Land Use Science in Action

Analyzing the Land-Use Change Impacts of Oil and Gas Exploration Related Infrastructure Changes on Arctic Communities

Remote sensing based mixture modeling to study land and permafrost disturbances

• Rapidly changing environmental conditions in the Arctic, driven by amplified global warming, are impacting communities and ecosystems, particularly due to added anthropogenic impacts from energy exploration and development.
• Analysis integrating remote sensing and socioeconomic data can quantify the land disturbances and help understand societal vulnerabilities of Arctic communities.
• Critical need to quantify impacts resulting from expanding drilling in the region.
• Changes to the Arctic ecosystem provide crucial links to the global climate and biogeochemical cycles.

New Evidence of Global Carbon Sequestration in Trees Outside of Forests Supports Nature-Based Solutions for Meeting Net Zero Goals.

CRUCIAL ECOSYSTEM SERVICE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AT THE SAME TIME.

• Tree-based sinks are the only actions that remove excess carbon now. 
• TOF at the scale of individual trees underpin livelihoods of billions of people and lead to more stable incomes under climate-stress conditions. 
• NASA earth observations make individual tree carbon measurement counting part of Nature-Based Climate Solutions (NBS); this project mapped every tree in Africa.
• TOF NBS support most international programs, and White House U.S. Net Zero goals.
• Large capital investments are being made in NBS, and TOF solutions increase the relevancy and effectiveness for people’s well being and poverty alleviation.

Modulation of Climate Risks by Intensification of Urban and Agricultural Land Uses in the Arabian Peninsula

ENABLING HARM REDUCTION FROM EXTREME HEAT IN A WARMING CLIMATE

• The Arabian Peninsula already suffers from the most extreme heat on the planet.  
• Climate Chance and Land-Cover and Land-Use Change are amplifying extreme heat across the Arabian Peninsula, impacting human health. 
• Fusing remote-sensed LCLUC and climate data with weather models can improve extreme heat forecasting and climate projections.
• NASA’s Earth Observation platforms can enable the operationalization of monitoring and forecasting of extreme heat and guide adaptations to reduce harm to improve health. 

Land-Cover and Land-Use Change at the Frontier: Socioeconomic and Environmental Factors Influencing Land Cover and Land-Use Changes in the Cerrado Biome

Characterizing land-use transitions helps combat climate change impacts and informs land-use policy

• The most biologically diverse savanna on earth is a major frontier of LCLUC
• It is yet unknown where high-impact land-use transitions are concentrated and the main drivers of those changes
• Urgent need to develop detection methods and novel data sets to inform decision-making a to address biodiversity loss and mitigate climate change impacts
• Use of Earth Observation data, time series analyses,  and machine learning algorithms to expand the spatial and temporal data on agricultural development and a novel data set on irrigated agriculture in combination with spatial analyses of socioeconomic influences

Fates of climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation in Central America are inextricably linked to U.S. drug policy

DIFFERENT APPROACH TO U.S. DRUG POLICY NEEDED TO MEET CONSERVATION GOALS

• Counterdrug interdiction pushes cocaine trafficking into biodiverse landscapes.
• Analyses integrating remote sensing and socioeconomic data can identify and quantify land use/cover-change caused by illicit economies.
• Urgent need for such analyses to inform action to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss in Central America.
• NASA’s role in Earth observation is essential for evaluating long-running U.S. policies.
• Long-term effects of U.S. drug policy undermine international conservation efforts.