TY - JOUR A1 - Job, Hubert A1 - Meyer, Constantin A1 - Coronado, Oriana A1 - Koblar, Simon A1 - Laner, Peter A1 - Omizzolo, Andrea A1 - Plassmann, Guido A1 - Riedler, Walter A1 - Vesely, Philipp A1 - Schindelegger, Arthur T1 - Open spaces in the European Alps — GIS-based analysis and implications for spatial planning from a transnational perspective JF - Land N2 - This article presents an open space concept of areas that are kept permanently free from buildings, technical infrastructure, and soil sealing. In the European Alps, space is scarce because of the topography; conflicts often arise between competing land uses such as permanent settlements and commercial activity. However, the presence of open spaces is important for carbon sequestration and the prevention of natural hazards, especially given climate change. A GIS-based analysis was conducted to identify an alpine-wide inventory of large-scale near-natural areas, or simply stated, open spaces. The method used identified the degree of infrastructure development for natural landscape units. Within the Alpine Convention perimeter, near-natural areas (with a degree of infrastructural development of up to 20%) account for a share of 51.5%. Only 14.5% of those areas are highly protected and are mostly located in high altitudes of over 1500 m or 2000 m above sea level. We advocate that the remaining Alpine open spaces must be preserved through the delimitation of more effective protection mechanisms, and green corridors should be safeguarded through spatial planning. To enhance the ecological connectivity of open spaces, there is the need for tailored spatial and sectoral planning strategies to prevent further landscape fragmentation and to coordinate new forms of land use for renewable energy production. KW - Alps KW - conservation KW - connectivity KW - fragmentation KW - GIS-analysis KW - land use KW - open spaces KW - protected areas KW - sectoral planning KW - spatial planning Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-288207 SN - 2073-445X VL - 11 IS - 9 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Knauer, Kim A1 - Gessner, Ursula A1 - Fensholt, Rasmus A1 - Forkuor, Gerald A1 - Kuenzer, Claudia T1 - Monitoring agricultural expansion in Burkina Faso over 14 years with 30 m resolution time series: the role of population growth and implications for the environment JF - Remote Sensing N2 - Burkina Faso ranges amongst the fastest growing countries in the world with an annual population growth rate of more than three percent. This trend has consequences for food security since agricultural productivity is still on a comparatively low level in Burkina Faso. In order to compensate for the low productivity, the agricultural areas are expanding quickly. The mapping and monitoring of this expansion is difficult, even on the basis of remote sensing imagery, since the extensive farming practices and frequent cloud coverage in the area make the delineation of cultivated land from other land cover and land use types a challenging task. However, as the rapidly increasing population could have considerable effects on the natural resources and on the regional development of the country, methods for improved mapping of LULCC (land use and land cover change) are needed. For this study, we applied the newly developed ESTARFM (Enhanced Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model) framework to generate high temporal (8-day) and high spatial (30 m) resolution NDVI time series for all of Burkina Faso for the years 2001, 2007, and 2014. For this purpose, more than 500 Landsat scenes and 3000 MODIS scenes were processed with this automated framework. The generated ESTARFM NDVI time series enabled extraction of per-pixel phenological features that all together served as input for the delineation of agricultural areas via random forest classification at 30 m spatial resolution for entire Burkina Faso and the three years. For training and validation, a randomly sampled reference dataset was generated from Google Earth images and based on expert knowledge. The overall accuracies of 92% (2001), 91% (2007), and 91% (2014) indicate the well-functioning of the applied methodology. The results show an expansion of agricultural area of 91% between 2001 and 2014 to a total of 116,900 km\(^2\). While rainfed agricultural areas account for the major part of this trend, irrigated areas and plantations also increased considerably, primarily promoted by specific development projects. This expansion goes in line with the rapid population growth in most provinces of Burkina Faso where land was still available for an expansion of agricultural area. The analysis of agricultural encroachment into protected areas and their surroundings highlights the increased human pressure on these areas and the challenges of environmental protection for the future. KW - remote sensing KW - Africa KW - agriculture KW - Burkina Faso KW - data fusion KW - ESTARFM framework KW - irrigation KW - land surface phenology KW - Landsat KW - MODIS KW - plantation KW - protected areas KW - TIMESAT Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-171905 VL - 9 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bender, Oliver A1 - Roth, Charlotte E. A1 - Job, Hubert T1 - Protected areas and population development in the alps JF - eco.mont : Journal on Protected Mountain Areas Research and Management N2 - Nearly a quarter of the Alpine area is covered by a dense network of large protected areas (LPAs) of the four categories national park(NP), biosphere reserve (BR), nature park and world natural heritage site (WNHS). From the time of early industrialization, the Alpine area has undergone a mixed and increasingly polarized demographic development between the poles of immigration and emigration. This article investigates the possible mutual impact of population development and the existence of LPAs. The research design includes a quantitative survey of all Alpine LPAs in terms of their population development and the structure of immigration in the first decade of the 21st century. This will be linked with qualitative expert interviews in four selected NPs. The overall results allow an interpretation of the statistical correlations between type of LPA and migration. KW - geography KW - amenity migration KW - national parks KW - population KW - protected areas KW - regional development Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-181901 VL - 9 IS - Special issue ER -