [54][55][56]. For this reason, a digital elevation model was downloaded from the United States Geological Survey (USGS, SRTM 1-arc-second/30 m resolution [57]) and resampled to a 100 m grid size.…”

Section: Route Reconstruction and Historical Environmental Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Documentary Evidence of 17th Century Landcover and Climate Change in Northern China and Mongolia Compared to Modern Spectral Greening Trends

2022

Land

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Fighting land degradation of semi-arid and climate-sensitive grasslands are among the most urgent tasks of current eco-political agenda. Particularly, northern China and Mongolia are prone to climate-induced surface transformations, which were reinforced by the heavily increased numbers of livestock during the 20th century. Extensive overgrazing and resource exploitation amplified regional climate change effects and triggered intensified land degradation that forced policy-driven interventions to prevent desertification. In the past, however, the regions have been subject to continuous shifts in environmental and socio-cultural and political conditions, which makes it particularly difficult to distinguish into regional anthropogenic impact and global climate change effects. This article presents analyses of historical written sources, palaeoenvironmental data, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) temporal series from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to compare landcover change during the Little Ice Age (LIA) and current spectral greening trends over the period 2001–2020. Results show that decreasing precipitation and temperature records triggered increased land degradation during the late 17th century in the transition zone from northern China and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to Mongolia. From current climate change perspectives, modern vegetation shows enhanced physical vegetation response related to an increase in precipitation (Ptotal) and temperature (T). Vegetation response is strongly related to Ptotal and T and an increase in physical plant condition indicates local to regional grassland recovery compared to the past 20-year average.