PROJECT #1998-07
Research Activities on Land Use in Temperate East Asia
| Project Leader |
Dr. Dennis Ojima
Chairperson, LUTEA Steering Committee
Senior Research Scientist
Natural Resource Ecology Center
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1499
USA
|
LUTEA Training and Database Development Workshop
"GIS/Remote sensing/modeling techniques for land use/cover change analysis"
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
1-13 June 1998
Final Report
LUTEA Training and Database Development Workshop, partially funded
by the APN, was held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, June 1 - 13, 1998. The Ministry
of Nature and Environment hosted the meeting during the two weeks. We used
the opportunity to interact with the Mongolian scientific community involved
in land use and land cover change studies. We organized a joint Meeting
of the Mongolian scientists and workshop participants to discuss the LUTEA
activities and how to promote it in conditions of Mongolia. 27 people participated
in this Meeting. The participants came from China, Korea, Mongolia, Russia
and the United States and 5 instructors from various institutes. Funding
for the workshop was provided by START and APN. Additional support came
from NASA, USGS, US Embassy and the Mongolian Ministry of Nature and Environment.
The objective of the workshop was to provide an integrated set of research
tools for land use studies and provide a platform for synthesizing information
derived from different disciplines and sectors.
The training workshop provided an opportunity to learn various
techniques used in land use and cover change analysis. The topics included
remote sensing, geographical information systems, and ecosystem modeling.
Each of the participants were given an opportunity to use databases provided
to develop land use maps, develop land cover maps from AVHRR data, and
to model various ecosystems. The participants were successful in completing
the training tasks and enjoyed learning from each other, as well as from
the instructors.
The remote sensing sessions were instructed by Jesslyn Brown (Sioux
Falls, EROS Data Center, USGS) and Jacqueline Kendall (Goddard Space Flight
Center, NASA). The students were given an opportunity to develop land cover
maps based on AVHRR data provided by the scientists at the Ministry of
Nature and Environment at Ulaanbaatar and brought from Goddard and EROS
Data Center. Techniques in working with remote sensing data and developing
land surface images were presented by Jesslyn Brown. Use of AVHRR and other
remote sensing data for detection of land cover change due to fires, drought,
cropland conversion was illustrated. The students were provided hands-on
experience with current software used by other satellite receiving stations
such as the NASA Goddard Center.
The Geographic Information System portion of the workshop was
taught by Dr. Liu Chuang. She provided instruction on how to prepare various
map layers using a portion of China data base provided by CIESIN. Land
cover maps, roads, water ways, and political boundaries were used at the
workshop to develop new maps of land use potential and vulnerability of
different regions to land use changes. Issues related to scaling of political
or geographical data with physical data were discussed and the students
were given examples of how these data sets can be integrated. The students
were asked to prepare a series of maps for the China data sets and these
analyses were used to discuss the merits of using remote sensing data and
social data for land use studies.
The ecosystem modeling component was taught by Dennis Ojima and
Chuluun Togtohyn and presented material that developed the need information
and techniques for modeling various ecosystems and land use management
practices. The participants were introduced to concepts related to integration
of field studies with modeling, model verification and validation, and
scaling from site to regional analysis. The participants were provided
copies of the Century model and files which were prepared for modeling
different Temperate East Asian ecosystems from deciduous forests, grasslands,
deserts, and croplands. The participants were asked to develop a study
that developed a hypothesis related to land use and global change and to
use Century to develop model experiments to evaluate the hypotheses. Presentations
of these studies were made on the last day. Examples of the papers presented
included grazing studies in the Mongolian steppe, forest succession in
Korean mountains, conversion of degraded cropland to a grassland in the
semiarid region of China. The participants included material in how these
modeling studies would incorporate the remote sensing and geographic information
techniques as part of the experimental design.
In additional to the hands-on training, the course also made a
short field trip to a Mongolian camp in a mountain area outside of Ulaanbaatar.
We spent a day learning about Mongolian pastoral life and the natural beauty
of the Mongolian landscapes. We were able to learn about various grazing
systems and to learn about the forest-steppe ecosystems which include larch
as the forest species.
We were fortunate to donate several workstations to the remote
sensing group in the Ministry of Nature and Environment through a joint
Japanese and US donation, and to leave several PC computers for LUTEA studies
with the Ministry and other Mongolian institutes of the Mongolian Academy
of Sciences. We hope to see the workshop fellows to continue to collaborate
in the future and will attempt to facilitate this with additional research
efforts.
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