Paper Info
Title
Human-Induced Landcover Changes Drive a Diminution of Land Surface Albedo in the Loess Plateau (China)
Abstract
A large decrease in the land surface albedo of the Loess Plateau was observed from 2000 to 2010, as measured using satellite imagery. In particular, ecological restoration program regions experienced a decrease in peak season land surface albedo exceeding 0.05. In this study, we examined the spatial and temporal patterns of variation during the peak season albedo in the Loess Plateau and analyzed its relationships with changes of anthropogenic and natural factors at the pixel level. Our analysis revealed that increasing grassland coverage due to returning rangeland to grassland could lead to a maximum albedo decrease of 0.030 in peak season. This result highlighted the human-induced land use change in driving the decreasing albedo on an annual scale. There was no significant correlation between precipitation change and albedo reduction. Precipitation could influence the spatial pattern of albedo in drought years by influencing the natural vegetation water requirement. However, the role of precipitation was not obvious in the ecological restoration program regions. This article demonstrates the substantial role that land use change could play in regional-scale albedo change and climate. Finally, some implications for the radiative forcing of land use change are discussed.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.3390/rs70302926
REMOTE SENSING
Keywords
Field
DocType
land use change,precipitation
Plateau,Vegetation,Climate change,Remote sensing,Land use, land-use change and forestry,Albedo,Loess,Radiative forcing,Geology,Precipitation
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
7
3
2072-4292
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
2
0.46
1
Authors
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
jun zhai181.42
ronggao liu220.46
Jiyuan Liu34511.79
lin huang420.80
yuanwei qin5355.53