Understanding Driving Forces and Implications Associated with the Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Portugal

Abstract

Abstract:Understanding the processes of land use and land cover changes (LUCC) and the associated driving forces is important for achieving sustainable development. This paper presents the LUCC in Portugal at the regional level (NUTS II) from 1995 to 2010 and discusses the main driving forces and implications associated with these LUCC. The main objectives of this work are: (a) to quantify the land use and land cover (LUC) types (level I of LUC cartography) by NUT II in Portugal for the years 1995, 2007 and 2010; (b) to assess the spatio-temporal LUCC; and (c) to identify and discuss the main driving forces of LUCC and corresponding implications based on correlations and Principal Components Analysis. The results revealed large regional and temporal LUCC and further highlighted the different and sometimes opposite time trends between neighboring regions. By associating driving forces to LUCC, different influences at the regional level were observed, namely LUCC into agriculture land derived from the construction of dams (Alentejo region), or the conversion of coniferous forest into eucalypt forest (Centre region) associated with increased gross value added (GVA) and employment in industry and forestry. Temporal differentiation was also observed, particularly in the settlements that expanded between 1995 and 2007 due to the construction of large infrastructures (e.g., highways, industrial complexes, or buildings), which is reflected on employment in industry and construction and respective GVA. However, certain LUCC have implications, particularly in energy consumption, for which different behavior between regions can be highlighted in this analysis, but also on land-use sustainability.

Modelling the Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Portugal: A Multi-Scale and Multi-Temporal Approach

“…The LUCC are spatio-temporally very dynamic, and depending on the projection period, there could be other driving forces to consider (e.g., economic assistance, the founding of communities, and new technologies) (Meneses et al, 2017) or catastrophic events (e.g., forest fires) (regos, ninyerola, Moré, & Pons, 2015). The projected LUCC obtained using only LUC could not be predicted with absolute accuracy.…”

“…We highlight the expansion of agricultural land resulting from the construction of dams (alentejo region) or the conversion of coniferous woods to eucalyptus woods associated with the trend towards increased gross value added and employment in industry and forestry (Meneses, reis, Pereira, Vale, & reis, 2017).…”

“…Large LUCC was observed in agricultural land, especially in the alentejo region, where the construction of the alqueva dam resulted in the planting of new agricultural crops (extensively) and the development of other activities such as rural tourism and agritourism (roca & Leitão, 2005;Daniel, 2010;Meneses et al, 2017Meneses et al, , 2013. This region has seen the largest increase in olive groves, essentially due to irrigation, which was only possible due to the large capacity of water released from the dam referred to earlier (DraPa, 2013).…”

Land use and land cover geoinformation properties and its influence on the landslide susceptibility zonation of road network

“…1) (Meneses et al, 2015a). The LUC of this watershed is very dynamic, especially the LUCC in forest and agricultural areas derived from multiple socio-economic driving forces and forest fires (Meneses et al, 2017).…”

Analysis of Land Use Change and Forestation in Response to Demographic Movement and Reduction of Forest Crime

“…In these studies, land-use/land-cover change (Sancar et al,. 2009;Özen Turan et al, 2010;Şen et al, 2015), forest dynamics (Başkent & Kadıoğulları, 2007;Günlü et al, 2009;Kadıoğulları, 2013;Padilla et al, 2010;Kadıoğulları et al, 2014), forest succession (Terzioğlu et al, 2009;Terzioğlu et al, 2010), spatial changes of land-cover types (Özen Turan et al, 2010;Paudel & Yuan, 2012;Meneses et al, 2017), population growth (Bewket, 2002), pasturing (Calvas et al, 2013), urbanization (Dewan et al, 2012;Alphan & Nil, 2016;Alphan, 2017) and global market forces (Beilin et al, 2014) have all been examined by researchers. In these studies, many references such as satellite images and forest-management plan maps have been used.…”