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Atmosphere
Special Issues
Impact of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Earth’s Critical Zone
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Impact of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Earth’s Critical Zone

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Biosphere/Hydrosphere/Land–Atmosphere Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 January 2021) | Viewed by 18625

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Sopan Patil

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor LL57 2UW, UK
Interests: catchment hydrology; landscape hydrology; climate change adaptation; land use and land cover change; hydrological modeling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Mohammad Safeeq

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
University of California Merced, USA
Interests: Hydrology & Watershed Management; Hydrological Modeling; Climate Change
Dr. Riddhi Singh

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India
Interests: Rainfall runoff modelling; climate change impact on water resources; predictions in data scarce regions; decision making under uncertainty

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is widely accepted that climate change is causing hydrological alterations in the magnitude and timing of catchment water balance as well as functioning of the terrestrial and riverine ecosystem in many parts of the world. Simultaneously, land use and land cover (LULC) across the globe is also likely to change in response to climatic and socio-economic changes. Although the hydrological effects of climate and LULC change have been studied extensively in isolation, their combined effect on landscape hydrology and ecosystem is not yet fully characterised. An improved understanding of how bi-directional interactions between climate and LULC affect the Earth’s critical zone has the potential to enhance strategies for land and water conservation and/or specific interventions (e.g., active forest management, wetland restoration, aquifer recharge). It will also help towards an understanding of the resilience of landscapes to climate change. In this special issue, we welcome research and synthesis contributions that present latest advances in measurements, analysis, and modelling of the coupled climate-LULC-water system nexus in the critical zone at scales ranging from small headwater catchments to large river basins. Contributions include but are not limited to: dynamic coupling of hydrological and LULC models, multi-scenario hydrological assessment of climate-LULC-water interaction, analysis of historical long-term climate and LULC variations and their impact on the critical zone’s functioning and response, evaluation of land use intervention options to improve the hydrological resilience of landscapes to climate change.

Dr. Sopan Patil
Dr. Mohammad Safeeq
Dr. Riddhi Singh
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Climate change adaptation
  • Climate change mitigation
  • Land use and land cover change
  • Climate resilient landscapes
  • Integrated landscape approach
  • Critical Zone Science

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

25 pages, 2684 KiB  
Article
The Variation Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Base Flow of the Hexi Inland Rivers
by Yuxin Lei, Xiaohui Jiang, Wenjie Geng, Jinyan Zhang, Huan Zhao and Liqing Ren
Atmosphere 2021, 12(3), 356; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12030356 - 9 Mar 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2308
Abstract
The climate is becoming warmer and more humid in the inland area of northwestern China. In addition, human activities have changed the underlying surface of the river basin, and the instability of the runoff changes has intensified. As a component of river runoff, [...] Read more.
The climate is becoming warmer and more humid in the inland area of northwestern China. In addition, human activities have changed the underlying surface of the river basin, and the instability of the runoff changes has intensified. As a component of river runoff, the base flow reflects the impacts of climate change and human activities. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out research on the change in the base flow and its influencing factors in the context of climate change and human activities. In this study, a base flow method suitable for the inland rivers in northwestern China was assessed, and the variation rules and influencing factors of the base flow were analyzed. The results reveal that since the 1980s, the base flow of the Hexi inland rivers has exhibited an increasing trend, and the growth rate has exhibited the following order: western > central > eastern. The Base Flow Index (the proportion of the base flow to the total runoff in a period) values are in the range of 0.45–0.65. Overall, the change in the base flow of the Hexi inland rivers is the result of the coupling of climate factors and land-use change. The influence of land-use change on the base flow of the Hexi inland rivers gradually weakens from east to west, except for the Xiying River, while the influence of climate change gradually increases. The contribution rates of land-use change to the base flow in the eastern, central, and western regions were 75%, 55%, and 27%. Temperature and precipitation are the main climate factors affecting the change in the base flow in the western and central regions, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Earth’s Critical Zone)
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20 pages, 3298 KiB  
Article
A Model-Based Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Changes of the Urban Expansion in Arid Area of Western China: A Case Study in North Xinjiang Economic Zone
by Jing Qian, Qiming Zhou, Xi Chen and Bo Sun
Atmosphere 2020, 11(9), 989; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11090989 - 16 Sep 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2625
Abstract
Investigation of urban expansion can provide a better understanding of the urbanization process and its driving forces, which is critical for environmental management and land use planning. Total of 514 sampling points from the aerial photos and field sampling were applied to assess [...] Read more.
Investigation of urban expansion can provide a better understanding of the urbanization process and its driving forces, which is critical for environmental management and land use planning. Total of 514 sampling points from the aerial photos and field sampling were applied to assess the image accuracy. A Conversion of Land Use and its Effect at Small Region Extent (CLUE-S) model was established to simulate the urbanization process at the township level in the North Xinjiang Economic Zone (NXEZ) of western China. Historical land use and land cover changes with multi-temporal remote sensing data were retrieved, and the underlying driving forces were explored by training the CLUE-S model. Moreover, future changes in urban development were simulated under different scenarios. Results showed that the overall accuracy reaches larger than 80% for the years of 2002, 2005, and 2007, and the corresponding kappa coefficient is bigger than 0.8. The NXEZ is at a premature development stage compared with urban clusters in eastern China. Before 1999, the driving force in this region was primary industry development. In recent years, secondary industries started to show significance in urbanization. These findings indicate that the industrial base and economic development in the NXEZ are still relatively weak and have not taken a strong leading role. When industry and population become the main driving factors, the regional economy will enter a new stage of leap-forward development, which in turn will stimulate a new round of rapid urbanization. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Earth’s Critical Zone)
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21 pages, 2829 KiB  
Article
Alpine Tundra Contraction under Future Warming Scenarios in Europe
by José I. Barredo, Achille Mauri and Giovanni Caudullo
Atmosphere 2020, 11(7), 698; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11070698 - 1 Jul 2020
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4792
Abstract
The alpine tundra is the highest elevation belt of high mountains. This zone is an important reservoir of freshwater and provides habitat to unique species. This study assesses projected changes in the areal extent of the alpine tundra climate zone in three warming [...] Read more.
The alpine tundra is the highest elevation belt of high mountains. This zone is an important reservoir of freshwater and provides habitat to unique species. This study assesses projected changes in the areal extent of the alpine tundra climate zone in three warming levels in European mountains. The alpine tundra was delineated using the Köppen-Geiger climate classification. We used 11 regional climate model simulations from EURO-CORDEX disaggregated at a one-kilometre grid size representing the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios in the 1.5, 2 and 3 °C warming levels. Mitigation represented by the 1.5 °C warming level reduces projected losses of the alpine tundra. However, even in this warming level the projected contraction is severe. In this case, the contraction in the Alps, Scandes and Pyrenees together is projected at between 44% and 48% of the present extent. The contraction is projected to climb in the 2 °C warming to above 57%, while the 3 °C warming would imply that the alpine tundra will be near to collapse in Europe with a contraction of 84% in the three regions, which host most of the alpine tundra in Europe. The projected changes have negative implications for a range of ecosystem services and biodiversity, such as habitat provision, water provision and regulation, erosion protection, water quality and recreational services. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Earth’s Critical Zone)
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18 pages, 5163 KiB  
Article
A New Land-Use Dataset for the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model
by Huoqing Li, Hailiang Zhang, Ali Mamtimin, Shuiyong Fan and Chenxiang Ju
Atmosphere 2020, 11(4), 350; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11040350 - 2 Apr 2020
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 8080
Abstract
The USGS (United States Geological Survey) land-use data used in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model have become obsolete as they are unable to accurately represent actual underlying surface features. Therefore, this study developed a new multi-satellite remote-sensing land-use dataset based on [...] Read more.
The USGS (United States Geological Survey) land-use data used in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model have become obsolete as they are unable to accurately represent actual underlying surface features. Therefore, this study developed a new multi-satellite remote-sensing land-use dataset based on the latest GLC2015 (Global Land Cover, 2015) land-use data, which had 300 m spatial resolution. The new data were used to update the default USGS land-use dataset. Based on observational data from national meteorological observing stations in Xinjiang, northwest China, a comparison of the old USGS and new GLC2015 land-use datasets in the WRF model was performed for July 2018, where the simulated variables included the sensible heat flux (SHF), latent heat flux (LHF), surface skin temperature (Tsk), two-meter air temperature (T2), wind speed (Winds), specific humidity (Q2) and relative humidity (RH). The results indicated that there were significant differences between the two datasets. For example, our statistical verification results found via in situ observations made by the MET (model evaluation tools) illustrated that the bias of T2 decreased by 2.54%, the root mean square error (RMSE) decreased by 1.48%, the bias of Winds decreased by 10.46%, and the RMSE decreased by 6.77% when using the new dataset, and the new parameter values performed a net positive effect on land–atmosphere interactions. These results suggested that the GLC2015 land-use dataset developed in this study was useful in terms of improving the performance of the WRF model in the summer months. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Earth’s Critical Zone)
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